The VIPs *** (1963, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Louis Jourdan, Margaret Rutherford, Orson Welles, Maggie Smith, Peter Sallis, Rod Taylor, Linda Christian, Elsa Martinelli) – Classic Movie Review 5557

Director Anthony Asquith and screen-writer Terence Rattigan’s Grand Hotel-type 1963 multi-drama soap opera movie takes place in a fog-bound London Airport, and stars Richard Burton as Paul Andros, a tycoon whose wife Frances Andros (Elizabeth Taylor) is eloping with aging international playboy Marc Champselle (Louis Jourdan).

Glossy, efficient and plush, this dinosaur of a film is undeniably entertaining escapist fluff, with the grandly theatrical turns from the real-life jet-setting star couple upstaged by the show-stealing support performers.

Indeed, the film’s fun rating is thanks mostly to the endearing playing of the character actors, especially Margaret Rutherford (who won a best supporting actress Oscar) as a dotty duchess (The Duchess of Brighton) scared of flying for the first time, an on-form Orson Welles as film mogul Max Buda and a campy Maggie Smith as loyal secretary Miss Mead.

Like an over-expensive present bought at the airport shop, it is all highly professionally assembled by Rattigan and neatly packaged by MGM, acceptable and unobjectionable but a bit bland and soul-less.

Also in the iconic Sixties cast are Rod Taylor as self-made Australian businessman Les Mangrum, Linda Christian, Elsa Martinelli as starlet Gloria Gritti, David Frost, Michael Hordern, Lance Percival, Martin Miller, Robert Coote, Dennis Price, Richard Wattis, Ronald Fraser, Joan Benham, Clifton Jones, Stringer Davis (Rutherford’s real-life husband as the Hotel Waiter), Moyra Fraser, Terence Alexander, Reginald Beckwith, Arthur Howard, Richard Caldicot, Joyce Carey, Richard Briers, Peter Illing, Frank Williams, Clifford Mollison, Alan Howard and Peter Sallis (as the Doctor).

It was filmed at Heathrow Airport and MGM British Studios, Borehamwood.

Peter Sallis died on 2 June 2017, aged 96. He carried on working till he was 90: ‘I’ve been lucky enough to keep going and I realise now, though it’s taken me nearly 100 years, that my voice is distinctive. I’m very lucky indeed.’

Elsa Martinelli died on 8 July 2017, aged 82.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5557

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