Time Flies

I liked it. It's a cute little movie. Miss Dall was the spark in it that kept it going. The ending could have been better, maybe left open the possibility of other adventures (a sequel or two). Would be nice to make a modern version. Maybe going back or forward to a few different places in time with some chase scenes and twists and turns, like losing one of the characters in an era and then returning to rescue them before an unfortunate event. I'm tired of all the special effect movies now-a-days with no real plot and aren't funny, that are violent and very forgetful. The effects used in the movie were nice considering they were from the forties.

A quirky attempt at science fiction by Gainsborough Pictures. The mind boggles at what Goebbels must have made of this piece of fanciful wartime escapism if he ever saw it!

A zany time travel comedy that begins and ends in New York (hence the 'topical' jokes about Roosevelt and Walter Winchell) concerning a time machine that takes Tommy Handley back to the court of Queen Elizabeth; like a 'Dr Who' adventure played for laughs.

Referred to by it's inventor Felix Aylmer as 'The Time Ball', the time machine itself - with the possible exception of marking Graham Moffatt & Moore Marriott's final screen appearance together - is the most memorable aspect of the film (presumably the work of veteran art director John Bryan), whose equivalent it functions as of the Tardis. Resembling a flying bathysphere; the few effects shots of it in flight being obviously cheap but nevertheless satisfying.

The professor (Felix Aylmer) is showing Susie (Evelyn Dall) around his time machine when it accidentally takes off with Tommy (Tommy Handley) and Bill (George Moon) also on board. They are transported to Elizabethan England where they come across Walter Raleigh, William Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth 1, Captain John Smith and Pocohontas. Will our time travellers return?

The film has genuinely funny moments, eg, Dall feeding Shakespeare with his lines, and entertaining dialogue, eg, Handley calling someone a "tosspot". However, the film also has tedious sections which drag, eg, the escape sequence at the end where the time machine is on the bonfire. The music sections are pleasant but forgettable and Evelyn Dall comes across as the best character. Watch for an amusing portrayal of Pocohontas from Iris Lang - she can outdrink Oliver Reed. Overall, it's an OK film but it is made in that British silly way where the comedy relies on music-hall style one-liners and you know that no-one is ever in danger of any kind.

It is curious that 2 time travel films appeared within months of each other.This film and Fiddlers Three.I prefer the later.Though it has to be said that Handley transfers better to film than Trinder.However the script in this film is variable.It was to be the last film of Handley and the last pairing of Marriott and Moffat

This is an amusing film, with a surprisingly early use of the concept of a time machine (Hungary's Sziriusz, from 1942, predates it), invented by professorial Felix Aylmer and crookedly financed by lovable scoundrel Tommy Handley. Thanks to a chapter of accidents, they go back in time to the sixteenth century, together with a vaudeville double act, the excellent Evelyn Dall and quite good George Moon. Presumably they hoped the film would get a US audience, as the modern-day bookends are set in a New York made of cardboard, all the money is in dollars and all the Elizabethan characters are carefully explained by Moon reading out of an encyclopedia.

Between them they give Shakespeare the lines for Romeo and Juliet's balcony scene, teach Elizabeth I how to play Find the Lady, introduce Stephane Grapelli's troubadour to jazz, and give Sir Walter Raleigh his first smoke. Tommy can't stop himself swindling people, and sells America off to the English nobility, much to the chagrin of Captain John Smith. Smith is accompanied by a statuesque and politically incorrect Pocahontas (the virtually unknown Iris Lang in a wonderful performance), who is surprisingly able to drink everyone under the table. Moore Marriott appears fleetingly in a pillory, and there is a bit more of Graham Moffatt, in their last film together.

It is a surprise to realise that Handley made so few films. As a radio comic, his trademark was idiotic double talk and lame puns strung together almost too quickly for the audience to groan. His screen time is always confident and he is obviously the star. He even dominates the opening scene from behind a curtain. It's That Man Again brilliantly realised the surreal radio series ITMA for the screen, and Time Flies, released a year later, might easily have led to a film career, but this was his last full-length picture.

The humour is of course of its time - if you don't like the highly verbal wordplay popularised by British wartime radio, then you won't like Handley's scenes very much. But Handley almost matches Will Hay in his creation of a wily, despicable, cowardly, cheating and yet wholly likable petty crook, played without the remotest hint of sentimentality.