Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes (1965) on Netflix
G19652h 18mAdventureComedyFamily
In 1910, Lord Rawnsley's newspaper backs a London to Paris flight contest with a £10,000 prize. His daughter Patricia is barred from flying, and American cowboy Orvil Newton enters the race.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.0/109,994 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes80%
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Plot summary
It is 1910, and powered flight is still new. Richard Mays, a Coldstream Guards officer, proposes a contest from London to Paris to push forward aircraft design, and Lord Rawnsley, who owns the Daily Post, puts up the money as publicity for his paper. Rawnsley's daughter Patricia, a suffragette, is forbidden to fly, though she wants nothing more than to be in the air. Invitations go out worldwide, and aviators gather at the Brookley Motor Racing Track to practice, among them Sir Percy Ware-Armitage, Colonel Manfred von Holstein, Count Emilio Ponticelli, Pierre Dubois and the American cowboy Orvil Newton. Newton takes an interest in Patricia, and he and her fiancé, Richard Mays, become rivals.
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes (1965)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Stuntman Ken Buckle inadvertently turned the throttle to full on a runaway motorbike and sidecar, launching himself through the retaining wall of the sloped Brookley racing track and into the adjoining cesspool off-camera. He escaped with only facial bruises and a dislocated collarbone, and the shot "was in the can".
- At 85 characters, the film's full title was the longest-titled film to be nominated for an Academy Award, a record that stood until the 2021 nominations for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.
- The two lead actors, Stuart Whitman and Sarah Miles, fell out early in production; director Ken Annakin said it began with an ill-timed pass by Whitman, who was married at the time. Miles "hated his guts" and rarely spoke to him afterward unless the script required it.
- Hancock had broken his leg off-set two days into filming, so Annakin wrote the injury into the story and the leg, bound in a cast, figured in a number of scenes.
- Dick Van Dyke was the first choice for the American lead, but his agents never contacted him about the offer, so 20th Century Fox contract star Stuart Whitman was selected instead.
- Editor Gordon Stone died in a car crash during post production on the film and had to be replaced by Anne Cotes.
- According to Fox records, the film needed to earn $15,300,000 in worldwide rentals to break even and made $29,950,000, while its $14,000,000 in United States rentals made it the fourth highest-grossing film of 1965.
- Zanuck settled on the title after Elmo Williams, managing director of 20th Century Fox in Europe, told him that his wife had written an opening for a song which Annakin complained would "seal the fate of the movie".
