Probably no movie-star romance ever generated more publicity than Richard Burton's with Elizabeth Taylor, begun during the endless shoot of 'Cleopatra'. While Fox toiled to salvage it, the couple finished a British-based film. It reaped a box office harvest from celebrity addicts wanting to see the adulterous lovers play marrieds whose relationship might be ending rather than beginning.
The old firm of scenarist Terence Rattigan, producer 'Tolly' De Grunwald and director Anthony 'Puffin' Asquith devised a portmanteau contraption. Dick and Liz's affair was only one strand. MGM financed a huge reproduction at Borehamwood of the main terminal at London's Heathrow Airport. The result was 'Grand Departure Lounge' or 'Takeoff at Eight'. LHR is shown as a still-luxurious portal to long-distance travel, not yet resembling either a transit camp or today's virus-haunted ghost town.
Would-be transatlantic passengers stranded by the weather include Orson Welles as a flamboyant European moviemaker, Elsa Martinelli as his latest squeeze, Rod Taylor as an Aussie tractor manufacturer and Maggie Smith as his perfect, torch-carrying secretary. Louis Jordan provides the third side of the Burton-Taylor triangle. Margaret Rutherford is a dotty duchess trying to raise money in the States to save her stately home.
This circus is ringmastered by Richard Wattis as a somewhat unctuous and irritating cicerone of 'VIPs'. Best remembered as Eric Sykes's and Hattie Jacques's neighbour on TV, he is one of several small-screen regulars whom it is pleasant to see in bit parts in a Panavision blockbuster: Dennis Price, Richard Briers, Reggie Beckwith, Ronald Fraser, Peter Sallis, Terence Alexander, Frank Williams, even Angus Lennie from 'Crossroads'. David Frost and Lance Percival were recent discoveries from late-night satirical TV.
The problem, as with some of Rattigan's weightier works, is uncertainty of tone: he does not know how far to endorse Wattis's sycophancy. There are hints of ridicule of the pomposity of wealth and privilege, but ultimately the film wallows in VIP-dom rather than puncturing it. The status quo, financial and amatory, is upheld throughout.
Most critics see Asquith's last films, this and 'The Yellow Rolls-Royce', as a falling-off from 'Cottage on Dartmoor' or 'Pygmalion' before the war. For all its lavish air, the picture is morally flabby.
That said, there is much to enjoy. Smith and Rutherford knock spots off Liz as a famous actress: Rutherford won a Best Supporting Oscar, and was reunited with Welles two years later as Mistress Quickly in 'Chimes at Midnight', her last big role. Rod Taylor is, as usual, a forceful he-man; Hollywood should have made more of him.
Burton and Taylor are at their handsome best: not yet ravaged by drink or over-ripe. RB's voice is thrilling to hear, though he spends most of the picture mooching about in overcoat and scarf as if in a power cut, while Liz continues to speak her lines in inverted commas. (She appears to have forgotten to remove her Cleo eye makeup.)
This is the kind of flick Laura of 'Brief Encounter' would have caught at an Odeon matinee, after a morning's shopping in town and lunch accompanied by Irene Handl's string quartet. Box of chocolates in the lap and try not to nod off before the ends are neatly tied up with pink ribbon.
The old firm of scenarist Terence Rattigan, producer 'Tolly' De Grunwald and director Anthony 'Puffin' Asquith devised a portmanteau contraption. Dick and Liz's affair was only one strand. MGM financed a huge reproduction at Borehamwood of the main terminal at London's Heathrow Airport. The result was 'Grand Departure Lounge' or 'Takeoff at Eight'. LHR is shown as a still-luxurious portal to long-distance travel, not yet resembling either a transit camp or today's virus-haunted ghost town.
Would-be transatlantic passengers stranded by the weather include Orson Welles as a flamboyant European moviemaker, Elsa Martinelli as his latest squeeze, Rod Taylor as an Aussie tractor manufacturer and Maggie Smith as his perfect, torch-carrying secretary. Louis Jordan provides the third side of the Burton-Taylor triangle. Margaret Rutherford is a dotty duchess trying to raise money in the States to save her stately home.
This circus is ringmastered by Richard Wattis as a somewhat unctuous and irritating cicerone of 'VIPs'. Best remembered as Eric Sykes's and Hattie Jacques's neighbour on TV, he is one of several small-screen regulars whom it is pleasant to see in bit parts in a Panavision blockbuster: Dennis Price, Richard Briers, Reggie Beckwith, Ronald Fraser, Peter Sallis, Terence Alexander, Frank Williams, even Angus Lennie from 'Crossroads'. David Frost and Lance Percival were recent discoveries from late-night satirical TV.
The problem, as with some of Rattigan's weightier works, is uncertainty of tone: he does not know how far to endorse Wattis's sycophancy. There are hints of ridicule of the pomposity of wealth and privilege, but ultimately the film wallows in VIP-dom rather than puncturing it. The status quo, financial and amatory, is upheld throughout.
Most critics see Asquith's last films, this and 'The Yellow Rolls-Royce', as a falling-off from 'Cottage on Dartmoor' or 'Pygmalion' before the war. For all its lavish air, the picture is morally flabby.
That said, there is much to enjoy. Smith and Rutherford knock spots off Liz as a famous actress: Rutherford won a Best Supporting Oscar, and was reunited with Welles two years later as Mistress Quickly in 'Chimes at Midnight', her last big role. Rod Taylor is, as usual, a forceful he-man; Hollywood should have made more of him.
Burton and Taylor are at their handsome best: not yet ravaged by drink or over-ripe. RB's voice is thrilling to hear, though he spends most of the picture mooching about in overcoat and scarf as if in a power cut, while Liz continues to speak her lines in inverted commas. (She appears to have forgotten to remove her Cleo eye makeup.)
This is the kind of flick Laura of 'Brief Encounter' would have caught at an Odeon matinee, after a morning's shopping in town and lunch accompanied by Irene Handl's string quartet. Box of chocolates in the lap and try not to nod off before the ends are neatly tied up with pink ribbon.