Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes

Sabotage efforts damage an international air race.

• Director:Ken Annakin
• Genre:Adventure | Comedy | Action
• Runtime:138 minutes

Cast

Stuart Whitman : Orvil Newton
Sarah Miles : Patricia Rawnsley
James Fox : Richard Mays
Alberto Sordi : Count Emilio Ponticelli
Robert Morley : Lord Rawnsley

The film opens with a brief, comic introductory segment on the history of flight, narrated by James Robertson Justice and featuring American comedian Red Skelton (in a cameo appearance) depicting a recurring character whose aerial adventures span the centuries, in a series of silent blackout vignettes that incorporate actual stock footage of unsuccessful attempts at early aircraft. This was Skelton’s final feature film appearance; coincidentally he was in Europe filming scenes for the 1964-1965 season of his television series, The Red Skelton Show.

This is followed by a whimsical animated opening credit sequence drawn by renowned satirical caricaturist Ronald Searle, accompanied by the film’s title song. (Another animated sequence closes the film.)

A recurring “gag” suggested by Darryl F. Zanuck concerned his girlfriend, Irina Demick who sequentially played Brigitte (who is French), Marlene (German), Ingrid (Swedish), Françoise (Belgian), Yvette (Bulgarian) and Betty (British) as a lookalike flirtatious character who is constantly being pursued by pilot Pierre Dubois, played by Jean-Pierre Cassel. The American lead, Stuart Whitman was selected over the first choice of Dick Van Dyke, whose agents never contacted him about the offer, but the majority of the cast were British actors.

Sarah Miles plays the daughter of Lord Rawnsley (Robert Morley), a newspaper magnate whose favourite to win his race is his daughter’s fiancé, Richard Mays (James Fox), flying an Antoinette monoplane. Lord Rawnsley sums up the expectation that a “Brit” should win the competition: “The trouble with these international affairs is they attract foreigners.” An international cast plays the array of contestants, most of whom live up to their national stereotypes, including the fanatically by-the-book, monocle-wearing Prussian officer (Gert Fröbe) flying an Eardley-Billing biplane, impetuous Count Emilio Ponticelli (Alberto Sordi), an amorous Frenchman (Cassel) in a Santos-Dumont Demoiselle, the rugged American cowboy Orvil Newton (Stuart Whitman) flying a Bristol Boxkite (impersonating a “Curtiss”), who falls for Lord Rawnsley’s daughter Patricia, who was also Richard Mays’ girlfriend, causing a love triangle. Read more

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