# The Flying Ace Part 1. 1920 {All Black Cast Silent Film} 1:05:50

The Flying Ace is a 1926 black-and-white silent drama film directed by Richard E. Norman with an all-African-American cast. This six-reel film, made by Norman Studios in Jacksonville, Florida, utilized a mix of professionals such as leads Laurence Criner and Kathryn Boyd, and non-professional actors. Films such as The Flying Ace, that used an all-African-American cast and were shown specifically to African-American audiences, were known as "race films". Norman Studios produced feature length and numerous short race films during the 1920s. The untapped black film going market and the plethora of talented performers unable to get work in mainstream films led to the production of race films by Norman Studios. Richard Norman's reason for producing race films was not solely a business decision. Although the studio was filling a niche, Norman was also motivated by the state of race relations at the time and wanted to make a positive impact. Norman cast J. Laurence Criner, a veteran of Harlem's prestigious all-black theater troupe the Lafayette Players, in the leading role of Captain Billy Stokes, a black pilot who fought in France during World War I. While Eugene Bullard was a black pilot in the Lafayette Escadrille, African-Americans were not allowed to serve as pilots in the United States Army Air Corps until 1940. The role of pilot Ruth Sawtelle, played by Kathryn Boyd, is loosely based on African-American aviator Bessie Coleman. Coleman had sent a letter to the Norman Studios…

- Kind: Feature
- Year: 1920
- Runtime: 1 h 5 min
- By: Normon Studios
- Genres: Silent
- Archive: [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/the-flying-ace-part-1)
- Licence or status: [Public Domain Mark 1.0](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/) (as the archive states it)
- Who can watch: Teens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/ia/the-flying-ace-part-1?play=1)