In 1938, test planes with advanced, experimental features have been vanishing without a trace, yet the factory owner continues to insist they must all be the results of accidents, equipment failure, or sabotage. But eccentric espionage man Major Charles Hammond is certain enemy agents are involved, even though his own boss doubts it and is in a hurry to send him off to another assignment in the Middle East. While investigating undercover, he runs across Tony McVane, an outspoken test pilot who believes as he does, but also finds his own sister Kay has been spying on the plant in order to dig up a story for her newspaper. Before it ends, a plane flown by Tony is brought down by a secret weapon, several plane crews rebel against their foreign captors, and a British Destroyer ambushes the "salvage" ship involved. All the while, the film wildly bounces between serious thriller and outright comedy. What fun!
Ralph Richardson steals the film as "Hammond", whose interests include horse racing, crosswords and cooking; according to Patrick Macnee, "Hammond" was his model for "John Steed"! (I find it amusing that both Richardson and Macnee at different times played Dr. Watson.)
Laurence Olivier is "McVane", angry at his boss, angry at the idea of lady newspaper reporters, yet by the end even angrier at the foreign spies and takes a gattling gun to many of them, while also falling in love with Hammond's sister.
I recognized several other actor in this, including Gordon MacLeod as the chief Nazi (even if he's never identified as such); I'll always think of him as the best-ever "Inpector Teal" in 3 different SAINT movies around this time. There's also Ronald Adam & John Laurie, who both turned up in Cathy Gale AVENGERS episodes, a series this film shares so much in common with, more than 20 years before-the-fact.
Amazingly, one of the writers is Jack Whittingham, who collaborated with Ian Fleming on the unproduced screenplay, "Longitude 78 West", that Fleming turned into his next novel, "Thunderball". BOTH this story and that one involve enemy agents bringing down a plane over the ocean with somthing valueable onboard-- in this case, a prototype engine, in the latter, 2 atomic bombs.
Further, while the bulk of the film is very much like a prototype of an AVENGERS episode, the climax, where several captive crews are in a cell comparing notes, later turned up in the film YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967), while those same crews escaping and starting a running gun-battle with the villains turned up in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977)! The design of the "Marconi" ray looks like something out of THINGS TO COME (1936) or THE FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE (1958).
I never even heard of this film until a few weeks ago, but now I'm so glad I got my hands on a copy. I've always enjoyed Richardson as an actor, but this role of his is unlike anything I've ever seen him do.
I only now dearly wish someone would do a full restoration on it-- and much more importantly-- issue it on a BLU-RAY. As far as I know, the film is in Public Domain, as multiple small outfits have copies of it available. I got mine from "Reel Vault". The picture is crystal-clear, the sound mostly the same, and like their copy of the 1931 THE SPECKLED BAND (with Raymond Massey), the box art is very nice! There's only one major problem... it MUST be copied from a PAL disc, as it's running at THE WRONG SPEED. (The Region 2 DVD box sets I have of THE AVENGERS seasons 2 & 3 have the exact same problem.) For me, Blu-Rays are not so much about enhanced picture and sound quality-- but the fact that they're encoded to AVOID the old PAL-NTSC problem. Anyone who ever claims Blu-Ray technology "never caught on" is spouting utter nonsense! There are GREAT films and TV series from all over the world that deserve to be viewed in all countries, PROPERLY. This is one of them!
Ralph Richardson steals the film as "Hammond", whose interests include horse racing, crosswords and cooking; according to Patrick Macnee, "Hammond" was his model for "John Steed"! (I find it amusing that both Richardson and Macnee at different times played Dr. Watson.)
Laurence Olivier is "McVane", angry at his boss, angry at the idea of lady newspaper reporters, yet by the end even angrier at the foreign spies and takes a gattling gun to many of them, while also falling in love with Hammond's sister.
I recognized several other actor in this, including Gordon MacLeod as the chief Nazi (even if he's never identified as such); I'll always think of him as the best-ever "Inpector Teal" in 3 different SAINT movies around this time. There's also Ronald Adam & John Laurie, who both turned up in Cathy Gale AVENGERS episodes, a series this film shares so much in common with, more than 20 years before-the-fact.
Amazingly, one of the writers is Jack Whittingham, who collaborated with Ian Fleming on the unproduced screenplay, "Longitude 78 West", that Fleming turned into his next novel, "Thunderball". BOTH this story and that one involve enemy agents bringing down a plane over the ocean with somthing valueable onboard-- in this case, a prototype engine, in the latter, 2 atomic bombs.
Further, while the bulk of the film is very much like a prototype of an AVENGERS episode, the climax, where several captive crews are in a cell comparing notes, later turned up in the film YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967), while those same crews escaping and starting a running gun-battle with the villains turned up in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977)! The design of the "Marconi" ray looks like something out of THINGS TO COME (1936) or THE FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE (1958).
I never even heard of this film until a few weeks ago, but now I'm so glad I got my hands on a copy. I've always enjoyed Richardson as an actor, but this role of his is unlike anything I've ever seen him do.
I only now dearly wish someone would do a full restoration on it-- and much more importantly-- issue it on a BLU-RAY. As far as I know, the film is in Public Domain, as multiple small outfits have copies of it available. I got mine from "Reel Vault". The picture is crystal-clear, the sound mostly the same, and like their copy of the 1931 THE SPECKLED BAND (with Raymond Massey), the box art is very nice! There's only one major problem... it MUST be copied from a PAL disc, as it's running at THE WRONG SPEED. (The Region 2 DVD box sets I have of THE AVENGERS seasons 2 & 3 have the exact same problem.) For me, Blu-Rays are not so much about enhanced picture and sound quality-- but the fact that they're encoded to AVOID the old PAL-NTSC problem. Anyone who ever claims Blu-Ray technology "never caught on" is spouting utter nonsense! There are GREAT films and TV series from all over the world that deserve to be viewed in all countries, PROPERLY. This is one of them!