Movie: Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines

As a kid I was enthralled with all the 1910-era planes in this 1965 movie, and recently thought about the movie again probably due to my researches into ornithopters.

Some of the planes were models, but six of them were real flying reproductions.  Period cars also abound, and a banked race track was built for them.  Sara Miles is of course dishy and I'd forgotten James Fox (co-star of Performance) also stars. And Terry Thomas!

The plot is kinda breathless, but it's not a Mel Brooks breathlessness.  There was a real London-to-Manchester air race in 1910, but it was only two flyers.  Here it is expanded to fourteen, and to Paris.

I was somewhat disappointed with that one. It had a terrific cast, and big publicity, and for me didn't really deliver the laughs.

Now, The Great Race, with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, came out when I was about 11, and I got to see it at the movies, and pretty much laughed myself sick. Not so funny since I got older, but still better than the fliers.