In 1908, Samuel Franklin Cody was recorded as piloting the first official British flight of a heavier-than-air machine, just a stone's throw from where I grew up. Set primarily in the South of England, just a couple of years later, Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines is an affectionate madcap comedy that celebrates the bravery and determination of such international pioneers of early flight - men who risked their lives to take to the skies.
Stuart Whitman heads a stellar line-up, as American pilot Orvil Newton, one of a group of aircraft enthusiasts competing for a prize of £10,000 in a daring race from London to Paris. Others signed up to take part include plucky Brit Richard Mays (James Fox), pompous German Manfred Von Holstein (Gert Fröbe), womanising Frenchman Pierre Dubois (Jean-Pierre Cassel) filthy rich Italian Count Emilio Ponticelli (Alberto Sordi), and Japanese flyer Yamamoto (Yûjirô Ishihara), with Terry Thomas as slimy cheat Sir Percy Ware-Armitage (aided by his crony Courtney, played by Eric Sykes).
Rounding out the cast of familiar faces are Sarah Miles as plucky love interest Patricia Rawnsley, Robert Morley as her father Lord Rawnsley, Benny Hill as Fire Chief Perkins, gorgeous Bond girl Zena Marshall as Countess Sophia Ponticelli, Gordon Jackson as Scot MacDougal, William Rushton as Tremayne Gascoyne, and Tony Hancock as airplane salesman Harry Popperwell.
Director Ken Annakin has assembled a magnificent cast, to be sure, but the real stars of his film are the flying machines, beautifully reconstructed early aircraft ranging from the ingenious to the utterly wacky, and the best bits of the film are those that show these inventions in flight. The pre-race slapstick nonsense offers a few fun scenes featuring the crazy creations in motion, but it's not until the race itself that one can fully appreciate the aircraft in all their glory as their pilots battle it out to be the first to cross the channel. With the competitors not leaving for Paris until well over an hour and a half has passed, the film is arguably overlong (I believe that several scenes could have easily been excised without any real loss), but it's still worth the wait for anyone with an interest in the history of flight: they might have been potential death traps, but the planes are marvellous to behold.
6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.
Stuart Whitman heads a stellar line-up, as American pilot Orvil Newton, one of a group of aircraft enthusiasts competing for a prize of £10,000 in a daring race from London to Paris. Others signed up to take part include plucky Brit Richard Mays (James Fox), pompous German Manfred Von Holstein (Gert Fröbe), womanising Frenchman Pierre Dubois (Jean-Pierre Cassel) filthy rich Italian Count Emilio Ponticelli (Alberto Sordi), and Japanese flyer Yamamoto (Yûjirô Ishihara), with Terry Thomas as slimy cheat Sir Percy Ware-Armitage (aided by his crony Courtney, played by Eric Sykes).
Rounding out the cast of familiar faces are Sarah Miles as plucky love interest Patricia Rawnsley, Robert Morley as her father Lord Rawnsley, Benny Hill as Fire Chief Perkins, gorgeous Bond girl Zena Marshall as Countess Sophia Ponticelli, Gordon Jackson as Scot MacDougal, William Rushton as Tremayne Gascoyne, and Tony Hancock as airplane salesman Harry Popperwell.
Director Ken Annakin has assembled a magnificent cast, to be sure, but the real stars of his film are the flying machines, beautifully reconstructed early aircraft ranging from the ingenious to the utterly wacky, and the best bits of the film are those that show these inventions in flight. The pre-race slapstick nonsense offers a few fun scenes featuring the crazy creations in motion, but it's not until the race itself that one can fully appreciate the aircraft in all their glory as their pilots battle it out to be the first to cross the channel. With the competitors not leaving for Paris until well over an hour and a half has passed, the film is arguably overlong (I believe that several scenes could have easily been excised without any real loss), but it's still worth the wait for anyone with an interest in the history of flight: they might have been potential death traps, but the planes are marvellous to behold.
6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.