- Film Review
- Reviewed By Tony Sloman
-
4 out of 5
A host of international comedians don period garb, climb aboard wondrously ramshackle aircraft and dominate the screen over top-billed stars Stuart Whitman and Sarah Miles in this very entertaining comedy. Co-writer and director Ken Annakin keeps the action rattling along at a rate of knots and never slows the pace for the romance, allocating equal screen time to the different nationalities competing in the race. The glorious photography (by Christopher Challis) will inevitably be diminished on TV, but the wonderfully British robustness of the whole wacky premise can never be affected.
Plot Summary
Period comedy starring Sarah Miles, James Fox and Stuart Whitman. London, 1910: when a wealthy newspaper baron puts up a £10,000 prize for the fastest flight from London to Paris, he attracts eccentric competitors from all over the world, including a young navy flier who hopes to win both the race and the hand of the sponsor's daughter.
Cast and crew
Cast
- Patricia Rawnsley
- Sarah Miles
- Richard Mays
- James Fox
- Orvil Newton
- Stuart Whitman
- Count Emilio Ponticelli
- Alberto Sordi
- Lord Rawnsley
- Robert Morley
- Colonel Manfred Von Holstein
- Gert Fröbe
- Pierre Dubois
- Jean-Pierre Cassel
- Courtney
- Eric Sykes
- Sir Percival Ware-Armitage
- Terry-Thomas
- Harry Popperwell
- Tony Hancock
- Fire Chief Perkins
- Benny Hill
- Mother Superior
- Flora Robson
- George Gruber
- Sam Wanamaker
- McDougal
- Gordon Jackson
- Yamamoto
- Yujiro Ishihara
- Brigitte / Ingrid / Marlene / Françoise / Yvette / Betty
- Irina Demick
- Lieutenant Parsons
- Jeremy Lloyd
- Countess Sophia Ponticelli
- Zena Marshall
- Airline hostess
- Millicent Martin
- Tremayne Gascoyne
- William Rushton
- Narrator
- James Robertson-Justice
Crew
- Director
- Ken Annakin
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