Biggles (film)

Biggles
Original British 1986 quad film poster
Directed by	John Hough
Screenplay by	John Groves Kent Walwin
Based on	the Biggles books by W. E. Johns
Produced by	Pom Oliver Kent Walwin
Starring	Neil Dickson Alex Hyde-White Fiona Hutchison Peter Cushing Marcus Gilbert William Hootkins
Cinematography	Ernest Vincze
Edited by	Richard Trevor
Music by	Stanislas Syrewicz
Production companies	Compact Yellowbill Tambarle
Distributed by	UIP (UK)
Release dates	23 May 1986 (1986-05-23) (UK/date) 29 January 1988 (1988-01-29) (USA)
Running time	92 min.
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	£7 million
Box office	£1.45 million (UK), $112,132 (USA)

Biggles is a 1986 British sci-fi adventure film directed by John Hough (later released in 1988 in the United States as Biggles: Adventures in Time). The plot involves a time traveller from the 1980s who travels to World War I to help the character Biggles from the series of novels by W.E. Johns and where Biggles also travels to the 1980s to save his new friend. The film stars Neil Dickson, Alex Hyde-White, and Peter Cushing in his final feature film role.

Plot

Catering salesman Jim Ferguson (Alex Hyde-White), living in present-day New York City, falls through a time hole to 1917 where he saves the life of dashing Royal Flying Corps pilot James "Biggles" Bigglesworth (Neil Dickson) after his photo recon mission is shot down. Before he can work out what has happened, Jim is zapped back to the 1980s.

With assistance from Biggles' former commanding officer William Raymond (Peter Cushing) who lives in the Tower Bridge in London, Ferguson learns that he and Biggles are "time twins", spontaneously travelling through time when one or the other is in mortal danger. Together, Ferguson and Biggles fight across time and against the odds to stop the Germans changing the course of history by destroying a "Sound Weapon" with a Metropolitan Police helicopter that was stolen by Biggles while escaping a SWAT Team in 1986 London.

Cast

• Neil Dickson as Lieutenant James 'Biggles' Bigglesworth
• Alex Hyde-White as Jim Ferguson
• Fiona Hutchison as Debbie
• Peter Cushing as Air Commodore William Raymond
• Marcus Gilbert as Hauptmann Erich von Stalhein
• William Hootkins as Chuck
• Alan Polonsky as Bill
• Francesca Gonshaw as Marie
• Michael Siberry as Second Lieutenant The Honourable Algernon 'Algy' Montgomery Lacey
• James Saxon as Second Lieutenant Lord Bertie Lissie
• Daniel Flynn as Ginger Hebblethwaite

Production

Development

As early as 1968, and inspired by the success of films such as The Blue Max, it was planned to make a film based on W.E. Johns' books entitled Biggles Sweeps The Skies scripted by Chris Bryant to be filmed in Algeria and financed by Universal Pictures. Pre-production work was completed, including building replica period aircraft. James Fox was tapped to play Biggles and even appeared in promotional material. However, the film was cancelled due to budgetary and location problems.

Peter James bought the rights to the Biggles stories in 1976 but the film remained in development hell for several years. The film was produced by Yellowbill Films.

In 1977 it was annoucned Biggles would be one of five films that the BBC would invest £25,000 into. No film resulted.

In December 1979 Dudley Moore, who had just become a star with 10 said he would make the film in Europe after he finished Arthur.

In October 1980 Disney announced they would make Biggles as a co production with producer Robert Stigwood. In April 1981 a newspaper report said that the movie would be produced by Kent Walwin of Yellowbill Productions, Jack Briley had written the script, Moore would star as Biggles and they hoped for Oliver Reed to play Von Streheim.

In February 1982 it was announced that Biggles would be played by Jeremy Irons, coming off Brideshead Revisited instead of Moore. Beryl Vertue of the Robert Stigwood Group said the film "will be a blend of adventure, action, comedy and romance, featuring period plans and flying romances." Irons said "This is not going to be a send up more a pre war James Bond. I have done a lot of intellectualish characters and it would be nice to do a popular adventure film."

The company Yellowbill was 40% owned by the Foreign and Colonial Investment Trusts. However there was difficulties raising finance in 1982 because of uncertainty how the tax office would allow the money to be deduced - a chief appeal of financiers. The buddget for Biggles would be £8 million. Investor uncertainty ultimately led to the film being postponed and Irons dropped out of the project.

John Hough had already directed several movies for Hammer Films and Walt Disney Productions in the United States, and had had box office hits with Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry and Escape to Witch Mountain. He had read the Biggles books as a child and was available after a deal to direct a James Bond film fell through. He was attracted by the unconventional story and signed to direct in November 1984.

Writing

Early versions of the script were written by Michael Fallon and called for an adventure film in the mould of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The original story would have been much more faithful to Johns' original novels. Some sources claim that during scriptwriting, however, Back to the Future was released and became a major hit, so the script was duly altered by Walwin and John Groves to follow this trend, in an attempt to capitalise on Back to the Future's popularity. However, Biggles had already completed filming by the date of Back to the Future's UK release date of December 1985.

