Q Planes [Clouds Over Europe] **** (1939, Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Valerie Hobson, George Merritt, George Curzon) -Classic Movie Review 8,072

The 1939 spy comedy thriller Q Planes is stylish, pacy vintage entertainment, funded by the British Secret Service. Ralph Richardson has a whale of a time as an eccentric Scotland Yard inspector and spymaster solving the mystery of vanishing test planes.

Directors Tim Whelan and Arthur B Woods’s 1939 British black and white spy comedy thriller film Q Planes [Clouds Over Europe] is stylish, pacy vintage entertainment from the Alexander Korda London Films studios empire, with Ralph Richardson having a whale of a time as Major Charles Hammond, an eccentric Scotland Yard inspector and spymaster (‘I’m right, I’m right’) solving the mystery of vanishing experimental planes off Cornwall during test flights over the sea.

Enemy spies from an unnamed country are shooting the aircraft down with a super ray-gun to retrieve their secrets. Laurence Olivier is on hand to add lustre as Tony McVane, a test pilot in love with Charles’s sister, newspaper reporter Kay Hammond (the alluring Valerie Hobson), though their rather brittle performances have faded more than the rest of the film. However, Richardson’s brio performance remains a whole lot of fun, and it is his show, even though Olivier is top billed as star. Olivier was just about to go to America to film his hit Wuthering Heights, encouraged by Richardson: ‘Bit of fame. Good.’

It is handled, as comedy thrillers must be, with a deft lightness of touch while staying at full speed ahead in both plot development and the actors’ delivery of lines. A rather cheap-looking production with tatty sets (Vincent Korda) and static camerawork (Harry Stradling Sr) spoils the fun a little bit, but it is an entertaining movie just the same.

Also in the cast are George Merritt, George Curzon, Gus McNaughton, David Tree, John Longden, John Laurie, Hay Petrie, Sandra Storme, Frank Fox, George Butler, Gordon McLeod, Ronald Adam, Patrick Aherne, Eileen Bennett, Mark Daly, David Farrar, Derek Farr and Reginald Purdell.

Q Planes [Clouds Over Europe] is shot at Alexander Korda’s Denham Studios, Denham, Buckinghamshire, England, and on location at Brooklands Aerodrome, Weybridge, Surrey, England.

Olivier and Richardson were lifelong friends and had just done Othello on stage, with Richardson as Othello and Olivier as Iago.

Alexander Korda is executive producer and American Irving Asher produces. American director Tim Whelan was long in Britain, working for Korda at Denham Studios since 1932.

The name Q Planes recalls the First World War British Q ships, armed ships disguised as merchantmen, used as decoys to lure German U-boats.

Richardson’s character was the model for the British spy John Steed in the 1960s TV show The Avengers.

Q Planes is inspired by real events. In 1938, the Vickers Wellesley bomber prototype disappeared over the English Channel during a test flight. The Air Ministry asked the chief of the British secret service, Lord Vansittart of Denham, to search for it. Pieces of the wreckage were found, suggesting the plane had been shot down by a German U-boat.

The British Secret Service partly funded this film to let the Luftwaffe know they were onto them. Vansittart, a friend of Korda, asked him to make Q Planes and provided Secret Service funds to help the project. It is all the more surprising then that the film is the last of the Hitchcock-style neutral Britain spy comedies, with the obviously German enemy un-named.

Korda was Winston Churchill’s designated appointee in the film area of de-neutralising America. So Q Planes was released in the US on 30 June 1939 as Clouds Over Europe, with a new opening that reflected an ever-increasing possibility of war with Nazi Germany. It began with shots of Parliament, the War Office, the India Office and 10 Downing Street, with a commentary about empire, trade and population statistics, and the wisdom of Britain’s leaders. Of course, then the jaunty spy comedy Q Planes began.

The cast are Laurence Olivier as Tony McVane, Ralph Richardson as Major Charles Hammond., Valerie Hobson as Kay Hammond, George Curzon as Jenkins, George Merritt as Barrett, Gus McNaughton as Bleinkinsop, David Tree as R. MacKenzie, Sandra Storme as Daphne, Hay Petrie as Stage Door Keeper, Frank Fox as Karl, George Butler as Sir Marshall Gosport, Gordon McLeod as The Baron, John Longden as John Peters, Ronald Adam as Airline Designer Pollock, Ian Fleming as Air Minister, Reginald Purdell as Pilot, Roy Emerton as SS Viking First Mate, David Farrar as SS Viking Mate, John Laurie as Newspaper Editor, Raymond Lovell as Company Manager, and Leslie Bradley as Assistant.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8,072

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