This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Amateur movie with Big budget

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It's 1918 and the war is being waged on the battlefields of France -- and over those battlefields too. Richard Dix wants no part of it. However, his girl friend, the cute and saucy Elizabeth Allen, shames him into enlisting, and he becomes a fighter pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corpe and is sent overseas, where he is soon joined by Allen as a nurse. In his first combat mission, he flies as part of the squadron, manages to get on the six o'clock position of a "Heinie" but can't bring himself to pull the trigger on his machine guns. His superior officer, Ralph Bellamy, chews him out.On a later flight, after watching a friend being shot down, he become animated and scores his first "kill." And, actually, he feels pretty good about when he thinks it over. He shoots down numerous other Heinies and his score creeps up until it's about 40. (Historically, Eddie Rickenbacker was the highest scoring American ace with 26 aerial victories.) By now, Dix has begun to enjoy his job and has a sneaky tactic whereby he leaves the squadron and pulls up into a position that puts his airplane between the enemy and the sun, thus blinding the Heinies to his attack. In World War II, we accused the Japanese of being sneaky for doing the same thing. (You can ignore that gloss if you want.) Meanwhile, his commanding officer, Ralph Bellamy, is getting furious. In not playing with the team, Dix has lessened its strength by one airplane, and all for his own self aggrandizement. "You'll do as you're told -- and that's an order!", or words to the same effect. But does Dix do it? Are you kidding? He's not about to submerge his identity, his prowess, into that of his squadron.And he's still up there, lingering around in the vicinity of the sun, when a Heinie plane flies over the base and drops a message about a squadron member who had been shot down and captured, reassuring the boys that the prisoner is alive and doing well Then Dix dives out of the sun and wrecks the German airplane with aplomb.The Heinie had no chance to defend himself but somehow Dix's scalp has been grazed and he winds up in the hospital. His bed is next to that of a very young pilot who constantly moans in pain and begs for water. Dix tells him to shut up but learns from a nurse that the patient can't drink anything because he's been shot through the stomach and is dying. While listening to the wounded boy Dix is stunned to learn that this is the Heinie pilot he'd just shot down, only a cadet with few hours flying time. Chagrin time for Dix. He accepts Bellamy's offer of an instructor's job back in the states but when taunted by some of his squadron mates, he decides to regress and go back to killing.The only problem is that once in the air, again at a Heinie's six, he can't bring himself to pull the trigger. He and his cute and saucy girl friend are finally together, hugging each other decorously among the wildflowers and dreaming of a home and four children.It's an anti-war movie from 1933, with World War I safely behind the audience. Nobody's performance stands out especially, nor does anyone's performance torpedo the movie. There is some genuine flight footage and a lot of model work. There's little ambiguity about a defeat. Just about everyone who is downed does a nose dive into the earth but -- this being 1933 -- there are not yet bouquets of exploding fireballs with each mishap.The moral evolution of Dix's character is kind of interesting and I rather enjoyed it for all its primitive techniques. I liked it too because it SHOWS us how to dislike war without a single sermon being preached. Not that I mind the pep talks that show up so often in movies about war but they're usually so unoriginal, so filled with clichés. It's not often we hear anything like "when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger."

I never liked Richard Dix very much. He's just awful in the wonderful film, Cimarron, which earned him an Oscar nomination. Any other film I've seen in him seems to show him off as a hammy, middle-aged actor just going through the paces. But Ace of Aces was a slight surprise. This WW I story about a pacifist artist who joins up and become a bloodthirsty killer under the guise of being a flying "ace" seems like the kind of role he needed. In a way it's similar to the role of Yancy in Cimarron, but minus the "Wahoos" he lets out sporadically in that film. Plus in Cimarron Dix pales in comparison to the great performance turned in by Irene Dunne. In Ace of Aces, Dix is the star. No one else registers very strongly. Elizabeth Allan is the girl friend, Ralph Bellamy the commanding officer, Theodore Newton the best friend, Nella Walker the socialite, and the Stroud twins (Claude and Clarence) play fellow flyers. Not a great film by any means, but a solid story certainly helps. The aerial dogfights are good but not as good as in Hell's Angels. Check it out.

J. Walter Ruben directs this air combat movie based on Bird Of Prey by John Monk Saunders. Some of the aerial scenes are actually borrowed from Howard Hughes's HELL'S ANGELS(1930). By no means ACE OF ACE'S is no masterpiece, but very worthy of your time. Richard Dix plays Rex Thorne, a sculptor who registers as a conscientious objector at the outbreak of WWI. He thinks nothing more of being shy of taking up arms and going to war. His sweetheart Nancy(Elizabeth Allen)sees him differently. She sees him as a coward and shames him into joining the Army as a fighter pilot. Soon Thorne does an about face and unlikely becomes reckless and ruthless and one of the most prolific flying aces. At the same time, Nancy has joined the Red Cross as a nurse and is appalled at the transformation of her 'Rocky' now a arrogant hero of the skies. The apt list of players includes: Ralph Bellamy, Frank Conroy, Theodore Newton, and James Cagney's look-alike brother William Cagney. Look for this one on Turner Classic Movies.

First, you have to buy Richard Dix as an upper-crust sculptor and pacifist named "Rocky." Then you have to accept that after one dogfight he turns into a cold-blooded killing machine. There's no middle road with this guy! The aerial combat scenes are well done with an excellent use of miniatures, but they aren't in the same league as the ones in "Wings," "Hell's Angels" or "The Dawn Patrol." The squadron banter has a realistic feel to it unlike any of the other dialogue in the film. There's a particularly bad scene where the heroine is a warfront nurse and the wounded Private Exposition is brought in to fill her in on the story so far. Dix's rapid changes in personality are given no real reason and make hash of his character and anything profound the film is trying to say. Obviously modeled after "Journey's End" and all the other anti-war plays of the time, "Ace Of Aces" ends up making a travesty of both pacifism and soldiering.