*Warning: clip contains some strong language and adult humor.
Known in Biggles circles simply as “that film”, Biggles: Adventures in Time is not perhaps among the list of successful “book to film” movies. Using time travel as a plot device to link the past and the present seems to have been a popular idea at the time (the very first Back to the Future film had just come out a year earlier).
----------FILM SPOILER ALERT----------
An American from the 1970s, Jim Ferguson,
aka Biggles’ “time twin”, keeps falling through a hole in time and going back
to 1917, because the universe thinks that he should be there to get Biggles out
of moments of dire peril, despite the fact that a) Jim Ferguson can’t fly, b)
he’s a salesman for TV dinners, and c) he has no idea what’s going on and
spends most of his time getting hauled around by Biggles and co. like a sack of
flour. Yes, the universe runs on irony. As if we didn’t already know.
Biggles’ love life plays a predominant role
throughout the film—one imagines a group of researchers desperately burrowing
through Biggles book after Biggles book, trying to find a female character to
use as Biggles’ girlfriend—despite the fact that the original books were
written for young boys and so, if anything, tended to gloss over all
interaction with females.
Equally in line with the books are the
appearances of Ginger and Bertie in the trenches of 1917. Ginger, in
particular, had not even been born when WWI was raging…although I suppose there
is a possibility that he too fell through some hole in time as Algy’s time
twin, only everyone was too polite to mention it.
As if that wasn’t enough, we have Erich Von
Stalhein flying around in some sort of iron mask (I know, what?), blue flashes of lightning zapping around whenever someone’s
about to go time traveling (which is, like, every five minutes), Colonel
Raymond walking around trying to explain everything (like he ever knew anything
in the first place), WWII planes flying around in WWI….the list just goes on
and on.
But you know what? It is possible to
forgive all of that. Or it would be
possible to forgive all of that…if not for the appalling movie soundtrack,
music that even Biggles would cringe at. Who was it that made the decision to
play “Do You Wanna Be A Hero” during the scene where Von Stalhein is trying his
best to shoot Biggles down? (Look, I’m not saying it’s a bad song, just a bad
Biggles song.)
----------FILM SPOILERS END----------
You may be surprised to learn that the
novelization of the film was the first ever “Biggles” book I ever read (I was
eight at the time. The book had stills from the film in the middle. Can you
blame me?), and that it was the book
that introduced me to Biggles. I thought it was a fantastic book…until a few
years later when I found a DVD of the film in a store and bought it.
I did try to like the movie. I did. I tried
very hard.
Really, I blame the soundtrack.
To be fair, it’s not a bad film in its own
right. In fact, if not for the word “Biggles” in the title, it might actually
be all right. A group of friends rushing around to save Britain from a secret
weapon in WWII (yes, WWII. Seriously, if you’re going to use planes and stuff that were invented after WWI, don’t set your movie in WWI) with a weird
American on the side falling through time to provide some comic relief in
moments of high stress. Okay, so it won’t win many Oscars, but it will at least
be a film that most Biggles fans would be able to sit through without feeling
the urgent need to comment or run away every five minutes or so.
Find it on Amazon: Biggles - Adventures In Time [1985] [DVD]
Find it on Amazon: Biggles - Adventures In Time [1985] [DVD]
All right, I have to admit it probably was not as awful as my memory of it! Any film that has Peter Cushing in it cannot be entirely bad! Looking at the clip now, it seems to have been influenced by Indiana Jones.
ReplyDeleteWikipedia says that it was heavily influenced by both Indiana Jones and Back to the Future. Shouldn't it have been heavily influenced by Biggles?
ReplyDeleteIf it had been heavily influenced by Biggles, it would have been a better film! It is the fact that they used "Biggles" as the title, whilst the film had nothing at all to connect it with the books or the character that makes it annoying.
ReplyDeleteDid I hear a rumor about Biggles Flies North maybe getting made into a film...maybe that will turn out better?
ReplyDeleteSome years back there were plans for a series of films - they were reported on in the BIggles and Co (or Biggles Flies Again) magazines but they never came to anything.
ReplyDeleteI wonder why? Not enough market demand? Or just lack of funding?
ReplyDeleteI loved this villain. His leather riding boots, leather coat, leather gloves and leather mask make him appear very evil in a sexy way. His depiction could have been made more evil if he had worn the mask, coat and gloves throughout the film, if his entire uniform was made of leather (as an alternative to him wearing the coat the whole time), like Ilsa Haupstein in Hellboy and if he had carried a swagger stick or riding crop like the SS-Standartenführer in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
ReplyDelete