Pluskylang Great Film overall

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

jacobs-greenwood Directed by Anthony Asquith, and written by Terence Rattigan, this average drama earned Margaret Rutherford an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress on her only nomination. She plays an eccentric elderly British Duchess who is scheduled to partake in her first airplane flight, a transatlantic one to Florida, because she needs the money. The nervous, pill popping Duchess is perhaps the only passenger who is not upset that all the flights from the London airport are delayed indefinitely due to fog.The other passengers, played appropriately by an all star cast, each have their own reasons for wanting their flight to take off as soon as possible. The airport personnel, particularly the reception manager Mr. Sanders (Richard Wattis), and their friendly, accommodating behavior,give one a sense of days gone by.Elizabeth Taylor's character is inexplicably eloping with a shallow career gigolo, Louis Jourdan, ending her 13-year marriage with her too busy famous financier husband, Richard Burton. The only reason given is Jourdan's need for her versus her capable husband's lack of same. Pretty weak, isn't it?Orson Welles's character provides the comic relief as a famous foreign movie producer-director, who claims British citizenship, that needs to get out of the country before midnight to save $1 million in taxes. Since all flights are ultimately delayed until the next day, his moneyman's (Martin Miller, uncredited) fall back solution is for Welles to marry the bimbo actress (Elsa Martinelli) he's traveling with, to avoid paying the tax man.David Frost appears uncredited as one of the many reporters who hound the celebrities. Rod Taylor plays an Australian, who owns a tractor manufacturing business, that's just about sealed an acquisition (buying their #1 competitor?) deal that will solidify their company's success. However, he must get to New York immediately to complete the transaction and/or account for some last minute wrangling, lest he face some dire consequences. In the airport, he's accompanied by his trusty, proper secretary Miss Mead (Maggie Smith), who secretly loves him.For my money, actress Smith (in lieu of, if not) in addition to Ms. Rutherford should have been recognized by the Academy for her role, which provides the link between the two Taylors' story lines, through Burton's character.Ironically, in the end, the Duchess doesn't have to fly at all per an arrangement she makes with Welles's accountant.

mark.waltz Who needs a TV movie about Hollywood's greatest screen team when you have the real thing? Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, fresh from making headlines in Rome on "Cleopatra", quickly followed that up with this soapy women's picture about a business tycoon's obsession with his estranged wife, and the love a secretary has for her boss that results in her saving his business from a takeover. Elizabeth Taylor tones down the drama from her series of successful potboilers of the late 1950's and early 60's ("Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", "Suddenly Last Summer", her Oscar winning performance in the silly "Butterfield 8") while Burton is excellent as her demanding husband whose obsession moves between violence and tenderness. Playing the role that Burton had been portraying in real life ("the other man"), Louis Jourdan is the man Taylor is planning to marry once she gets rid of her unwanted husband. Pretty ironic considering the five years of scandal that Taylor had been undergoing since the Debbie/Eddie scandal.Rod Taylor seems to be utilizing an Australian accent to his role of a man on the verge of loosing his business while his shy but efficient secretary (Maggie Smith) quietly thinks of a way to save the day. Smith, rising slowly to stardom from here on in, had been around for a while in a couple of minor films, but mostly on stage. Her resemblance to Myrna Loy is quite eerie, and it is ironic that in 1976, she would be playing a parody of Loy's Nora Charles in Neil Simon's "Murder By Death". There is none of the acid tongued diva for which she became well known here, just a woman with a huge heart trying to find the courage to come out of her shell. The delightful Margaret Rutherford won the Academy Award for her performance as a chatty countess down on her luck, sort of a Marie Dressler "Dinner at Eight" grand dame that brings regalness to a delightful down-to-earth character.The weakest of the story lines is that of the film producer (Orson Welles) dealing with his star while preparing to fly to America from London. It seems to have been edited greatly, although his brief interaction with Rutherford towards the end does give it some purpose. The result is a mixed bag that audiences can enjoy even if it is far from perfect.

MartinHafer rare to hear Rod Taylor with his actual Aussie accent soapyWhile this movie has a big-name cast (including Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton) and it quite nicely made, at heart it's very much a soap opera. The story consists of the lives of several passengers who are awaiting the departure of a British Air flight overseas. However, because of fog, the flight is delayed and various subplots involving the passengers are played out during this time. One involves a woman (Taylor) who is leaving her husband (Burton) for a gigolo (Louis Jourdan). Another, a daffy old duchess (Margaret Rutherford) whose secret is only revealed near the end of the film. And another, a businessman (Rod Taylor) who is on the edge of complete ruin and his secretary who secretly loves him (Maggie Smith). In many ways, this film plays like a well made episode of "Love Boat" or "Hotel" or an old flick like "Grand Hotel". This is not meant disparagingly--just a way to describe the way the plots are all interconnected and work through the course of the film. Well written (if a bit broad) and enjoyable. Not a brilliant film but one that you can't help but be pulled into as it unfolds.

David Frieze The ironic thing about "The V.I.P.s" is that what was the big selling point for the film at the time it was released - the relationship between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton - is by far the most tedious, ill-conceived and even embarrassing thing about it. Terence Rattigan was a very popular British playwright in the 1940's and 1950's, and his plays are undergoing a revival in England this year (2011), but the entire Liz-Dick-Louis Jourdan love triangle is soap opera at its worst. The dialog is brittle and stilted, and the actors (Burton especially) are encouraged to suffer amidst luxurious surroundings. Without spoiling the ending, I will say that the final shot, which I assume was meant to be a happy ending, reminds me of the brilliantly ambiguous final shot of "The Graduate", which was not.It's a shame, too, because the other major plot line of the film, involving an Australian businessman trying to save his company with the help of his silently adoring secretary, is actually quite well done, despite the fairly clichéd plot line. The dialog is less artificial, and the performances by Rod Taylor and particularly Maggie Smith are superb. Rod Taylor was an under-appreciated actor, I think, much better than many of the vehicles he starred in. Maggie Smith is just one of the greats - it was when, as a teenager, I saw her in this and "Hot Millions" that I fell in love with her. In fact, the most electrifying and beautifully acted (and directed) scene in the film is the short but absolutely pivotal encounter between Smith and Burton.The Orson Welles storyline about a film producer trying to get out of England to avoid taxation is, frankly, a waste of time and film. Welles is entertaining, but nothing about the scene or his performance is anything more than skin-deep.Margaret Rutherford won her Oscar as a befuddled and broke old noblewoman trying to save her ancestral home. There's nothing in her performance that she hadn't done many times, and peerlessly, before, but she is very funny and, by the end, quite touching.The production values are sky-high, and there is a platoon of first-rate British character actors (and David Frost) in support of the elegant stars, but it's all a little like biting into a beautiful chocolate and finding the center to be stale and inedible.