Q Planes

... instead it is a fun little espionage piece with a witty script with its tongue placed firmly in its cheek. Set during the tense years preceding the outbreak of WWII, the Brits are losing experimental aircraft (the titular Q Planes) in mysterious circumstances, and Ralph Richardson's character is head of a government agency out to discover whats really going on, whilst Valerie Hobson is seemingly a spy for a foreign power, trying none-too-subtly to extract information from a bemused, cynical test pilot played by Laurence Olivier just before he headed off to bigger things.

The tone of the film is set from the initial scene, which opens with a composed, but confused Richardson trying to work out what he's doing in a trashed room, why he's surrounded by police, and what the heck his own name is.

Aside from a fun plot & great cast, there are some neat period aircraft up for viewing, for those with an interest in such things. Some other interesting tidbits that Wikipedia turned up are that airfield shots in the film were filmed at Brooklands (an early center of aviation & motor racing) and that the film was apparently based off actual events where the British government believed that the Germans were behind the downing of an experimental plane over the English Channel, so they helped fund this movie to let the Germans know that they were on to them, without any messy diplomatic unpleasantness being needed.

The young Oliver and Richardson -- especially Richardson -- are obviously having a ball in this mix of spies, high adventure, and tongue in cheek comedy According to Michael Powell, the two stars tore up the script, and devised their own scenes, and the pleasure they have in sending up the material, and in each other's work, shines through. (In fact, once or twice, Oliver seems to be trying not to crack up at Richardson's antics.) Patrick Macnee says he based The Avengers' John Steed on Richardson's character in this film, and that, too, shows. Thrills, spills,secret rays, gags and eccentric British characters, and villains from a country suspiciously reminiscent of Germany, but not named in 1938.

When newly developed planes being disappearing during testing with no trace a police Inspector and a test pilot begin to look into the possibility of espionage within the company.

Wartime dramas are very much of a standard affair – feel good affairs where we beat the Germans. This is very much one of those – the story is very flimsy and unlikely but it manages to have plenty to commend it. The story is carry by the comedy and the characters that make you overlook the sheer unlikely way in which the planes vanish. The story progresses to the inevitable shootout between the Brits and the Germans but on the way there's plenty to enjoy.

The film is mainly saved by a wonderful performance by Ralph Richardson as the inspector – he is funny from the first scene and his character is wonderfully charming and forgetful. Olivier is also good, but it's not his best! The supporting cast of sassy women and foolish businessmen also add to the mix to make for an enjoyable romp.

Overall this isn't a classic but the comedy and a superb Richardson makes this better than the sum of it's parts.

You really can't go wrong with Ralph Richardson in a cast, and it holds true with "Clouds Over Europe," a 1939 film that also stars Laurence Olivier and Valerie Hobson.

It's pre-WW II, and Richardson plays a secret service man in England who is convinced that a series of missing planes from diverse places is no accident. He's convinced the planes are being sabotaged, but by whom, and why?

Olivier plays one of the pilots, and he's funny as well as handsome. Valerie Hobson is a reporter in an adversarial relationship with Olivier. She turns out to be related to someone else in the film.

But it's Richardson who steals the show with his eccentric portrayal of Major Charles Hammond, a man who always forgets his umbrella and returns for it. He helps to give this affair a lightheartedness that makes it enjoyable.

Recommended for its very good British cast.

A secret British aviation project is being disrupted by a foreign power. Agent Charles Hammond (Ralph Richardson), is assigned the case. What follows is an espionage thriller that refuses to take itself seriously. Yet strangely, this odd mixture of screwball comedy and political potboiler actually works.

"Q Planes" (released in the U. S. as "Clouds Over Europe") was directed by an American, Tim Whelan. He establishes an anarchic tone throughout. He satirizes what his contemporaries considered too serious to examine lightly. In the story, British experimental aircraft are being "electronically" hijacked right out of the sky. The culprits' nationality is never identified, but you can guess their origin as soon as they speak their lines in that thick Teutonic accent.

The dialogue, much of it written and improvised by Richardson and his co-star Laurence Olivier, is crackling and smart. The action, though wildly improbable, is as unreal and stylized as the characters. The joker in the deck is Hammond himself. He boasts of his own considerable skills as a solver of crimes, crossword puzzles, and lovers' squabbles. Despite such brashness, Hammond is never tedious. Richardson plays him as an eccentric of many shades - horse-racing addict, amateur master chef, verbal wit extraordinaire, constant belittler of his valet (Gus McNaughton), and a man whose obsession with his case causes him to repeatedly ignore his beloved Daphne (Sandra Storme), the single character who bests Hammond in the film's fittingly ironic conclusion.

Hammond is aided on the case by his intrepid sister-reporter, Kay (Valerie Hobson), and a temperamental test-pilot, Tony McVane (Laurence Olivier), whom Kay picks up while snooping around an aircraft factory. Kay's character, a caricature of the working English suffragette, holds her own when competing with her two male cohorts - McVane, who hates reporters no matter their gender and Hammond, the egoist-as-detective ("I'm right - and the whole world is wrong!"). As if any enemy country could measure up against single representatives of MI-5, Fleet Street, and the RAF.