Q Planes (1939) [Comedy] [Thriller]
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- čas přidán 1. 08. 2012
- "Q Planes" (1939) released in the United States by Columbia Pictures as "Clouds Over Europe", is a British spy film directed by Tim Whelan and Arthur B. Woods, starring Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier and Valerie Hobson. The film was produced by Irving Asher with Alexander Korda as executive producer. The name "Q Planes" may have been derived from the British "Q-ships" that were used as spy and armed merchant vessels in the First World War. The film was helmed by American director Tim Whelan (Sidewalks of London (1938) and later, in 1940, co-director of The Thief of Bagdad) who was then in Britain working for Korda at Denham Studios.
"Q Planes" (or in its American guise, "Clouds Over Europe") mixes the genres of spy thriller and comedy romance, and was intended to be a star vehicle for Olivier, but Richardson dominates much of the screen with a sardonic take on a spy, either working for Scotland Yard or British Military Intelligence. Released just months before the United Kingdom declared war on Germany in 1939, the film is a precursor to the "strongly nationalistic, anti-German films that would reach their zenith in Britain during the war years".
Advanced British aircraft prototypes carrying experimental and highly secret equipment being developed under government contract, are regularly vanishing with their crews on their test flights. No one can deduce the problem, not even spymaster Major Hammond (Ralph Richardson) or his sister Kay (Valerie Hobson), a newspaper reporter who is working undercover in the works canteen used by the crews at the Barrett & Ward Aircraft Company.
At first, Major Hammond is seen as an outsider at the aircraft factory, even by Mr. Barrett, the owner (George Merritt), but he soon finds a friend in a star pilot, Tony McVane (Laurence Olivier) who helps him try to unravel the case. Hammond becomes convinced that the company secretary at the factory, Jenkins (George Curzon) is a foreign agent and "mole", but Jenkins is killed by unseen gunmen before he can give up the names of his contacts.
The mystery remains unsolved when McVane returns to the aircraft factory, determined to make the next test flight. His aircraft, like the others, is brought down by a powerful ray beamed from the S.S. Viking, a mysterious salvage ship manned by a foreign crew. Along with his aircraft, McVane and his flight crew are taken hostage on the ship, where he discovers many other missing airmen have suffered the same fate. Gathering up weapons, McVane leads the British survivors in an attempt to take control of the ship. Major Hammond learns the truth and directs a Royal Navy ship (HMS Echo) to come to their rescue. In a short coda, Kay and McVane get together and Hammond learns, to his chagrin, that his longtime lady friend has married.
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Directed by Tim Whelan and Arthur B. Woods, produced by Irving Asher (producer) and Alexander Korda (executive producer), written by Brock Williams, Jack Whittingham and Ian Dalrymple, starring Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier and Valerie Hobson.
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Source: "Q Planes" Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 7 May 2012. Web. 3 August 2012. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_Planes.
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One of my favourite films. Richardson's character is a scream - and part of the inspiration for John Steed.
Good lord, yes.
Of course you are right. Thank heavens! What a waste otherwise.
What an unbelievable cast, with Olivier, Hobson & Richardson. It can't get any better than that. The movie is pretty good too! Thanks for posting.
Good story, good dialog, good directing, good acting, VERY GOOD movie! Thanks!!
The fast-paced, lively dialog and the charming, charismatic performance of Ralph Richardson keep this movie at full tilt the whole way through! Richardson was never better! A real delight, indeed. I could never tire of his witty acting.
I ❤ Richardson! Have never seen him this young before!
Great fun! Richardson could play any part brilliantly. Thank you, TCM.
Richardson AND Olivier!!!!......fantastic 💜👍
I've never heard of this film before but what a lot of good, clean fun. I've always said this was one of the best CZcams channels. Obviously, I WAS RIGHT! 🙋😉Carry on! LL
Fun movie! Great banter.
I only just discovered it, while watching a documentary about 'The Avengers' TV series.
