THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES, OR HOW I FLEW FROM LONDON TO PARIS IN 25 HOURS AND 11 MINUTES (1965) ** There are quite a few funny bits, and it's not difficult to watch, but most interesting is the manner in which nationalism is treated (major British production). With the biggest war gone those twenty years, the Japanese are effectively rehabilitated but not allowed to win. The Italians appear to be entirely silly but reproductive creatures, and the French represented as nearly shockingly normal if libidinous creatures. The American receives special treatment, as one should bestow on a cowboy hailing from mythical Arizona, offering just the right balance of immodesty and respect (the British weren't/aren't all entirely enthralled with their own class system, you know). The Germans are universally pompous, doddering, fat fools. So that's all a bit of fun, you see. Unfortunately the only character able to sustain interest for more than a line or two at a time is Zena Marshall, and she doesn't even get that. She does, however, wail and lament like the aristocratic version of an Italian farm girl, and that's wonderful in itself. They take up about two-thirds of the movie setting up the big race, and when it happens it's not all that much. A few humans impinging on some ducks, mainly. That and some romance that fails by the harsh light of any (in)decent honky-tonk.
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