The film was released with pseudonyms several years after it was filmed. "The names included in the credit box above for those contributions appear on the screen and are fictitious. For the record, 'Ace Eli' was actually produced by Robert Fryer and James Cresson, written by Claudia Ann Salter and directed by John Erman." The scenes set in the town of "Monument" were actually filmed at Mount Hope, Kansas in 1971. Additional scenes were shot in Hutchinson and Haven, Kansas. In an article in The Hutchinson News about Pamela Franklin, she talked about her experiences of filming in a small Kansas town. The song "Who's for Complainin?", written and performed by Jim Grady, is featured in the title and end credits. Reception In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote: "The production appears to have been expensive. The aerial photography is lovely, and the performances are O.K., but the movie is such a mess of unexplored moods and loose ends that it makes the later, similar Paper Moon look like a masterpiece. The film, which was made three years ago, is being shown here in a version that the original producers, writer and director so disapprove of that they took their names off it." Michael McKegney of The Village Voice echoed the sentiments of many critics: "Ace Eli manages to be mildly enjoyable whenever Cliff Robertson, Eric Shea, Pamela Franklin and Rosemary Murphy get the chance to establish some emotional rapport. However, the picaresque plot works against character development, and the visual fragmentation (there seems to be a good deal of post-production butchery) frequently leaves the poor actors struggling to find an expression appropriate to the moment." In a recent reappraisal on the website WhyFly Aero, Glenn Norman considered the film from the standpoint of historical accuracy: "to my mind – Ace Eli & Rodger of the Skies is one of the most honest portrayals of the real reason most 1920s Barnstormers were out there. Not for the love of flying (like Bach’s Barnstormers in Nothing by Chance {shot the same year!}), but – in the words of Cliff Robertson’s Ace Eli, '...because the whole damn thing is about me.' As far as I’m concerned, this is a very interesting, non-standard take on the whole Barnstormer legend, with great flying sequences that more than make up for any 'unexplored moods and loose ends'." See also The Great