The character of the Major, as played by Ralph Richardson, was cited as an inspiration for the bowler-wearing, umbrella-toting character John Steed.
Wonderful film ! I'm a big fan of the 60's TV show The Avengers. Heard in a BBC radio program that Ralph Richardson's character of Major Charles Hammond was the model for John Steed played by Patrick Macnee.
There's a comic book of it.
Seriously? Cause I find this movie to be boring and like all pre-war british movies, Orwellian.
This isn't the Avengers by a long shot
A bit more ads than usual, but despite that, I really enjoyed this movie. I love finding little known gems like this
Thank you Timeless Classic Movies for a really fun movie showcasing what looked to be Tesla EMP' technology.
Most of Alexander Korda's London Film Company releases came through United Artists. British to the core, even with an American director. And Sir Ralph Richardson is his usual self, breaking the fourth wall at the end.
Fabulous. Slow the speed to 0.75 otherwise you miss Sir Lawrence's magnificent round tones
Fun one. Ralph was great. I'm not used to seeing him with such a fast delivery.
the speed change to .75 instead of normal makes quite a difference in the speaking voices their motions are also slowed down just a bit. such an old movie but holds your interest thru out the whole movie. i have never seen this one before great movie, very happy that you loaded it for us to watch. great program.
It worked great thanks
Thanks for the tip!
Until now I have always sped up some movies. Especially newer ones which have little dialog and what there is is simplistic. But slower works here.
What a great treat to see Lawrence Olivier at the beginning of his career, before he would be credited as Sir Lawrence Olivier. He must have been knighted later in his career. I never heard of this movie but it's a gem! I have what I believe is Sir Lawrence Olivier's final performance co-starring Dustin Hoffman in "Marathon Man."Lawrence Olivier played a Nazi war criminal in what had to be one of his best performances. Thank you for posting this wonderful movie. If you look at the opening credits Olivier's name is at the top.
I agree, literate and succinct, without giving anything away. It's very difficult to do. Thank you so much for downloading.
oh my my my, that speed change is so very subtle and yet with it i can understand whats being said by everyone, i never knew we were able to change the playback speed at all, i am going to try this on more videos when i am having trouble understanding them.. excellent movie especially when slowed down by 25%..
Topclass movie; I will have to see it again with the lower speed setting suggested below. I was wondering why everyone was talking so fast! Thanks for the suggestion, and thanks a million for uploading this gem!!!!
Everyone was talking fast because that was the way good comedy was done. I guess modern-day Americans need to slow it down (or read subtitles) because they have trouble with an accent and comprehending witty English banter,
Some of the banter is truly hard to understand
I saw this one on a midnight to dawn movies session a few years back.
It struck me then as it does now, that the plot of "The Spy Who Loved Me" is very similiar to this.
More flash in the Bond version, but basically the same plot as "Q Planes".
Thank you for posting this movie. I really enjoyed it.
Thanks for the background about this movie as well as the WW2 history as it was unfolding.
Wonderful film and truly enjoyed Ralph Richardson!
Good fun! Two of my favorite British leading men in a silly, light-hearted romp! Good show!
Produced just before Hitlers little romp through Europe.!
I wholeheartedly agree with the other posts...an excellent, intelligent movie; with great writing and great performances by all.!!
This was fun. Glad I found it.
A Good,rather long,drawn out film,however,it Was Wothwhile to See!! ALL of the Actors were Quite marvelous in their parts! Thank You4 Sharing Movie!!
what a gem of a film
Outstanding!!
Bravo! Love this film. Witty, attractive and spontaneous in execution. Thank you for the upload. Picked up my spirits and put a smile on my face. Am subscribing. Diana/Chicago, Illinois USA
Diana L. Clausen b
This particular video is more enjoyable when played at 75% speed via settings. Then you're good to go.
Thanks for excellent tip
great spoof:very well acted all around - & funny!
