The V.I.P.'s
Overview
THE V.I.P.'s is a multi-plotted, star studded, GRAND HOTEL-like story of a group of very important persons, all with pressing time concerns, who are stranded at a London airport when their flight is grounded because of fog. Paul Andros (Richard Burton) and his wife Frances (Elizabeth Taylor) exude glamour as a rich couple with marital problems. Frances plans on leaving him and flying off with Marc Champselle (Louis Jourdan), a suave, continental playboy. Max Buda (Orson Welles) is a film director with vaguely eastern European accent and mustache to match, who must leave the country by midnight for tax reasons or, much to his chagrin, marry his leading lady, Gloria Pritti (Elsa Martinelli). Rod Taylor as Les Mangrum, is a self-made Australian tractor manufacturer (perhaps not as glamorous as it sounds) who must get to New York or lose control of his company, a distraction so great he doesn't notice that his secretary, Miss Mead (Maggie Smith), in the film's most genuine performance, is in love with him. A very young David Frost as a newspaper reporter keeps popping up to (rather prophetically) ask people questions. The all-star cast, Terence Rattigan's well paced script and Asquith's talent for theatrical direction keeps the melodrama moving along until the characters all get their final reward or punishment. The fog, like the rain, falls on the just and the unjust alike.
Awards:
1963 - Academy Awards - Best Supporting Actress - Winner
Main Cast & Crew:
Anthony Asquith - Director
Elizabeth Taylor
Richard Burton
Louis Jourdan
Elsa Martinelli
Margaret Rutherford
Rod Taylor
Orson Welles
Linda Christian
Dennis Price
Richard Wattis
Details
- Format: DVD (Full Frame, Manufactured on Demand, Amaray Case)
- Run Time: 119
- Color Format: Color
- UPC: 883929712199
- Genre: DRAMA
- Rating: Not Rated
- Release Date: June 2020
Movie Reviews
Synopsis:
Before the super-rich flew in private planes, they actually mixed with the hoi polloi between the door and the V.I.P. lounge where they were pampered by airline officials. In Director Anthony Asquith's THE V.I.P.'S, a group of them, each desperate to leave London, are stranded when fog prevents their departure. Playing a glamorous couple, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the actual glamourcouple of the time, head an all-star cast in Terrance Rattigan's story of personal turmoil in the lives of 1960s jet-setters.
Notes:
Shot at MGM Studios at Borehamwood, England.
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton made several films together, from the critically successful WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? to the gigantic flop of CLEOPATRA.
Margaret Rutherford won an Oscar for her performance. Later, Helen Hayes won one for a very similar part in AIRPORT.
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