Time Flies (1944 film)

Time Flies is a 1944 British comedy film directed by Walter Forde and starring Tommy Handley, Evelyn Dall, Felix Aylmer and Moore Marriott. The screenplay concerns two music hall performers, an inventor and a con-man who travel back to Elizabethan times using a time machine.

Plot
A professor invents a time sphere which takes a group of 1940s entertainers to Elizabethan London, where they encounter Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh and introduce them to jazz culture.

They also meet Captain John Smith and a very heavy-drinking Pocahontas. The main female character meets William Shakespeare and feeds him some of his own lines, which he eagerly writes down.

A costume-production, (many of which are immaculate), which makes extensive use of the Gainsborough wardrobe.

Cast

 * Tommy Handley – Tommy
 * Evelyn Dall – Susie Barton
 * George Moon – Bill Barton
 * Felix Aylmer – The Professor
 * Moore Marriott – A Soothsayer
 * Graham Moffatt – His Nephew
 * John Salew – William Shakespeare
 * Leslie Bradley – Captain Walter Raleigh
 * Olga Lindo – Queen Elizabeth
 * Roy Emerton – Captain John Smith
 * Iris Lang – Princess Pocahontas
 * Stéphane Grappelli – A Troubadour

Critical reception
Sky Cinema gave the film two out of five stars, its review stating: "Despite the subject and the cast, the treatment lacks vivacity". TV Guide rated it similarly: "A well-tuned script takes full advantages of the possibilities for comedy, but radio star Handley is a bit of a disappointment, looking sourly out of place on the screen"; The Radio Times rated it three out of five stars, concluding: "Some of the jokes have travelled less well and it falls flat in places, but it's a thoroughly entertaining romp".