Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes

3/7/2015

So STRANGE that I get to write a first review of this movie. This movie, short handed to TMMTFM, is so much fun to watch, and on a DVD (or Blue Ray), you can pause it while you fetch your O2 bottle so that you do not turn blue. I will leave it up to proper aeroplanists as to whether or not this is good flying instruction. However, as a former unit Safety Officer, spotting safety hazards can be a real sport. I think I counted six at my last use/view. Researching material on the internet can be a real diversion. Although TMMTFM is about airplanes, automotive buffs can get a fix on some splendid specimens, that were before my time.

4/2/2026

I remember this was always on STV when I was a child, and so with all the adverts it ran to over three hours and so I’m not sure I’ve ever got to the end of it until now. Now that I have, I found it quite an enjoyable romp in the style of David’s Niven’s “Around the World…” from 1956. “Lord Rawnsley” (Robert Morley) is worried that British preeminence in the aviation race might, well, not actually exist. With French, German, Italian, Japanese and yes, even the old colonials across the pond taking the lead, he determines that something has to be done. A prize of £10,000 ($50,000) is to be offered to someone who can fly from London to Paris. Nowadays that takes about as long as it takes to neck a glass of wine, but here we are talking about it probably taking fifty times that amount of time