WHT A NEW WAY TO WIN A WAR ...WITH HUMOUR, THOROUGHLY ENJOYED THIS MOVIE. THANK YOU.
What a enjoyment it is to listen to the correct RP.
Bravo! Loved it.
Beautiful, thank you! Very funny, gripping,.
Agree w all. Thanks for posting.
Can’t stop Python’s North Minehead sketch running in my head
What a super movie thanks for upload!
Well written.
Invisible beam weapon that can shoot out an airplane's engine at range. Based on Marconi's concept for a radio frequency Death Ray (microwave LASER). This is the reason the US government legitimately offered a million dollars to anyone who could kill a goat at a thousand yards with a directed energy weapon*. The romance and comedy are strictly cultural period pieces, but the background premises are quite good.
*This project produced more disgruntled goats than any other event in history until Goat Simulator 2 dropped.
Disgruntled goats.... I like it!
Super Movie!!! Good script and great pieces of humor with thrills too. This is excellent example of when Hollywood wasn't AntiAmerica AntiChristain AntiFreedom agendas! Just a good lite humor good vs evil movie! Thank You for sharing!!!
It's a British film.
Laurence Olivier in a RomCom? Who would have thought it?
THANK you
Had to watch. Supposedly the Richardson character. Was a partial inspiration for the John Steed character. For the TV show The Avengers.
Great movie!
The music, where Ralph Richardson overhears the compact girl, at the theatre, is the same as that used in ballroom of the Dorchester (a-hem Royal Parks) Hotel, Park Lane, in *The Divorce of Lady X*. Also, the scene when Richardson, as a drunken Lord Mere, struggles to understand the puzzling comments of Logan (Olivier), his barrister pal, as wends his drunken way home, is parodied in Q-Planes, when as agent Major Hammond, he heads for home, repeating *I’m right; I know I’m right*, as he goes.
Any movie with Lawrence Oliver I'm in ❤❤
Very different films -- Tartu and Q Planes. Donat is vintage Donat and hard to tell from his performance ion the 39 steps. Ralph Richardson here is really special with the quick, light Brit repartee with Olivier and Hobson having a Preston Sturges quality that Tartu lacks completely.
I love these old movies - from the acting (and sometimes lack thereof) to the often hackneyed plots. Enemy is able to create a super-ray that can disable an entire airplane, yet they need to steal British aircraft designs?
Actually, that's pretty true to life, as it turned out. German organizations were usually unwilling to share their knowledge with other groups that could have benefited from it. so I guess, in a way, this is sort of prophetic?
Cool old movies
Original running time was 1 hour, 22 minutes.
Suggestions about it being right at 0.75x speed are highly exaggerated.
Once upon a time, some movies ran at a faster pace naturally.
If you're watching this for the first time, just started and are reading the comments, don't. Run it at normal speed and enjoy the ride.
Oi, collective call to all who suggested speed at 0.75!! Big thanks! I thought it was OK at normal speed but this is better.
I came to that conclusion about the speed on my own early on, I could not have watched it otherwise.
Russ Gallagher .90? How do you get to .90?
Russ Gallagher where is the custom button.
@Russ Gallagher Thanks for the info on playing speed; much appreciated.
What a blast so enjoyable great acting and plot a classic gem thankyou ❤😂❤😂❤😂❤😂❤❤😂❤😂❤😂❤😂❤😂
GREAT SHOW
A little slow moving at first, and a bit hard to understand (the dialog was strained through poor speakers, no fault of the movie), but I am glad I stuck with it. I shall have to show this to my mother, she loves these old movies. It was witty, funny, and had just the right amount of espionage. I wonder if my grandfather ever watched it, he was a great viewer of old movies...
Still looking for classic British comedy movies I'd seen as a child. They were from Canadian television broadcasts from Winnipeg before US blocked signals. Featured a group of comedians who made several and were hilarious.
