The WWI Flyer

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intothenitrate
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The WWI Flyer

Post by intothenitrate »

I had a chance to watch a WWI flyer film today I hadn't seen before, Ace of Aces (1933). It's another John Monk Saunders screenplay starring Richard Dix. We had a pretty good conversation about The Last Flight a while back, and I thought it would be nice to have a thread dedicated to this unique genre.

Moira has written a seminal piece on Saunders on her blog http://moirasthread.blogspot.com/2008/0 ... n-air.html which is well worth reading.

Dix plays a sensitive sculptor who scoffs at the propaganda ginned up just prior to America's entry into the war. His fiancee (Elizabeth Allen) takes it a little more seriously and ends up breaking their engagement, calling him "yellow."

Jump cut to France and Dix is now a flyer. We see Dix, still a conscientious objector at heart, go out on his first sortie. He's hit by an enemy bullet, and seeing his own blood, changes his attitude. In time, he becomes a killing machine, an Ace of Aces. When he meets Allen later in the film, she is taken aback at how much he's changed.

I was supposed to be working while the film was playing, so I couldn't watch it as carefully as I would have liked. One thing I like about these screenplays is there's always an eloquent moment when one of the characters gives a speech about the horror and futility of war.

Maybe Ace of Aces isn't the best of the genre, but I'd certainly watch it again, as I've watched other WWI flyer pictures in my collection multiple times. The biplanes are so primitive, the flyers so gallant, the mystique so enduring.
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Rita Hayworth
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Re: The WWI Flyer

Post by Rita Hayworth »

Ace of Aces (1933)

intothenitrate,

I seen this film a couple times back in early 1980's and I enjoyed it immensely and would love to see it again. Your write up is right on the money and I consider this a good WWI classic. And, I'm a fan of this movie too!
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JackFavell
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Re: The WWI Flyer

Post by JackFavell »

Great idea for a thread! I haven't seen Ace of Aces yet, but I really like most of the early thirties anti war pictures I've seen so far, and the flying pictures are also usually above par.
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moira finnie
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Re: The WWI Flyer

Post by moira finnie »

Oh, gee, I have always been fascinated by WWI stories of all sorts. Thanks for creating this thread, intothenitrate.

I loved Ace of Aces (1933), as I guess is pretty clear from the research I did into John Monk Saunders' career. The transformation of the character portrayed by Richard Dix from an aesthetic-minded pacifist into a seriously off-kilter warrior was very compelling, even though the storytelling of director J. Walter Ruben sometimes seemed choppy--though it had terrific high points, particularly the mobile camera work on land and air and the anguished close-up on Dix's face the night before his first taste of combat as well as the harrowing scenes in the hospital where an injured Dix witnesses the agony of the German youth he shot down unnecessarily. I really think it is the best dramatic acting I've seen Dix do in a movie and for once, Elizabeth Allan had a role with some shadows, though my only quibble with the film was the tacked-on feel of the ending (I won't spoil it by describing it for those who have yet to see this otherwise fine movie).

I found this WWI movie and so many of its like [Dawn Patrol (1930), Journey's End (1930), Westfront 1918 (1930), All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), and Niemandsland aka Hell on Earth (1931), The Last Flight (1931), I Was a Spy (1933), Captured! (1933), The Eagle and the Hawk (1934)] so fascinating because each seemed to celebrate the camaraderie steeped in sorrow but also reflected some aspect of society's emotional revulsion toward the war, which only deepened into cynicism about any sort of cant about "love of country" after the worldwide Stock Market Crash and its long after-effects. This international disgust toward the horrific scale of waste in WWI reached a peak in the late '20s and early '30s as many in a position to know began to publish their memoirs of The Great War, particularly as the level of political maneuvering and plain incompetence that existed among the general staffs who prosecuted the war so insanely on both sides became publicly known during a series of peace conferences in the period.

Even more powerful were the personal accounts that started to be published as novels or straight memoirs by writers such as Erich Maria Remarque, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer by Siegfried Sassoon, the writing of nurse and feminist Vera Brittain, the fascinating memoir by Evelyn, Princess Blücher, a British woman married to a Prussian aristocrat and living in Berlin throughout the war as well as Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That, which began and ended by describing a soldier's suicide, and and Mud and Khaki, an account of trench warfare published by H.S. Clapham.

The aversion to war may have also been fed by the world's disappointment with the League of Nations, the ripple effect of Mahatma Ghandi's non-violent campaigns on an international scale, peace movements within Protestantism and Catholicism, and even businessmen in America and Europe who used their influence to popularize a kind of "material pacifism," (one businessman even sold something called "Horrors of War Bubble Gum" complete with gruesome cartoons in the '30s!).

Also, a year and a half before Ace of Aces began production, there was widespread publicity and some in the US were quite outraged by The Hoover Moratorium, which recognized the inability and/or reluctance of European debtor nations--including Great Britain, France, Italy, and Belgium--to pay back the billions lent by America during the war, (though I don't see how it would have helped the world economy if the US held them to this). I believe all this understandable loathing of war was also exploited somewhat by well-meaning idealism linked to socialism and communism; sometimes used by those seeking power as well as though sincerely seeking international friendship to prevent future wars.

I am hoping that as we get closer to the centennial year of the beginning of The Great War, more of these issues and more of the movies that were made by those who lived at a time when this period was still a vivid living memory will be re-examined.
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Rita Hayworth
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Re: The WWI Flyer

Post by Rita Hayworth »

Moira ... I love your write up on "Ace of Aces" ... thanks for sharing with us. :)
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