Voltaire (1933)

Marie Antoinette (1938)

Norma Shearer plays the semi-historical shallow party girl who comes to a bad end. If you must lose your head you might as well do it in gowns by Adrian. MGM doubled the size of Versailles with a budget of 1.8 million dollars, stopping just short of filming the whole thing in Technicolor — reportedly Shearer’s sumptuous fur coat was dyed blue to match her eyes.

Julie (1956)

Talk about having a bad day! Air hostess Julie has just discovered her homicidal second husband sneaked aboard the plane. First he tried to crash their car on the winding California highway, then he admitted he murdered her first husband! When she tried to get away he shot her best friend. Now he’s killed the pilot and wounded the co-pilot, and with some encouragement from the tower Julie’s the only one who can land the plane!

This is why Pan-Am made their stewardesses stay single.
…more about Julie

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.