The film takes much liberty with the storyline of the original novels. In addition to the introduction of a science-fiction plot, Biggles is much older than in the books (where he is only a teenager in 1917), and the characters Ginger and Bertie feature although they don't join Biggles until much later in the book series. However, the presence of Biggles' friend Algy, adversary Erich von Stahlein and love interest Marie fits with the earlier books in the series. The sound weapon appears to be based on a real life sonic device that the Nazis were working on during the Second World War. It used a reflector to transmit high energy sound waves.

Filming

Filming started in London on 21 January 1985. Principal photography took place over six weeks between January and March 1985. The film was both Dickson's and Hyde-White's first leading role in a motion picture. It was also Fiona Hutchison's first movie role. She described her character Debbie as 'trapped and terrified.' To play Biggles' rival von Stahlein, Marcus Gilbert researched German WWI fighter aces, especially Manfred von Richthofen. At one point, he can be seen wearing a Blue Max medallion.

Veteran stuntman Gerry Crampton coordinated the action sequences and designed the stunts for the film, while second unit director Terry Coles, who had done similar work on Battle of Britain was in charge of filming the aerial sequences.

The film includes a scene where Biggles lands a helicopter (a Bell 206 JetRanger) on a flat wagon on a moving train. This was filmed on the Nene Valley Railway and was apparently the first time such a stunt had been attempted. Fifteen takes were needed before the director was satisfied that the sequence was finished. The helicopter was flown by renowned stunt pilot Marc Wolff.

The Sopwith Pup which crashes near the start of the film was specially built by Skysport Engineering. The crash was unplanned and the scene was rewritten to work around this.

Locations

The film was mostly shot in London and on various locations in the home counties. Tower Bridge and the surrounding area was extensively used, including the Tower Hotel which doubled as the film crew's base of operations. Some of the aerial sequences were shot near Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire. The 1917 weapon testing ground scene was shot at the Beckton Gas Works, which a year later was used for scenes in Full Metal Jacket and had been the location for the pre title sequence in the 1981 Bond film For Your Eyes Only and the finale of the John Wayne actioner Brannigan. The weapon itself was a custom made fibreglass dish mounted on a mobile crane. It was filmed at the former London Brick Company works near Brogborough in Bedfordshire, as were the trench scenes. The site is now a landfill and recycling centre owned by FCC Environment. The exterior church scenes were all filmed at All Saints Church, Holdenby, and the courtyard scenes were filmed by the stable blocks of Holdenby House.

Aircraft

Several aircraft were used in the film. These included a Stampe SV.4, which is flown by Biggles, and a Boeing Stearman, which is flown by his archrival, von Stalhein. Both these bi-planes are actually from the 1930s as flying and maintaining actual WWI aircraft was considered prohibitively expensive. The period aircraft seen on the background during ground scenes belonged to the Shuttleworth Collection. The Stampe was flown by Stuart Goldspink while the Stearman was piloted by former WWII bomber pilot John Jordan. The Stampe was later seen in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Reception

Biggles received a royal charity premiere on Thursday 22 May 1986 at the Plaza Cinema on Lower Regent Street in London. The film went on general release in the UK on Friday 23 May 1986 To promote the release of the film, the story was published in newspapers in comic strip form and promoted via ABC Cinemas with discounted tickets available.

When released in the USA on 29 January 1988, Variety was more positive, praising the action scenes and Dickson's performance especially. Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times found the film enjoyable in parts, but overall disappointing.

The film was not a success at the box office. John Hough observed that the film got into profit later through television repeats and video sales.

In 2000, a new film entitled Biggles Flies North was announced after the rights to the character and books had been sold on with a prospective shooting date of 2001 and locations filmed in Malaysia. As of 2019, nothing has materialised.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack was composed by Stanislas Syrewicz and released by MCA Records on vinyl and cassette tape.

Jon Anderson, frontman of Yes wrote the lyrics for the film's signature song, Do You Want to Be a Hero? as well as Chocks Away, while Stanislas composed the rhythm. Anderson and Stanislas were both signed to Island Records at the time and had agreed to collaborate on the music. Just like the film, the soundtrack drew mixed reviews because of its experimental themes which seemed out of place in a period adventure and heavy use of synthesizers.

Track listing

Jon Anderson – "Do You Want to Be a Hero?"
Jon Anderson – "Chocks Away"
Deep Purple – "Knocking at Your Back Door"
Mötley Crüe – "Knock 'Em Dead, Kid"
Queen - "Another One Bites The Dust"
The Immortals – "No Turning Back" Co-written by John Deacon in his second non-Queen recording. Deacon was asked by John Hough to compose a song for the film after meeting him shortly after Live Aid. The track was released as a single, and the accompanying music video also starred Peter Cushing in his very last on-screen appearance. The song failed to chart.

Video game

As a tie-in to the film, a video game with the same title was released in 1986 by Image Works for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum. The game was based on the movie's storyline and featured four different missions which including flying combat sequences with biplanes, a rooftop chase, searching for the secret weapon in a trench setting and first person helicopter gameplay. The game received mixed reviews.

Reception

Colin Greenland reviewed Biggles for White Dwarf #77, and stated that "in a silly story about the Germans developing a sonic weapon in 1917 and threatening history as we know it. Too little aerobatics, too much running around in anachronistic locations; lots of laughs, though mainly of disbelief."

External links

• Template:BFI Explore
• Biggles at the British Board of Film Classification
• Biggles at IMDb
• Biggles at SpectrumComputing.co.uk