Q Planes (1939) on Netflix
Approved19391h 22mComedyDramaMysteryThrillerWar
Test aircraft keep vanishing over the sea, crews and all. Major Hammond of the Secret Service investigates, while his sister Kay, a reporter, works undercover at the aircraft factory.
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- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.5/101,226 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Plot summary
Aircraft prototypes with secret equipment aboard are disappearing on test flights over the sea, and their crews go with them. The losses puzzle the authorities, and the makers of the newest plane treat them as coincidence. Major Hammond, a spymaster, comes to the Barrett & Ward Aircraft Company to look into the matter undercover, and the owner, Mr. Barrett, regards him as an outsider. Hammond finds an ally in Tony McVane, the company's star pilot, who joins the inquiry. Hammond's sister Kay is a newspaper reporter and is already inside the plant, waiting tables in the works canteen to pick up what she can.
Cast
- Frank Foxas Karl
Show all 20 cast
- Mark Dalyas John - Factory Watchman
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Q Planes (1939)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson, a decade into a fifty-year friendship, were in the middle of staging a theatrical Othello while making Q Planes, with Richardson in the title role and Olivier as Iago.
- According to producer Brian Clemens, Ralph Richardson's dapper, insouciant secret agent in Q Planes was named years later as the model for the bowler-hatted John Steed in the 1960s television series The Avengers.
- The American release added a new prologue showing the Commons, Parliament, the War Office and No. 10 Downing Street with a commentator's voice; executive producer Alexander Korda was Churchill's designated producer for the filmic de-neutralising of America.
- Ralph Richardson encouraged Laurence Olivier to take the role of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights with the advice "Bit of fame. Good." Q Planes was a quick job for Olivier, who was already bound for America.
