Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes
**½/**** Image A Sound A- Extras B+
starring Stuart Whitman, Sarah Miles, James Fox, Alberto Sordi
screenplay by Jack Davies & Ken Annakin
directed by Ken Annakin
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover As far as bloated Twilight of Hollywood fluff goes, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes doesn't do too badly for itself. The picture doesn't try to fill you with ersatz wonder at the magnitude of its expensive contraptions, nor does it try to bully you with offensive sentiment in the Sound of Music vein. It's mostly just a lark, and while it's clearly overpriced (as H'wood films of the period generally are), it manages as best as it can to be light and airy. Alas, as often as not the soufflé falls, the victim of obvious caricatures and a grotesquely overblown approach to slapstick. But while Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines doesn't really linger very long in the mind, it's not bad enough to be an affront, and should at least please children young enough to find the sight of a man with an enormous moustache funny.
Taking place in 1910, the film deals with an international aeronautical race across the English Channel. The brainchild of newspaper magnate Lord Rawnsley (Robert Morley) by way of potential son-in-law Richard Mays (James Fox), the race is designed to show that England rules the skies as well as the waves. Naturally, this means that a cavalcade of national clichés will descend upon Britain in the hopes of nabbing the cash prize. Thus we have an over-emotional Italian (Alberto Sordi), a lecherous Frenchman (Jean-Pierre Cassel), a pompous and autocratic German officer (Gert Frobe), and a Japanese man (Yujiro Ishihara) of indeterminate stereotyping, though the most prominent of these pilots is Orvil Newton (Stuart Whitman), who soon has eyes for Lord Rawnsley's daughter Patricia (Sarah Miles)–despite the fact that she is "more or less" betrothed to key British flier Mays. Meaning, of course, that hilarity will ensue.
Thing is, the hilarity is not quite so big as the film itself: like many a big-budget period piece from the Sixties, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines threatens to crush the general goings-on with the sheer scale of the production itself. It's not enough to have an air race; it's got to be an air race where people smash up their planes, rebuild them, smash them up again, run around the airfield while smashing it up, etc. Very expensive slapstick is the order of the day, on a magnitude that would not be repeated until the early Eighties and the dawn of John Landis, when the rule, as then, would be the bigger the budget, the smaller the invention. There's nothing here any randomly-selected gag writers couldn't have concocted, from the obvious ethnic stereotyping to the trite love triangle to the obnoxious Sir Percy Ware-Armitage (Terry-Thomas, with the moustache) trying to sabotage his competitors–a collection of subplots designed to be swept up in the same giant tornado.
And yet, there's a gentle touch to the thing that makes it seem like more than the sum of its smashed-up parts. Though director Ken Annakin is no Welles, he's not a craven vulgarian either–he makes sure that the slapstick blows are softened and the stereotypes poke fun without exhibiting cruelty. It's clear that he has no intention of doing anyone any real painful damage, and his genial nature gets you through the film's rough passages–you smile without really knowing why and at material that you'd scoff at under any other circumstances. Annakin's efforts aren't really enough to make the film more than a fog of good intentions, but at least those intentions truly are good: kindly, gracious, and self-aware enough to know their station as entertainment and not moralizing. It may not add up to a masterpiece, or even a movie to watch twice, yet placed next to its peers it stands at least a cut above what the studios would offer at the time.
THE DVD
Fox's DVD transfer of the film falls only slightly short of Magnificent. Definition on the 2.20:1 image is very sharp; colours are extremely vibrant for a film of its age, although the odd roast beef-red skin tone occasionally (and briefly) reminds you of that fact. The Dolby Digital 5.0 remix is almost as good, despite the use of the rear channels as faint backup for the fronts. The sound is sharp without being tinny and full without being indistinct, making a perfect partner for the brilliant image.
As for extras, we have a commentary track with Ken Annakin that's rather standard as far as these things go: there's a little too much rehash of what's happening in the scenes and somewhat too little discussion of shots, but Annakin imparts some interesting technical information and the occasional bit of lore involving Darryl F. Zanuck's intrusions and Stuart Whitman's crush on Sarah Miles. More interesting is "Conversations with Ken Annakin" (17 mins.), an extended interview with the director; here, he gives a detailed account of the project's origins, the principled man who rebuilt the vintage aircraft (and insisted that they use all-original materials), the chance selection of Stuart Whitman over Dick Van Dyke, and the choreographing of the film's most dangerous stunt–among other things. It's a fairly interesting seventeen minutes.
Also find: an enormous Behind-the-Scenes gallery sure to thrill all fans of the directional buttons; a much shorter Visual Effects Gallery, showing the make-up and effects used in the opening sequence with Red Skelton; a large gallery devoted to "Historical Aircraft," giving specs, photos and drawings on the aircraft used in the film; and a gallery–somewhat deceptively called "Storyboards"–in which drawings are interspersed with still frames from the film where presumably original storyboards were missing, in addition to needless photos of director and crew poring over said pictures during production. Much of this is perhaps unnecessary, but it sure is thorough. The film's teaser trailer and proper trailer round out the package.
137 minutes; PG; 2.20:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 5.0, French DD 2.0 (Mono), Spanish DD 2.0 (Mono); CC; English, Spanish subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; Fox
