Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines

This is one of my most-favorite aviation movies for all time. Thanks!

CHARACTERS. This movie discloses events leading up to, and including, a competition where about a dozen aviators in the year 1910 fly from England to Paris. The main characters include a wealthy British newspaper publisher (he sponsors the event), his lovely daughter, the fiance of the lovely daughter (a handsome British aviator), an American cowboy aviator from Arizona, and Terry-Thomas (plays the bad guy).SOURCES OF MILD CONFLICT. Amusing tension arises from some mild attempts by the American cowboy to win the heart of the lovely daughter. The fiance and the American trade punches briefly, but what we see barely qualifies as a fist-fight. Amusing tension arises from Terry-Thomas' behavior in sabataging several of the airplanes of the competing aviators. Amusing tension also takes the form of the lovely daughter disobeying her father, by riding motorcycles, and by going up in an airplane with the American cowboy. The most dramatic episode occurs when the girl joins the American cowboy in his airplane, but is forced to take the stick, because the American needs to leave the cockpit to walk out on the wing in order to repair a broken strut.SOURCES OF COMEDY. Comedy arises from repeated stereotypical behavior of Germans, e.g., the behavior of Germans in adhering strictly to protocol and repeatedly consulting instruction booklets for even the simplest of tasks. Comedy also arises from the trousers of various people being pulled down. On a couple of occasions, a woman's dress gets pulled down, revealing her bloomers (we don't even see her bare legs). On one occasion, a man's pants fall down. In this case, a strut on the man's airplane broke while the plane was in the air, and the pilot (the cowboy) needed to walk out on the wing and fix the broken strut with his belt, but this causes the man's pants to fall down. More comedy arises when a man is clinging to the back of an airplane when the plane aloft, and he inches his way forward, and manages to tumble into the cockpit, face down. His head gets inserted towards the floor of the cockpit, and the man's two legs jut upwards, and wiggle about, one to the right of the pilot's head and the other leg to the left of the pilot's head. (Ha, ha, ha, so funny I am in great pain.) Another amusing moment occurs where a plane makes a forced landing in front of a convent. At first, the nuns refuse to help the Italian aviator, and insist that he leave at once. But the Italian aviator is clever, and proclaims, "You wouldn't want a Protestant to win the race, would you?" At this point, the head nun instantly changes her mind, and commands all the other nuns to come to the aid of the Italian aviator.EYE CANDY. But best of all, the viewer is treated to a continual parade of turn-of-the-century aircraft, some with improbable conformations, such as an airplane with circular, donut-shaped wings. We see close-ups of engines. We see dozens of crash landings -- into a sand dune, into a sewage treatment pond, into the English Channel.SUMMARY. The movie is a storehouse of juvenile humor. Every ten or 15 minutes, there is an airplane crash where nobody gets hurt. The pilot just falls out the airplane, lands in the grass, and proclaims something like, "whoops" or "upsy-daisy!" There are no bad words in this movie. Understanding the movie requires only the shortest of attention spans. The quality of the image in the DVD is excellent. The movie brings to mind the continual action and calculated chaos of, IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD. In FLYING MACHINES, I liked every minute. (But in MAD WORLD, there were a couple of sequences that I thought were irritating and annoying.) FLYING MACHINES also might be compared, to a small extent, with Spielberg's fine movie, 1941. In both movies (FLYING MACHINES and 1941), a beautiful young woman becomes attracted to men because the result is a trip in the man's airplane. At any rate, the intellectual level of FLYING MACHINES is somewhere between that of SPONGE BOB and TELETUBBIES. Also, the comfort level, as it applies to the comfort of young children, of FLYING MACHINES is also somewhere between that of SPONGE BOB and TELETUBBIES.If you are a parent of a young child, there is only a handful of other suitable movies that I can recommend. In particular, I recommend WONDERFUL WORLD OF BROTHERS GRIMM, also with Terry-Thomas (as the bad guy), and with Buddy Hackett, Russ Tamblyn (WEST SIDE STORY), and the adorable Barbara Eden.

