The V.I.P.s

THE V.I.P.'s is a multi-plotted, star studded, GRAND HOTEL-like story of a group of very important persons, all with pressing time concerns, who are stranded at a London airport when their flight is grounded because of fog. Paul Andros (Richard Burton) and his wife Frances (Elizabeth Taylor) exude glamour as a rich couple with marital problems. Frances plans on leaving him and flying off with Marc Champselle (Louis Jourdan), a suave, continental playboy. Max Buda (Orson Welles) is a film director with vaguely eastern European accent and mustache to match, who must leave the country by midnight for tax reasons or, much to his chagrin, marry his leading lady, Gloria Pritti (Elsa Martinelli). Rod Taylor as Les Mangrum, is a self-made Australian tractor manufacturer (perhaps not as glamorous as it sounds) who must get to New York or lose control of his company, a distraction so great he doesn't notice that his secretary, Miss Mead (Maggie Smith), in the film's most genuine performance, is in love with him. A very young David Frost as a newspaper reporter keeps popping up to (rather prophetically) ask people questions.

The all-star cast, Terence Rattigan's well paced script and Asquith's talent for theatrical direction keeps the melodrama moving along until the characters all get their final reward or punishment. The fog, like the rain, falls on the just and the unjust alike.