Mountain FogRETROSPECT: Q PLANES (AKA CLOUDS OVER EUROPE)
October 20th 2009 08:34
Laurence Olivier leads an impressive case in Q Planes.
Thrillers produced by the British film industry during the Second World War were often pretty basic affairs. Gather yourself a brisk setup, some snarling Germans and a down-on-his-luck, reluctant hero – usually a mildly crippled former military man (pilots were best) – and you had some solid patriotic fare, easily digested by Britain’s keen movie-going public.
Innumerable such efforts were produced and revisiting them now can make for embarrassing viewing. But with such vast numbers of films being turned out, it’s perhaps no surprise there are at least a dozen that are still well worth investigating.
1939’s Q Planes is such an endeavour. It still features sinister Germans and a down-on-his-luck hero, but it also possesses a remarkable breeziness, refusing to take seriously both itself and the conflict that would soon engulf the United Kingdom.
The story centres on the theft of valuable British test planes by enemy agents. Laurence Olivier plays Tony McVane, a firebrand test pilot who has watched a number of his fellow airman go missing while flying the latest in British air technology.
It initially seems like a series of unfortunate accidents, but British secret service agent Major Charles Hammond (Ralph Richardson) is slowly piecing together a different theory, his suspicions falling on the Germans and their British-based sympathisers. It’s not long before McVane and Hammond are forced to team up, and together they devise a plan to crack the case of the missing test planes once and for all.
Straightforward stuff, and if produced by anybody else Q Planes most probably would have been a by-the-numbers thriller. But in the hands of Irving Asher and super producer Alexander Korda the film turned out to be a completely different beast.
Screenwriters Ian Dalrymple, Jack Whittingham, Brock Williams and Arthur Wimperis collaborated to forge a tight script that balanced thrills with humour, while Harry Stradling’s photography is generally first rate and features some impressive special effects work. For his part, director Tim Whelan encouraged the actors to improvise their dialogue and the result is some zinging exchanges.
Valerie Hobson and Laurence Olivier in Q Planes.
And that's where Q Planes’ packs its secret weapon in the form of the debonair and eccentric Ralph Richardson. The British actor would go on to have a long and successful run in both British and American film, but 1939 was still quite early in an accelerating career. As Major Hammond, Richardson steals the show from his co-stars – including Olivier – creating one of the most hilarious detectives ever to hit the silver screen.
Priceless scenes include the Major struggling to pick an umbrella and bowler hat from a wardrobe of identical items, and a series of harried phone calls with his girlfriend where he puts off one social engagement after another, a joke that’s funny in itself but pays off with some style in the film’s final moments.
Indeed, Richardson’s Hammond would have made an engaging protagonist for a series of similar films. That sadly never happened, but the character continued to have an influence within the British sphere of film and television, being the eventual inspiration for Patrick Macnee’s John Steed in The Avengers.
Still, perhaps familiarity would’ve bred contempt, and Richardson in Q Planes remains a giddy breath of fresh air from an era where the heroes in retrospect often seem terribly wooden. He contributes to one of the stronger films of those times, and when Q Planes floats by in the ‘Reduced’ bin at the DVD store or on late night public television you could do much worse than check it out.
| 53 |
| Vote |
Subscribe to this blog
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Yep, Richardson is an unfairly forgotten performer - I'd recommend anybody who doesn't know his work to check him out. Thanks for reading bro.