This is one of my most favourite comedies. I saw it no less than five times in my life and every time I liked it even more. A wonderful, merry, intelligent and heart-warming film. Below, more of my impressions, with some limited SPOILERS.In 1910, at a time when aircraft were still fragile and unreliable contraptions, Lord Rawnsley (Robert Morley) a British newspaper magnate, decides to sponsor an air race from London to Paris, offering a shocking 10.000 pounds as the prize. That immediately attracts numerous intrepid competitors, of which no less than fourteen will finally qualify to participate. Here they are, in order of starting numbersNumber 1: Richard Mays (James Fox); a very formal Army officer, Mays is also courting (well, sort of) Patricia (Sarah Miles), the daughter of Lord RawnsleyNumber 2: Sir Percy Ware-Armitage (Terry-Thomas, splendid as always!), a ghastly character and a vilainous cheaterNumber 3: Orvil Newton (Stuart Whitman) from Arizona, a brilliant (but so colonial) pilot; the only American in the contest; he also courts Patricia, in a much more direct way than Richard Mays...Number 4: Lieutenant Parsons (Jeremy Lloyd), a Royal Navy officer; a rather likeable fellow, who flies with his pet dog, "The First Flying Dog in History"Number 5: Harry Popperwell (Tony Hancock); his plane is somehow mysteriously named "Little Fiddler"Number 6: Captain Rumpelstoss (Karl Michael Vogler) and later Colonel Manfred von Holstein (Gert Froebe, absolutely wonderful!); those two Prussian officers from Imperial German Army were mandated by the Kaiser in person to win - at al price!Number 7: Mr Wallace. As I couldn't even find the name of the actor who plays him you can reasonably assume, that his participation will be short...Number 8: Charles Wade. Same thing as above...Number 9: Mr Yamamoto (Yujiro Ishihara), an extremely impressive Japanese pilot, flying a splendid airplane. Mr Yamamoto is one of the favourites in this race.Number 10: Count Emilio Ponticelli (Alberto Sordi, hilarious!), an Italian aristocrat who survived a record number of crashes, but who is also one helluva pilot. The count is also married to splendidly beatiful Sophia (Zena Marshall), who gave him nine children and who every day begs him to finally stop flying...Number 11: Henri Monteux. Same thing as points 7 and 8.Number 12: Pierre Dubois (Jean-Pierre Cassel), a brilliant (but so continental) French pilot whose two main purposes in this race seem to be to sleep with every woman he meets and especially to troll the Germans...)))Number 13: Mr Mac Dougall (Gordon Jackson), a proud Scot flying an airplane named "Wake up Scotland"Number 14: Harry Walton. Same thing as points 7, 8 and 11.For the needs of this film the director requested that authentic flying replicas of some of planes which really existed in 1910 are build - and those planes were really used! For that reason this film gives really a great feeling of authenticity.There are many other treasures in this film, like national stereotypes, Benny Hill as fireman, air crashes, slapstick humour, romance, sexism and sexual harassment, German military, Courtney (the low-class butler of Sir Percy), "La Marseillaise", blunderbusses, national stereotypes, Catholicism, sabotage, promiscuity, fistfights, guineas, female underwear, one HUGE navigation error, white cliffs of Dover, diarrhea, cultural shock, practical jokes, national stereotypes, Neanderthal man, French kissing and last but not least Brigitte (Irina Demick), Marlene (Irina Demick), Ingrid (Irina Demick), Françoise (Irina Demick), Yvette (Irina Demick) and Betty (Irina Demick)...)))I absolutely LOVE this film! It is one of the best comedies EVER. To watch ABSOLUTELY!

Real flying footage with period aircraft

An epic comedy dealing with the age of pioneering aviation. It depicts the endeavour of participants challenged for a monetary prize to cross the channel between England and France. Many good moments, well acted, good spirit. Sparkling. Come see then young Stuart Whitman, Terry-Thomas as the villain, Alberto Sordi, the gorgeous Irina Demick, Benny Hill, Red Skelton, and others...

Busque por muchos lados esta película y finalmente la encontré. Es una película muy divertida.

Version française impeccable.

Lo que más me ha gustado es ver una de las primeras películas que vi en el cine cuando era niño.

Received the product good time and as advertised. Would buy from this site again