(There are Spoilers) Stuck in the fogged in Heathrow Airport in London a number of very important people, V.I.P.s, are confronted with a major crisis in that if they don't leave Great Britian by midnight their lives will never be the same again. The movie centers mostly on British mega millionaire and ruthless businessman Paul Andros, Richard Burton, who achieved everything that he started out in life to do but is unknowingly throwing away the only thing that's really worth anything to him his beautiful and frustrated wife Frances, Elizabeth Taylor. Giving Frances everything in money and jewelry Paul has neglected to give her any true affection and love treating her like she's one of his prized possessions which lead Frances to secretly have an affair with that international jet-setting gigolo and all around moocher, of the rich and famous, Marc Champsella, Louis Jourdan.
Frances and Marc are planing to elope to New York and get married but their plans goes a bit sour when the flight their to take is fogged in and the note that Frances, a dear Paul letter, left at her and Paul's home to be opened when she and Marc were airborne and on their way to New York is discovered by Paul, while the two are still at Heathrow Airport. Paul then comes running, as well as to his senses, to the airport to confront Frances in her leaving him for the smooth talking and conniving con-artist Marc.
For the first time in his life Paul is left a broken and defeated man when Frances tells him in so many words to get lost. Later Paul does, mostly out of self-pity for himself, the most chartable things he ever did in his mostly selfish life. Paul writs out a blank check, that eventually amounted to 153,000 pound sterling, to a total stranger Australian tractor manufacture Les Mangrum, Rod Taylor, in order to save his company from being gobbled up in a corporate takeover. This act of charity not only changed Mangrum's life for the better but, not knowing this at the time,Pauls as well.
Paul was at the airport bar drowning his sorrows and slowly getting smashed when Mangrum's Girl Friday his private secretary Miss Mead, Maggy Smith, who recognized him as the big kahuna that he is approached Paul and begged him to save her boss from going bankrupt or even to jail, for passing a phony check. This act of kindness, which money wise was only a drop in the bucket for him, was something that Paul would have never done before he found that Frances left him. In the end it was this new understanding of his own short-comings, in his not being a kind feeling and giving human being, is what brought a tearful and forgiving Frances running back to him.
There's also the story in the film of the Dutchess of Brighton, Margaret Rutherford, at the airport booked for a flight to Miami Florida. The Dutchess has, at her very advanced age, to go back to work as a hostess at a Miami hotel in order to earn enough money to pay for the taxes and upkeep of her family Brighton home. It just happened that also at the airport is world famous schlock director Max Buda, Orsen Wells, who has to leave the country by midnight or else the money that he made last year in Britain, over one million pound sterling, will be taxed at over 85%. Thus leaving him, with his expensive dining and drinking habits, almost penniless.
With the expert advice of his financial whiz and adviser Doctor Schartzbacher, Martin Miller,Buda marries his favorite actress, who's in all his art films, the dizzy and star struck Gloria Gritt, Elsa Martinelli,which in effect by him putting all his earnings in her name. That exempts Buda from paying the brutal British taxes. At the same time have him make a deal with the Duchess to film his next movie at her castle or ancestral home in Brighton paying her as much as 3,000 pound sterling per day, for six weeks. That will more then get the cash-strapped Dutchess out of the hole in losing her beloved and precious country estate.
Really an all-around feel-good movie more then anything else where everyone ends up on the winning side except that sneaky heel and low-life chiseling gigolo Marc Champselle who's left holding the bag. Thats when Frances finally realizes what a phony creep he is, like her husband Paul warned her, and what a fine and wonderful man even though sometimes a bit too serious about himself, and his status in the whole scheme of things, her Paul Andros is.
Frances and Marc are planing to elope to New York and get married but their plans goes a bit sour when the flight their to take is fogged in and the note that Frances, a dear Paul letter, left at her and Paul's home to be opened when she and Marc were airborne and on their way to New York is discovered by Paul, while the two are still at Heathrow Airport. Paul then comes running, as well as to his senses, to the airport to confront Frances in her leaving him for the smooth talking and conniving con-artist Marc.
For the first time in his life Paul is left a broken and defeated man when Frances tells him in so many words to get lost. Later Paul does, mostly out of self-pity for himself, the most chartable things he ever did in his mostly selfish life. Paul writs out a blank check, that eventually amounted to 153,000 pound sterling, to a total stranger Australian tractor manufacture Les Mangrum, Rod Taylor, in order to save his company from being gobbled up in a corporate takeover. This act of charity not only changed Mangrum's life for the better but, not knowing this at the time,Pauls as well.
Paul was at the airport bar drowning his sorrows and slowly getting smashed when Mangrum's Girl Friday his private secretary Miss Mead, Maggy Smith, who recognized him as the big kahuna that he is approached Paul and begged him to save her boss from going bankrupt or even to jail, for passing a phony check. This act of kindness, which money wise was only a drop in the bucket for him, was something that Paul would have never done before he found that Frances left him. In the end it was this new understanding of his own short-comings, in his not being a kind feeling and giving human being, is what brought a tearful and forgiving Frances running back to him.
There's also the story in the film of the Dutchess of Brighton, Margaret Rutherford, at the airport booked for a flight to Miami Florida. The Dutchess has, at her very advanced age, to go back to work as a hostess at a Miami hotel in order to earn enough money to pay for the taxes and upkeep of her family Brighton home. It just happened that also at the airport is world famous schlock director Max Buda, Orsen Wells, who has to leave the country by midnight or else the money that he made last year in Britain, over one million pound sterling, will be taxed at over 85%. Thus leaving him, with his expensive dining and drinking habits, almost penniless.
With the expert advice of his financial whiz and adviser Doctor Schartzbacher, Martin Miller,Buda marries his favorite actress, who's in all his art films, the dizzy and star struck Gloria Gritt, Elsa Martinelli,which in effect by him putting all his earnings in her name. That exempts Buda from paying the brutal British taxes. At the same time have him make a deal with the Duchess to film his next movie at her castle or ancestral home in Brighton paying her as much as 3,000 pound sterling per day, for six weeks. That will more then get the cash-strapped Dutchess out of the hole in losing her beloved and precious country estate.
Really an all-around feel-good movie more then anything else where everyone ends up on the winning side except that sneaky heel and low-life chiseling gigolo Marc Champselle who's left holding the bag. Thats when Frances finally realizes what a phony creep he is, like her husband Paul warned her, and what a fine and wonderful man even though sometimes a bit too serious about himself, and his status in the whole scheme of things, her Paul Andros is.