I saw this film in a Queens movie theater in 1965 and always enjoyed it, both for it's humor, it's wonderful use of 1910 aircraft, and it's underlying reality in the nationalistic tensions of the day.

James Fox has been romancing Sarah Miles. He is a British Naval officer who has been one of the early experts on heavier than air flight. Miles is a suffragette type, the daughter of Press lord Robert Morley. Fox not only wants to marry Miles, but he wants to push for more government interest in aviation. Miles arranges for him to have lunch with her and her father, and Fox hits a nerve saying that while England rules the seas with it's great fleets, it does not rule the air. In his best blimpish manner, Morley looks straight ahead and says, "England should rule the air". He decides to set up a 10,000 pound prize for the first successful air flight between the world's two leading cities: London to Paris.

Actually no such flight race occurred in 1910, but it could easily have. Morley's Lord Rawnsley is modeled a little on the real life Lord Northcliffe, owner of the Times of London and also a booster of British supremacy. He frequently offered prizes for "firsts" (as did his American counterpart, William Randolph Hearst - whose 1910 prize for the first coast-to-coast flight spurred on Cal P. Roger's series of flights in the Viz Fin Flyer from the Atlantic to the Pacific). In 1909 a Northcliffe prize for the first plane to fly the English Channel was won by Louis Bleriot of France - an event that plays a small role in the Joan Fontaine melodrama IVY.

Soon the competitors show up. America is represented by Stuart Whitman (and his partner Sam Wanamaker). Fox is annoyed, after awhile, by Whitman's romancing Miles - and allowing her a plane ride (something her father had forbidden Fox to give her). Jean Pierre Cassels represents France. His time is spent preparing for the race and romancing a variety of young woman in France and England (all played by Irina Dimmick) who resemble each other and confuse him. Soon he is also involved with avenging the loss of Alsace Lorraine. The Kaiser has sent Gert Frobe and Karl Michael Vogler to win for the Fatherland. Cassels does everything he can think of to humiliate the Hun, and succeeds admirably. Alberto Sordi appears as an Italian nobleman (who is loyal to his wife - they have many children),who spends money on new aircraft. He is constantly buying experimental aircraft from a mad inventor (Tony Hancock). In one case his new plane is destroyed when it flies into the path of a pair of duelists aiming at each other. Japan is represented by Yujiro Ishihara (his name is Yamamoto, which suggests far ahead coming events). And Fox is not the only English contestant. Gordon Jackson is another, but worse is Terry-Thomas.

Usually playing the comic "bounder" part, Terry-Thomas had his best bounder in this film and it's sequel MONTE CARLO OR BUST, which deals with the first Monte Carlo Rally in 1923. Here he plays Sir Percy Ware-Armitage, a manufacturer of dubious reputation, but great wealth, who is interested in the glory of winning the prize (not so much for his county but for himself). In the sequel he was Ware-Armitage's son Cuthbert, who was equally a bounder but interested in automobile development. Ware-Armitage constantly forces his valet - all purpose servant (Erik Sykes) to do his bidding by blackmail in sabotaging all the other competitors.

We watch all these characters collide with each other and other secondary characters (such as Benny Hill, as the head of the fire department that is taking care of disasters on the aviation field the race is to start from). And we are aware of the limitations of each pilot, and their aircraft, until they take off on their flight. Who will win, and why? I won't go into it, but the results are comical and the film seems to hint at the set up for 1919. It is a comical gem, even using Red Skelton at the start as a historical wing flapper who keeps meeting disasters from the stone age to the Wright Brothers, but still is considering his options in the age of supersonic jets.

In 1910, the Brit, Lord Rawnsley (Robert Morley),announces that there will be a race from London to Paris. So, amateur pilots from various nations arrive in order to try to claim the prize--flying the very slow and flimsy planes of the day. Much of the film simply consists of the things leading up to the race itself--and the race doesn't even begin until 97 minutes into the movie! The film is meant to be a comedy. Some of it is quite funny (such as Gert Fröbe making march music as he walks about trying to be a VERY German officer) and much of it is very broad (the chase scene with the runaway plane). During all this, Terry-Thomas plays a Dick Dartardly or Professor Fate sort of jerk--cheating and sabotaging his way towards the prize. For me, the best thing about the film are the wonderful old planes they recreated for the film--and with such slow planes, the mid-air sequences were exciting to watch. But as for the humor and plot, they were only mildly diverting.

My advice is to skip this film and watch a similar but MUCH better film that came out only about two weeks after this film. "The Great Race" was simply funnier and the plot worked much better--whereas "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" was very uneven and episodic. Not bad--but not great either.

By the way, if you do watch it, look for the scene where Terry-Thomas' plan is stuck on a train. If you look behind him, you'll see a VERY modern power plant--and it appears to be a nuclear one...in 1910 France!!

THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES is a very simple and straightforward comedy. It's like one of those all-star car race movies such as THE CANNONBALL RUN, with the twist that all of the participants are pilots competing in a London to Paris air race. There are shades of AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS as well in the premise, and the period setting allows for lots of wallowing in nostalgia in the form of old-fashioned wooden biplanes.

What this is most of all, however, is a comedy based around ethnic stereotypes. Thus we have the oily Frenchmen, the pompous Germans, the eccentric Japanese, and the brash Americans. However, this British film is oddly inoffensive as the bulk of the laughs are at the Brits themselves, with James Fox and Terry-Thomas as the upper-crust, stuck up pilots. An ensemble cast and lively pace makes this an effortless viewing experience, although I did find the humour had dated somewhat in the decades since it came out.