'THOSE FANTASTIC FLYING FOOLS'......THOSE NOT-SO-MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR 'WILL IT FLY?' MACHINE.....

 Those Fantastic Flying Fools (a.k.a. Jules Verne's Rocket To The Moon/a.k.a. Blast Off!) (1967)   It must be fate that we came across yet another oddball shlocker from the relentless EuroTrash impresario Harry Alan Towers......when only yesterday we suffered through his 'House Of 1000 Dolls'...(see yesterday's post)

         Unlike 'Dolls', this one's highly watchable and actually kind of fun. It's populated with a who's who of beloved British comic actors and throws in Burl Ives, the ever luscious bombshell Daliah Lavi and the past-his-prime boy-toy Troy Donahue. 

        Taking his inspiration from Jules Verne (and using his screenwriting pen name Peter Welbeck), Towers slapped together a slapstick mash-up of "From The Earth To The Moon" and "Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines". 

          We don't remember H.A.T. thought of for his sense of humor or sparkling wit, so for the laughs, the film depends heavily on audience affection for Terry-Thomas, Lionel Jeffries and Dennis Price. Oh and let's not leave out Gert Frobe, once again doing the bombastic, blowhard buffoonery that served him so well in 'Flying Machines' (and would again a year later in 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang')

           We're back in Victorian England, where visiting P.T. Barnum (Ives) joins forces with Frobe to send a rocket to the moon. We won't drag you through the plot.....let's just say it involves lots of explosions, lots of collapsing structures and lots of hamming it up from Frobe and the British contingent. 

           Harry Alan Towers rounded up enough cash to at least make the film appear expensively mounted with bonus appearances by Hermoine Gingold, Graham Stark and that familiar stiff-upper-Brit, Alan Cuthbertson. 

            We didn't mind sitting through it once. Our only problem was its middling pace due to a full 2 hour running time (with a half hour sliced out of it, it could've made of itself a delightful little family film.

           Maybe we're too kind, but what the hell.....we loved watching this cast and it's our frickin' blog, after all. A nice little chunk of 1960's nostalgia....2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2).