Time Flies (1944 film)

Time Flies is a 1944 British comedy film directed by Walter Forde and starring Tommy Handley, Evelyn Dall, Felix Aylmer and Moore Marriott. The screenplay concerns two music hall performers, an inventor and a con-man who travel back to Elizabethan times using a time machine. A costume-production, many of which are immaculate, the film made extensive use of the Gainsborough wardrobe.

Time Flies
Opening title
Directed by	Walter Forde
Screenplay by	J.O.C. Orton Ted Kavanagh Howard Irving Young
Produced by	Edward Black
Starring	Tommy Handley Evelyn Dall George Moon
Cinematography	Basil Emmott
Edited by	R. E. Dearing
Music by	Bretton Byrd
Production company	Gainsborough Pictures
Distributed by	General Film Distributors (UK)
Release date	8 May 1944 (1944-05-08) (UK)
Running time	88 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Plot

Entertainers Bill and Susie Barton are on tour when Bill's old friend Tommy shows up soliciting funds for a new scheme, Time Ferry Services Limited. Bill has given Tommy $10,000 to help Professor McAndrew develop the Time Ball, a primitive time machine. Enraged, Susie goes to the lavish apartment where Tommy and the Professor are staying to demand the money back. However, the group discovers that Tommy is actually a valet and has been pretending to be wealthy by borrowing his employer's apartment and clothes. His boss calls the police and the group hides in the Time Ball. Tommy closes the hatch, accidentally activating the invention, and they are sent back in time to Elizabethan London where Tommy befriends Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth I. He starts a new swindle by claiming to "own" America and selling off pieces of land to members of the court.

The Professor is arrested and jailed in the Tower of London for being a Scottish spy, trapping the group in the past. Meanwhile, Susie meets William Shakespeare and feeds him some of his own lines, which he eagerly writes down. Susie and Bill meet Captain John Smith and Pocahontas in a tavern and steal their identities so they can gain an audience with the queen and ask her to pardon the Professor. However, they are unmasked and sentenced to be executed along with the Professor and Tommy. The queen's soldiers try to burn them alive in the Time Ball, but the professor fixes it and they return to the modern day. However, they show up several weeks too early and gradually fade away due to a temporal paradox.

Cast

• Tommy Handley – Tommy Handley, a con artist and promoter
• Evelyn Dall – Susie Barton, an American stage actress
• George Moon – Bill Barton, her husband, an actor who is susceptible to get rich quick schemes
• Felix Aylmer – Professor Stewart McAndrew, an inventor and expert in the theory of relativity; he is descended from the House of Stuart
• Moore Marriott – A Soothsayer
• Graham Moffatt – His Nephew
• John Salew – William Shakespeare
• Leslie Bradley – Captain Walter Raleigh
• Olga Lindo – Queen Elizabeth I of England
• Roy Emerton – Captain John Smith
• Iris Lang – Princess Pocahontas
• Stéphane Grappelli – A Troubadour

Critical reception

Sky Cinema gave the film two out of five stars, its review stating: "Despite the subject and the cast, the treatment lacks vivacity". TV Guide rated it similarly: "A well-tuned script takes full advantages of the possibilities for comedy, but radio star Handley is a bit of a disappointment, looking sourly out of place on the screen"; The Radio Times rated it three out of five stars, concluding: "Some of the jokes have travelled less well and it falls flat in places, but it's a thoroughly entertaining romp".

External links

• Time Flies at IMDb