Snappy dialogue - almost like a Howard Hawks movie. I especially liked George Curzon who played Jenkins, the cowardly spy. Look for him in "Young and Innocent" starring Nova Pilbeam and Derrrek De Marnay. Look for him at the end as a mad drummer in black face - with a facial tick!
outstanding
i agreeably agree with all said
Superior quality acting from the entire team - including top bananas Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, with Valerie Hobson - the sole reason I only watch pre-war films on You Tube, because, in my personal opinion, *they don't make 'em like that today, sir*...and simply because they haven't got the raw material, in the shape of writers like Dalrymple, or seasoned proscenium-trained and experienced actors, as seen here.
1:12:26 Clever the way they shot all the enemy without putting a single bullet into the plane ;D
I can't cope with literary expressions haha
that was awesome!
hellonpluto “awesome” is so overused now it is meaningless. Look up it’s real meaning.
My goodness, just got to the bit when the machine on the ground was aiming at the aircraft.....Gosh that looks like something that was invented by Tesla. I could be wrong but it sure looks like it from all the books I have read...but then again this is just a film, so who knows...Cheers from Australia and thank you for uploading this.
Thanks Australia!!!!?
19:20 Didn't China try to this to one of our(Merica)surveillance plains last week? This movie was ahead of it's time.
The name is Q plane! We are waiting to discover the identity of Q. Q is top level Military
Intelligence. They are talking about who is selling out to the enemy...just like the deepstate has done with America today. Amazing. Nothing changes!
Q Planes (US Title “Clouds Over Europe” (1939), released UK 21 February 1939 (London), USA 15 June 1939 (New York City, New York), USA 20 June 1939, UK 28 August 1939, USA 13 June 1948 (Boston, Massachusetts) (TV premiere). 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 Blenkinsop; David Tree as Mackenzie; Sandra Storme as Daphne; Hay Petrie, Stage Door Keeper; Frank Fox as Karl; George Butler as Air Marshall Gosport; Gordon McLeod, The Baron; John Longden (as John Longdon) as Peters; Ronald Adam as Pollack - Aviation Engineer; Patrick Aherne, Officer; Eileen Bennett, Minor Role; Wallace Bosco, Bit part; Leslie Bradley, Major Hammond's Assistant; Henry Caine, Minor Role; Noel Dainton, Northern Salvage Company employee; Mark Daly as John - Factory Watchman; Roy Emerton, Viking First Mate; Derek Farr, Minor Role; David Farrar, Viking Bo'sun; Ian Fleming, Air Ministry Officer; Morland Graham, Captain of the Viking; Sally Gray, Minor Role; Alastair Hunter, E131 Co-pilot; Allan Jeayes, Minor Role; Colin Keith-Johnston, Tower Controller; Franklyn Kelsey, Inspector; John Laurie, Newspaper Editor; Herbert Lomas as Mattie - Fisherman; Raymond Lovell, Northern Salvage Company Manager; Miles Malleson, Bit part; Gertrude Musgrove, Barmaid; Reginald Purdell as Pilot; John Robinson, Navigator of E131; John Singer, Newspaper Boy; Lewis Stringer, Foreign Agent; Gregory Stroud as Stroud - Aviation Engineer; Jack Vyvyan, Police Sgt; Hal Walters, Cornish Car Driver.
What a very beautiful actress! VALERIE HOBSON.
She was married to John Profumo, Cabinet Minister involved in the Christine Keeler sexual-political scandal. No accounting for tastes!
Terrence Ritchie Agree, she was beautiful and so quick witted. Fun to watch.
Unfortunately MISSING 5 minutes, this is the usa cut with the original UK title.
listening to the opening "overture"; how did such a schlocky movie get such a great orchestra? you never know, huh? the best part would be the bloopers from this film that ended up on the cutting room floor ;)
Bond , Submarines , a Kiel , Supertanker . I see a few similarities ( even w.o. Messr . Horriblenibble & Dr. Evil's "Pops" ) .
