Berthelot Émile Chautard as The Mayor Jack Stone as The Kid Edward Dillon as Mike the Mechanic Dick Grace as Aviator Stuart Knox as Aviator Harlan Hilton as Aviator Richard Jarvis as Aviator Jack Ponder as Aviator Dan Dowling as Aviator Eddie Clayton as The Enemy Ace Arthur Lake as The Unlucky One Philo McCullough as German Officer Nelson McDowell as French Drummer Production Lilac Time was shot on sets at First National's Burbank studio and on location in El Toro, California, where a working airstrip, full-sized French village and farm serving as a base for a fictional Royal Flying Corps squadron, were built. For some scenes, the deserted village in Allaire, New Jersey were used for backdrops. In addition a portable machine shop serviced the seven Waco 10 biplanes purchased and leased by aerial coordinator Dick Grace for the production. The crash scenes in Lilac Time turned out to be particularly difficult and hazardous. One scene called for Grace to crash and flip upside down in an aircraft. The second crash scene involved a crash-landing where the aircraft pirouetted on its nose and nearly hitting Opal Boswell, Moore's double, who scampered out of the way at the last moment. The third crash pitted a Waco 10 against a stand of eucalyptus trees that tore off the wings of the taxiing aircraft. Looking for realism, many extras cast as soldiers in the film had been actual World War I soldiers, in the ranks they portrayed. The chief stunt pilot, Dick Grace, had only finished doing stunt work on the Paramount film Wings (1927) nearly two months earlier. Grace sustained a severe neck injury in a stunt crash while making Wings but recovered in time for Lilac Time. Among those in the cast were Colleen Moore's brother Cleve (billed as "Cleve Moore") and her cousin, Jack Stone. Eugenie Besserer had played "Mrs. Goode," a mother figure in Colleen's earlier film Little Orphant Annie, the first film to bring Colleen a measure of fame. Reception Lilac Time had its opening in Los Angeles at the Carthay Circle Theatre where, in the lobby, among other promotional materials on display, was the wrecked fuselage of one of the aircraft that had been destroyed during the filming. The film cost one million dollars to produce, an amount equal to Moore's previous two films. The studio recouped the cost of the film within months. By the