George Wright This is one powerful movie, particularly with the chemistry between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and a generally outstanding cast. This very British work is directed by Anthony Asquith and written by Terence Rattigan, who worked together on The Browning Version and The Winslow Boy. Love triangles, business deals, and personal agonies unfold in a race against time that is exacerbated by fog delays at the London Airport. Elizabeth Taylor, as Frances Andros, the wife of a wealthy shipping tycoon Paul Andros (Richard Burton), is the centre of a love triangle. The third party is Louis Jourdan, as Marc Chamselle, a "former" gigolo and society regular. I found the acting of these three main characters was superb along with the script by Terence Rattigan, who lays bare the souls of the two men. Frances is in love with both but had made up her mind to elope with Marc. Maggie Smith, as Miss Mead, is the loyal and efficient secretary to Les Mangrum, played by Rod Taylor, owner of a tractor company, who is sweating through a hostile takeover of his company which he is fighting valiantly to save. These two co-workers work extremely well as a team. It is easy to understand why when we see the movie because there is more than mutual respect holding them together.The only exception to a stellar cast was Orson Welles as Max Buda, who seemed very much of a stereotype as a movie tycoon attempting to flee the British tax collector and the prospect of bankruptcy. Just too exaggerated a role and no depth to the character. Elsa Martinelli as Gloria Gritti, his female companion and actress, was more spontaneous and fun and added sparkle to their scenes together. Margaret Rutherford, is excellent as the comic character, the Duchess of Brighton, with the over-sized handbag, suffering the trials of an aged traveller. She needs help with everything from finding a passport in her enormous bag to doing up her seat belt or finding room to stash her hat box. When one airline hostess is rude to her, she shows her spunk and gets results in short order.Airport manager Michael Hordern paces around giving orders and acting exasperated with all the inconvenience caused by the weather delays. David Frost has an intermittent role as a youthful reporter covering Max Buda. David Frost was a delight in those days with his youthful excitement but this role provides little scope for his talent. The British class system is given its due as the efficient airline officials handle the crisis with a poise that seldom falters. They advise and comfort the VIPs who are hustled into their lounge or off to a comfortable hotel. I found it interesting, however, that the financially strapped Duchess received as much patient attention as the wealthier passengers. The class system is more about inheritance and tradition than wealth. Not an entirely bad thing in a world where money and subservience to it seem to rule who gets the best service.A movie with interesting twists in the plot, great suspense and many tender moments shared by the main characters, I would highly recommend The VIPs, keeping in mind that it is not an action movie but one with great human drama.

misswestergaard 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.

jjnxn-1 Lush, plush, silly but fun. Everyone is terribly rich and terribly troubled but of course everything is happily resolved in just two hours, if you like that sort of thing this is for you. Liz and Dick are the featured couple of course but theirs really isn't the most compelling vignette. Still Elizabeth looks great and Burton is appropriately intense. Orson Welles is aboard in a plot that doesn't go anywhere until the end but he adds an amusing performance to the film so it isn't that much of an intrusion. The two best bits belong to Rod Taylor and a very young Maggie Smith, who is excellent-she gives the film's second best performance but the absolute standout is Margaret Rutherford in an Oscar winning part as a dotty but oddly touching Duchess who has to go to work to save her home. She's utterly brilliant, the very definition of what a supporting performance should add to a film.

MartinHafer rare to hear Rod Taylor with his actual Aussie accent soapyWhile this movie has a big-name cast (including Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton) and it quite nicely made, at heart it's very much a soap opera. The story consists of the lives of several passengers who are awaiting the departure of a British Air flight overseas. However, because of fog, the flight is delayed and various subplots involving the passengers are played out during this time. One involves a woman (Taylor) who is leaving her husband (Burton) for a gigolo (Louis Jourdan). Another, a daffy old duchess (Margaret Rutherford) whose secret is only revealed near the end of the film. And another, a businessman (Rod Taylor) who is on the edge of complete ruin and his secretary who secretly loves him (Maggie Smith). In many ways, this film plays like a well made episode of "Love Boat" or "Hotel" or an old flick like "Grand Hotel". This is not meant disparagingly--just a way to describe the way the plots are all interconnected and work through the course of the film. Well written (if a bit broad) and enjoyable. Not a brilliant film but one that you can't help but be pulled into as it unfolds.