by Turner Home Entertainment
Sales Rank: 46452
Price: $19.98
This is a typical 1930's type aviation film. The hero (Richard Dix)is very entertaining in his overly acted part as a fighter pilot. It helps if you love films of this genre as well as the old aircraft.
Viewer Reviews By 1933, the First World War had been over for fifteen years, but a growing level of technological advances in aerial photography and surprisingly effective special effects permitted Hollywood to churn out a number of flyboy movies that the public was just beginning to demand. One of them was ACE OF ACES. The plot was straightforward and melodramatic, yet some fine acting and top notch aerial photography made ACE OF ACES a movie that still entertains, even decades later. Richard Dix is a sculptor whose girlfriend (Elizabeth Allan) derides him for his pacifism. He feels that he has to prove his manhood to both her and himself, so he volunteers to fly as a combat pilot in France, totalling an impressive number of kills. He changes inwardly. He becomes morose, moody, and assumes suicidal risks. The turning point of the film occurs when he shoots down an inexperienced German flier, and feels remorse for his death. ACE OF ACES explores how war can turn a man's moral universe upside down. It raises a number of hard questions about the reasons for fighting and the place for glory. The conclusion does not provide any definitive answers but it does suggest that whatever peace a war pilot finds must come from within. Simply drawing more crosses on the side of one's plane only postpones the day or reckoning.
