You won't be disappointed!

A Masterpiece!

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

If you are thinking this may be a disaster movie such as the (1972) The Poseidon Adventure, (1974) The Towering Inferno, and/or (1997) The Titanic, you would be wrong. The V.I.P.s is a soap opera that outlines four (4) vignettes that take place at a London airport that has these interesting passengers grounded unexpectedly as follows:1. Love Triangle Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and Louis Jourdan are the three (3) figures with Richard Burton being the wealthy tycoon who ignores his wife Elizabeth Taylor so she falls "out of love" with Richard and into the charming hands by default of the addicted gambler and male gigolo Louis Jourdan with the end of their respective relationships being delivered via the exchange of two (2) letters.2. Save my corporation Rod Taylor and Maggie Smith are in a desperate battle to save Rod's tractor manufacturing corporation from an imminent takeover bid. Maggie who plays Rod's able executive assistant though is more interested in saving Rod's heart than his bank account.3. Save my estate Margaret Rutherford (best known for her role as Agatha Christie's female sleuth Miss Jane Marple) is attempting to board her flight from London to Florida to take a meaningless job in an effort to save her families estate and especially her gaudy and outdated castle.4. Save my film production company Orson Welles and his latest film star Elsa Martinelli seem to have nothing going for them but smoke and mirrors as the famed film director and wannabe film star respectively. So Orson has to be out of London and in Switzerland to avoid the taxman, but since their flight is delayed he and his accountant come up with an alternative plan once again to save his film production company.Although this will never be a film classic the all star cast will keep you interested in their separate stories and more importantly how their stories end. I give the film a decent 6 out of 10 rating. No harm, no foul.

Directed by Anthony Asquith, and written by Terence Rattigan, this average drama earned Margaret Rutherford an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress on her only nomination. She plays an eccentric elderly British Duchess who is scheduled to partake in her first airplane flight, a transatlantic one to Florida, because she needs the money. The nervous, pill popping Duchess is perhaps the only passenger who is not upset that all the flights from the London airport are delayed indefinitely due to fog.The other passengers, played appropriately by an all star cast, each have their own reasons for wanting their flight to take off as soon as possible. The airport personnel, particularly the reception manager Mr. Sanders (Richard Wattis), and their friendly, accommodating behavior,give one a sense of days gone by.Elizabeth Taylor's character is inexplicably eloping with a shallow career gigolo, Louis Jourdan, ending her 13-year marriage with her too busy famous financier husband, Richard Burton. The only reason given is Jourdan's need for her versus her capable husband's lack of same. Pretty weak, isn't it?Orson Welles's character provides the comic relief as a famous foreign movie producer-director, who claims British citizenship, that needs to get out of the country before midnight to save $1 million in taxes. Since all flights are ultimately delayed until the next day, his moneyman's (Martin Miller, uncredited) fall back solution is for Welles to marry the bimbo actress (Elsa Martinelli) he's traveling with, to avoid paying the tax man.David Frost appears uncredited as one of the many reporters who hound the celebrities. Rod Taylor plays an Australian, who owns a tractor manufacturing business, that's just about sealed an acquisition (buying their #1 competitor?) deal that will solidify their company's success. However, he must get to New York immediately to complete the transaction and/or account for some last minute wrangling, lest he face some dire consequences. In the airport, he's accompanied by his trusty, proper secretary Miss Mead (Maggie Smith), who secretly loves him.For my money, actress Smith (in lieu of, if not) in addition to Ms. Rutherford should have been recognized by the Academy for her role, which provides the link between the two Taylors' story lines, through Burton's character.Ironically, in the end, the Duchess doesn't have to fly at all per an arrangement she makes with Welles's accountant.

The V.I.P.s feels a bit like the photographs of Cindy Sherman. Every frame is utterly staged, every background synthetic, every dramatic moment artificial. In planes, and airport lounges and hotel rooms, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton pose becomingly at canted angles. He wears a hunter red tie and scarf with his dark suit. She wears beige, then pink, then crisp black and white. There are very few windows. The camera lovingly, unhurriedly observes them. The V.I.P.s knows it is a film, a product, a Hollywood thing. It doesn't pretend to be more. The film is a mechanical glamour play set in a beautiful 1960s box. Like in a Christmas display, the characters and settings are pretty packages with nothing inside. Liz Taylor is the beautiful but neglected trophy wife with an endless supply of wonderful head adornments: velvet hats, fur hoods, sculpted hairdos. Richard Burton is the commanding business tycoon who learns to love his wife only when it may be too late. Louis Jourdan is the charming international gambler angling for her Liz's affection. Another triangle includes Rod Taylor as a struggling Australian tractor magnate and Maggie Smith as the staid, British secretary who loves him. These are the kind of characters who'll later show up in the television glamour-comedies of the 1970s (Love Boat, Fantasy Island), those shows where the contrived problems of the super-elite are exposed, wrestled with and neatly solved within the course of 50 minutes. The difference here is that The V.I.P.s doesn't play anything for guffaws or vaudeville. Instead it's a pseudo-elegant melodrama comprising sedate cinematography, uncluttered sets, and subdued performances. Even the comic relief characters , Margaret Rutherford as the absent- minded aristocrat and Orson Welles as the tax-evading film director, evoke a Hollywood-style dignity. Almost everyone gets what they want at the end. And we are reassured that those who don't will triumph later. Absolutely nothing is at stake. Watching the V.I.P.s is akin to riding in a Rolls Royce Phantom, washing down a Valium with thirty-year-old scotch --totally relaxing, totally removed. Yet there are a few intriguing cracks in the soothing facade. Burton gives his trophy wife a diamond bracelet for her coddled wrist; He later wounds that same wrist in an act he claims proves his passion. Orson Welles marries a vapid but gorgeous Italian actress, but repeatedly kisses his petite, male accountant on the lips. Not much is made of these moments. But they are subtly suggestive, as though the perplexing, inexorable nature of messy reality is stealing in.

I saw this back during the 1980's and it's OK. "The VIP's" was written by the distinguished British playwright Terence Rattigan, whose works include "Separate Tables." It's a multi-character programmer about various wealthy people who are stranded by fog at an airport while their lives are at a crisis point of one kind or another. The big story is the marital discord of a powerful businessman and his pampered but neglected wife, played by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Their real-life affair and subsequent marriage had made front-page news around the world at the time of this film, and it was clearly made with the intent of capitalizing on their notoriety. There are other characters with problems, played by Orson Wells, Margaret Rutherford (who won an Oscar), Elsa Martinelli, Maggie Smith, and Rod Taylor, but that was just filler material. The result is a glamorous but routine film with nothing going on that you wouldn't see in an episode of "Dallas" or "Dynasty," but it's still easy to watch and the time passes painlessly.