edwagreen The film, though a good one, seems to have a rushed up ending to draw to the climax as soon as possible. I guess that is called film budgeting.Ralph Richardson, in a way, is comedic here and that was something different for the veteran screen star. As the head of the bureau, he is often right exactly where the action is, while he has to constantly disappoint a female dinner date who can't get to tell him something.The film involves planes with special secretive equipment mysteriously disappearing throughout the world as the war clouds in 1939 are gathering. Laurence Olivier is one of the pilots and he makes sure that when one plane is downed, it doesn't have the necessary material leading the spy ring involved to kill the British employee who was in cahoots with them and thus opening a Pandora's box.Valerie Hobson is a waitress whose shifty eyes and questioning reveals that she is much more than a waitress- a newspaper reporter itching to get information on exactly what is going on. Coincidentally, she is the sister of the Richardson character and soon the love interest of Olivier.Would have rated this even higher had it not been for the rather quick ending to a sordid affair.

MartinHafer "Clouds Over Europe" (also known as "Q Planes") is a film that has been mischaracterized by some as a 'wartime' picture, though it actually came out several months before WWII began. Additionally, although the baddies in the film COULD have been Germans, no mention of their nationality is given and most have very British accents.Several experimental planes have been lost around the world. In each case, no trace of the planes ever turned up and the Major (Ralph Richardson) is convinced someone is behind this. But, inexplicably, the latest company that is the victim of such a loss seems amazingly sure that there is no conspiracy and they do their best to thwart his investigation. Good thing that a hot-shot pilot (Laurence Olivier) is out to help the Major.In some ways, it's a very good film. I love some of the main characters-- particularly the Major . When it comes to the characters, this is the big strength of the movie. He is very quirky and enjoyable to watch. The story idea also is quite nice. What is NOT so nice is how easily the baddies are beaten at the end of the film. Why would they allow the planes' crews to live and have ANY opportunity to fight back?! And, when the pilots are fighting back, why do NONE of the bad guys yell out for help when they notice the pilots have escaped from their jail?! Weird and sloppy...yet everything up until that is enjoyable and well done. With a better handled ending, it easily could have scored an 8 or 9.

dodswrth No wonder that this picture anticipates Bond by 25 years, it was co written by Jack Whittingham, who was one of the principle architects of the movie version of James Bond. Whittingham shares a credit on the film, and the novel, Thunderball, which was originally intended to be the first James Bond picture. More than a few of the classic Bond tropes are contained in the story--it actually points to Dr No (bringing down planes electronically) and to so many of the Bond stories that have huge battles at the end, with the hero freeing, and/or working alongside troops of one kind or another.

nk_gillen A secret British aviation project is being disrupted by a foreign power, until an effete but supremely confident intelligence agent, Charles Hammond, is assigned the case. What follows is a tense 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 America as "Clouds Over Europe") was directed by an American, Tim Whelan, who establishes a near-anarchic tone throughout. Here, he satirizes what other late-1930's filmmakers may have considered too serious a subject to examine lightly: a potentially disastrous affair for King and country, in which experimental aircraft are being "electronically" hijacked right out of the sky and docked within the confines of a large ship from a hostile nation. (The culprits' nationality is never identified, but as soon as they speak their lines in that thick Teutonic accent, we can just about guess their origin.) The dialogue, much of it written and improvised by the actors themselves, is crackling, smart; and the action, while wildly improbable and clumsily staged, is as unreal and stylized as the characters. The joker in the deck is Hammond himself. As portrayed by Ralph Richardson, he boasts to anyone who will listen of his own considerable skills as a solver of crimes, a solver of crossword puzzles, and a solver of lovers' squabbles. Despite such brash self-assurance, however, Hammond is never tedious. Richardson plays him as an eccentric of many shades and interests – horse-racing addict, amateur master chef, verbal wit extraordinaire, constant belittler of his "gentleman's gentleman" (Gus McNaughton), and a man whose obsession with the intrigue of 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 may have been intended as a caricature of the "liberated" working English suffragette. But she holds her own when competing with her two male cohorts - McVane, who hates reporters and let's rip whenever he hears mention of Kay's profession, and Hammond, the charismatic, ardent egoist-as-detective. "I'm right!" he proclaims to his doubting superiors. "I'm right - and the whole world is wrong!" Naturally, Hammond's irregular method of sleuthing bears out his claim – as if any enemy country could measure up in a contest against single representatives of MI-5, Fleet Street, and the RAF.