Absolutely brilliant

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Seven years before "Airport," there was this similarly laid out, lush MGM soap, which wasn't produced by Ross Hunter but looks like it could have been. The stars, the fashions, the mid-century-modern sets, the Miklos Rosza themes grinding and repeating in the background, all speak to a more innocent, more optimistic time. And best of all, while Hunter had only Perlberg and Seaton to bring Arthur Hailey's novel to the screen, MGM had the super-literate, super-crafty Terrence Rattigan to provide his own original story, expertly plotted out to afford a plethora of wide-screen star-gazing. Elizabeth Taylor, resplendent in St. Laurent, is about to leave Richard Burton for lounge lizard Louis Jourdan, but their plane is fogged in at Heathrow and Burton catches up to them, allowing for some civilized sniping between the two men, neither of whom seems good enough for her. Meantime, Dino di Laurentiis-like producer Orson Welles has to be out of Britain by midnight to escape some tax burdens; duchess Margaret Rutherford is headed unhappily to a new job in Florida to pay expenses for her Brighton mansion; and tractor maker Rod Taylor, subject to a hostile takeover, needs 150,000 pounds to cover a bad check, in which he's ably assisted by his plain-Jane secretary, Maggie Smith (all Janes should be this plain). Rattigan's epigrammatic screenplay darts dazzlingly between the four story lines, and he's instinctively fair-minded; nobody's all good or all bad, and even Linda Christian, as Rod Taylor's shallow girlfriend, isn't entirely reprehensible. Everybody's great fun to watch, and interesting people like Michael Hordern and Robert Coote and David Frost can be glimpsed in supporting roles, but the movie really belongs to the two Maggies. Rutherford picked up a supporting Oscar for playing essentially what she'd been playing for the previous 25 years, but who deserved it more, and she's not only pricelessly funny but unexpectedly touching. And Smith, silently loving her boss Rod Taylor (and who wouldn't), effortlessly steals a particularly good scene from Burton, bringing on the third act and walking off with the rest of the movie. Deep it isn't, and Rosza's themes feel a little obvious (I grew to hate that cutesy-English strain underlying every Rutherford scene), but what a luxuriously entertaining ride. That the prime storyline is based on Rattigan's own observation of the Vivien Leigh-Laurence Olivier-Peter Finch triangle being played out at the airport a few years before only adds to our sumptuous enjoyment.

The London fog grounds several wealthy passengers who must spend the night in the airport and a hotel. Among the unrelated stories are a wife running off with her lover, a cheap movie mogul, a businessman on the brink of disaster, and an addled Duchess.Typical of the star-studded movies of its time, this one is all style and no substance. The writing is straight out of a soap opera and Liz Taylor really wallows in the suds. Her star-power can't hide bad acting and her breathy, whiny voice and faux-British accent make the movie seem interminable. Burton is a better actor, but is still stuck with a predictable and ridiculously melodramatic storyline. The other vignettes serve no purpose except to fill the time, even though Margaret Rutherford won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar as the pill-popping aristocrat.This is a dated, cliché-ridden film filled with flowery speeches and silly characters, although it is nice to return to the days when people dressed in their finest clothes to fly.Tedious.

Ultra high-gloss soap opera with such a great cast it's difficult to criticize it. Elizabeth Taylor is trying to leave tycoon husband Richard Burton for gigolo Louis Jourdan. They're fogged in at a London airport along with Orson Welles, Margaret Rutherford, Elsa Martinelli, Rod Taylor & Maggie Smith. Welles is a movie producer, Taylor is a businessman in trouble and Dame Rutherford is in financial straits. All gets resolved by the time the fog lifts. Rutherford won an Oscar and deserved it...she's a hoot. Burton & Taylor have genuine chemistry and Welles has a field day clearly goofing on all the bombastic movie types who gave him grief during his career. The production design, which is dynamite, is by William Kellner and there's an appropriately dramatic score by Miklós Rózsa. Director Anthony Asquith puts together a classy production, assisted greatly by a fine Terrence Rattigan screenplay.

Rattigan and Asquith were old chums whose respective styles fitted like well - worn slippers.Both were terribly English and never quite at home with "foreign" characters,keen and knowledgeable observers of the British Class System with a marked preference for those who inhabited its upper echelons. Asquith knew how to make movies his audience would flock to see and Rattigan wrote plays mainly about people from Cheltenham for people from Cheltenham.Thus,comfortably ensconced together,they laboured and came forth with "The V.I.P.s" a sumptuously silly and irresistible old - fashioned star - studded Big Picture to which - forty six years on,time has added its patina of loss and regret to the extent that it now seems much better than it did in 1963. Although basically the camera seems happy merely to point at the Beautiful People and let them talk,Asquith's direction is subtle enough to persuade us that the personal difficulties experienced by the rich and famous stranded at Heathrow are important enough to engage our sympathy. Everybody overacts gloriously - indeed the whole thing is like a feature - length episode of "Dynasty" seen through the wrong end of time's telescope - and the whole effect is similar to overdosing on comfort food. All one's critical senses are overwhelmed by the positive plethora of pulling - power.These are the A - Lister's A List,believe me. Campy,frothy and entirely unbelievable it may be,but by golly it's entertaining and I was happy to pay my 3/9 in 1963 and I'm even happier to see it on TV today. With the arrival of the Swinging Sixties Big Pictures like "The V.I.P.s" became soooo last year sweetie,craftsmen like Asquith and Rattigan were mocked and a media - induced frenzy saw new heroes created and the tearing up of rule books that these new heroes had never had the intelligence to understand in the first place. With that in mind,perhaps "The V.I.P.s" should be regarded as the last picture show of the 1950s.I'm pretty sure Rattigan and Asquith would be happy with that.