Wild Wild Planet (1965)
Criminali della galassia, I

best line: “Watch out for those gadgets on their chests!” – Commander Halstead while wrestling with an alien woman

It’s go go action, when aliens disguised as fashion models start kidnapping people for a mad mad scientist, so he can conduct inhumane experiments and merge himself with the perfect woman! Augh! Yes, it’s so bad it’s great. Spacemen fight with karate-chopping vixens, rockets spew fireworks, and aircars dangle on strings. The budget is so low the miniature buildings are re-used in the next scene as furniture and mod set decor.

The plot? Italians don’t need a stinkin’ plot — just a couple of futuristic cars and a lot of hair pieces! The “perfect” woman gets drunk and spews anti-feminist venom. Then after being spurned by every officer in the room, she runs headlong into a trap. Between the sexist banter men are manly: fighting and rescuing, meanwhile beautiful women pick clothes off the floor and stuff them into designer handbags.

While wrestling with an alien woman Commander Halstead shouts out, “Watch out for those gadgets on their chests!” I’m sure it’s all a metaphore for something.
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The V.I.P.s (1963)

Half a dozen First Class passengers suffer hardships when their trans-Atlantic flight is delayed by London fog.

Elizabeth Taylor headlines this glacial melodrama based loosely on a real-life event that happened to Vivian Liegh when she tried to escape husband Laurence Olivier with a younger actor (here played by Richard Burton and Louis Jordan, respectively). Their flight was delayed, giving Olivier the time to find them and talk her out of it!

Supporting plots come from a desperate businessman Rod Taylor and his unrequited secretary Maggie Smith. Orson Wells is a film director trying to flee Britain to avoid a tax penalty, as his ditzy actress girlfriend makes a play for power. And Margaret Rutherford in an Oscar-winning role as a dotty member of the fading royal class who’d rather get drunk than get on a plane. In a surrealist twist, actor Richard Wattis plays a nearly identical officious airline manager in Come Fly with Me, made the same year.

Boring and impersonal, there’s nothing to do in this film but briefly admire the modern architecture and then wait at the bar until your flight is called.

Come Fly with Me (1963)

Three air-hostesses find love and romance on their trans-Atlantic flights between New York City and the capitals of Europe.

The fictitious airline Polar Atlantic is an obvious nod to Pan-American. The hostess’ blue uniforms can be seen in Pan-Am’s promotional film 6 1/2 Magic Hours, and their plane even takes off from Pan-Am’s circular terminal at Idlewilde.

6 1/2 Magic Hours (1958)

Welcome to the golden age of air travel where uniformed sky-hostesses are single and pretty, where you can smoke and drink and tourist class had full-service dinners, and trans-Atlantic flights defined the jet-set. For a brief decade between the end of the Korean War (1953) until the assassination of President Kennedy (1964), American culture was at it’s peak. Idlewilde Airport was a city of Modern designs including the circular Pan-Am Terminal with its cantilevered roof and TWA’s visionary gull-wing taking flight.

Come aboard the Boing 707 “Jet Clippah” with a wing-span longer the the Wright Brothers’ first flight. Fly to London in 6 1/2 hours. Arrive in Paris with more leisure time! So chic, So modern. Have hours-dourves in the cocktail lounge and then a dinner of lobster tail and carved roast. Relax in “livingroom comfort” with air-conditioning and colored mood lighting. Getting there IS half the fun!

6 1/2 Magic Hours is available for free download on the Prellinger Archive.

That Touch of Mink (1962)

Doris Day at the height of her come-back popularity as the prim but lovable “girl” who won’t put out without a ring on her finger, meets her match in playboy executive Cary Grant who is willing to fly her around the world but doesn’t want to settle down and get married. What’s a good girl to do?

He’s charming, wonderful, and wealthy. He showers her with gifts and shopping trips to Bergdorf’s, but a girl who strays with her reputation always pays. Can an old fashioned girl be bought for a trip to Bermuda and a mink coat? Mmmmmaybe…

It’s actually never implied that Day is inexperienced with men. The joke of her being the world’s oldest virgin is a sexist slur, a label Day hated because it flippantly denied any positive aspect to her wholesome sex comedies. The real trophy at stake isn’t her virtue but her value. Easily won is easily discarded — it takes a woman of experience to know how men think, and to hold out for what she wants.

Far from being a prudish throwback in an age of carefree swingers, Day forges her own brand of lipstick feminism: the right to wear skirts and high heels and still insist that men respect you in the morning, no matter what your age or experience.
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