Entertaining movie. Closed captioning hysterically bad.
Good movie. It was rather strange in its humor.
An unexpected pleasure.
This is a neat little pic, esp. since it's an action thriller of the '30s (how many of those were made?). I just now stumbled upon this, although I've seen another pairing of Olivier and Richardson, _The Divorce of Lady X_, dozens of times. (Please find it--someone has it posted--if you haven't; it's very funny and sweet.) With all the repeat actors and musical nods between this and Divorce, I was half expecting Merle Oberon to pop up in a bit part.
We called them serials. They were everywhere.
September 1, 1939, England and France declare war with Germany. What a frightening aspect, they don't make people like this anymore.
Even though I'm an American I keep getting videos on English aviation companies history. The aviation executive prophetically nailed some of problems at 7:00 mark.
Yes, I know English is synonymous with British if it applies.
This movie was long, drawnout to near boredom, and sprinkled with that lovely Orwellian speak that pre-war England had already started to adopt.
Nothing filmed in England matters if it's in B&W cause that's the color of that island. Honestly if I grew up in Britain in the '30s, I would have killed myself or hopped the first boat to America.
The bad guys in Black & the good guys in White!
Well done that man.
LASER . . . of course!
In North America version put "Released by Columbia Pictures Corporation"
Right-on, oh great one ! Laurie Olivier was much better in comedies, in my honest opinion, than he appeared to be when doing Shakespeare, because in the former he was closer to his own delightful and outgoing persona.
this move just shows don't marry your job. you might lose the one that you work so hard for.
The English and the French make the chattiest movies in the world, yakkety yakkety yakkety. And the Italians just slap each other silly and cry. O Dio!
It's called acting.
Excellent upload.......Olivier....Pulp-ish late 30's superweapons...good womens' dialogue.....good pace...thx: DS
***** .....some are.....there are a few on this channel......-try
'Undying Monster' [1940 ].....I'm studying Machinist videos now and can't finish this film......
entertaining film
Olivier was the Brando of his time...
In many ways better than the Bond films, which were patterend after this spy thriller.
I'm almost sorry after watching a great movie like that because that is one less to see. Although my favorite British period actor is Robert Donat (his 1943 spy film Adventures of Tartu AKA Sabotage Agent is easily as good as this), Ralph Richardson is perfect here, (and Valerie Hobson too).
Richardson is very young here.
I love the outspoken newspaper reporter.
_Screw military intelligence, print every thing you can get your hands on._
"Do you think I like writing about them, when I knew them?"
It was her first day on the job - serving them coffee! Give me a break.
Yea, Edward Snowden in the flesh.
,Toby Smith
Love Major Hammond. They simply do not make movies this great anymore. Tragic.
how did the wheels get lowered after the crash?
I like the feminist undertone of the working girl defending herself but falling for that man, they are sure to have fun all their lives defining their roles! A great old movie bravo!
Olivier is a pretty good shot with a .303 Vickers, especially about a day after he didn't even know how to switch off a pistol's safety catch.
Whatever happened to "Loose Lips Sink Ships"? No security whatsoever onsite at the factory!
+shrinebox You can say that again.
Interesting movie, but way, way, way too many commercials!
WOW! Nicely done. Almost too much info. But its got WW2 planes and thats fine with me. william Childress
Seeing that crane picking up that plane out of the water...'no trace' of it on radar search...
Does that happen?
DOES ANYONNE KNOW THE NAME OF THE PERSON DEPICTED IN THE BUST THAT RALPH RICHARDSON RAISES HIS GLASS TO AT 9:16?
Although the image is hard to see, I'm guessing that it's William Pitt the Younger (1759 - 1806) who was Prime Minister of Great Britain when they were fighting Napoleon. Compare his portrait on Wikipedia///seems a pretty close match!
I think it's the German Chancellor.
Ahhh....they dont make them like that anymore !!!