I had a fun birthday yesterday, and besides the wonderful discovery that Placerita Canyon had reopened (leading to my first hike there in five years), last night I watched a movie I hadn't seen since 1965 : "Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines", a madcap, big budget re-creation of the 1910 London to Paris air race, in which all of the planes were the homemade contraptions of their pilots.
Nowdays it's as much remembered for it's theme song - which every kid knew - as for it's titular Men and/or their Flying Machines, but you don't have to be a kid to enjoy this movie, which is 138 minutes of non-stop fun. What plot there is revolves around a romantic triangle between Sarah Miles (playing the daughter of the publisher who's sponsoring the race), her fiancee James Fox, and Stuart Whitman, the rugged American who travels all the way from Arizona to enter. His laconic, "aww shucks" nature, plus his cowboy good looks begin to work on Miss Miles, who wants to ride in an aeroplane and is looking for more adventure than she gets out of Fox. In cinema and pop culture, this was the era of Pretty, Proper English Girls (Mary Poppins, Eliza Doolittle) and Miles certainly fits the bill with her milky complexion and upswept hair. She steals your heart in her Period costuming, and maybe the movie as well.
Another contender would be Gert Frobe, playing "Count Manfred von Holstein", a blustery, buffoonish German army commander who gets in the race by accident, after his pilot is slipped a laxative at the last minute. Frobe, most famous as the Bond villain "Goldfinger", has great comic chops and is at the center of the film's most knee-slapping gags. I found him laugh-out-loud funny and you will too as he plays off the stereotype of the militaristic Kraut.
Providing strong support are the race's other entrants, all played as European caricatures. There's the Amorous Frenchman (Jean-Pierre Cassel), the fast talking, gesticulating Italian Count, whose strong willed wife and many children accompany him wherever he goes. There's a Wee Scotsman, usually tipsy, and an Inscrutable but friendly Japanese, who is reputed to have the fastest plane in the race. He and the other front runners will be the target of sabotage by Terry-Thomas, playing an Upper Class Twit as always, who in this case is a ruthless scoundrel. The race itself doesn't begin until the 90 minute mark, but the lead up zips along on the strength of the script and editing, always moving from the storyline of one character to another, and back again. In one of the movie's cleverest running gags, the French pilot - forever in search of a Fabulous Foreign Babe to make time with - keeps running into the same gal, or so he thinks. And in fact, she's played by a single actress (Irina Demick), but every time Cassel meets her, on the beach, at the hangars or in a restaurant, she turns out to be somebody else. "Oh, Brigitte! How nice to see you again"! "I'm sorry Monsieur, I'm afraid you are mistaken. My name is Ingrid, from Sweden". And then the next time he sees her : "Oh, Ingrid! You are looking lovely tonight"! "You must have me confused with someone else, Herr Dubois, I am Marlene, from Germany". And it goes on like this, throughout the movie, well timed so as not to wear out the joke. It's very humorous and so are all the other hijinx, including some references that would go right over a five year old's head. Still, "Those Magnificent Men" retains the overall feel of an epic 1960s Disney flick. It's fun for the whole family but sophisticated enough for adults.
The movie was produced by 20th Century Fox, whose laboratory was Deluxe, where Dad was the Veep. Consequently, he got to go to a lot of premiers in those days and he took us to this one. That was the first and only time I saw it until now, which makes 56 years in between viewings. But I remembered many things about it, especially the Flying Machines, some of which look like planes out of Dr. Suess! It's amazing they were able to get off the ground, let alone fly. I looked hard to see if they were models, but in the distance shots you can see they're in the air, and according to IMDB they were indeed operable, and flown by stunt pilots in carefully selected conditions according to weather and wind speed. Now that's Magnificent! The picture was shot in widescreen 70mm and looks fantastic with Color by Deluxe. I watched it on a dvd from the Libe, and I doubt it's available on Youtube, but you can find it on Netflix I'm sure, or just order it from your library like I did. I absolutely loved "Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines", which accordingly gets Two Huge Thumbs Up. See it for some good old Big Studio entertainment. /////
I've still got nothing on the John Mills front, so we'll just list him as "on leave" until further notice. However, we did find an excellent espionage thriller the previous night, called "High Treason"(1951). It's about an ex-RAF radioman, now running an electronics shop in London, who gets mixed up with a bunch of Commies in a plot to sabotage the Battersea Power Station (made famous on the cover of Pink Floyd's "Animals").
In the opening scene, a cargo ship is exploded, leading Scotland Yard to suspect a certain dock worker, who they trace to a Leftist group that meets under the guise of a music appreciation society. The radioman,"Jimmy Ellis" (Kenneth Griffith), also belongs to the society but has no hardcore politics. He's a gullible type who lives with his mother and brother and is very meek. But he's forced into the sabotage plot by the group's leaders, and when the dockworker turns up murdered, Jimmy becomes the focus of attention for the Yard inspectors, not for the murder but because they suspect he knows something about the larger situation afoot.
Jimmy won't talk because he's been threatened with elimination, but after the cops pressure him, he decides to visit his local MP (Member of Parliment) to confess his involvement.
That's all I can reveal without spoilers, but this is one helluva good spy thriller, with a tightning, tension filled story. You really feel for poor, paranoid Jimmy, who's in way over his head with the hive-minded Marxists. They're merciless and don't believe in the sanctity of the individual, only the "greater good" of the group. Any single person is expendable if deemed "untrustworthy", i.e. someone who dares think for himself. There's a lot to be gleaned here, morally speaking, about the danger of extreme politics. "High Treason" finishes up with a climactic sequence inside the Battersea Station, with chases and gun battles amidst it's gangways and gargantuan generators (yeah, "avoid alliteration", I know...)
I can't give away the outcome, but this is one Espionage Movie you don't wanna miss, with it's hardball Red Scare theme. "High Treason" gets Two Big Thumbs Up, and the Youtube print is good. Give it a shot, for Jimmy's sake. ////
That's all for the moment. I'm gonna head out for an Aliso walk, then a trip to the market (for chips, salsa, only the necessities!). Tonight we'll watch another movie and listen to some Opeth, do a CSUN walk; until then, enjoy your afternoon. I send you Tons of Love as always! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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