American International Podcast · Jeff Markin and Cheryl Lightfoot

Those Fantastic Flying Fools

·1 hr 1 min·2 clips

Cannon helmet has one shot then explodes - demonstrates obvious design flaw

The American International Podcast takes on Those Fantastic Flying Fools, also released as Blast Off. It covers the 1967 Americanized version of Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon, a British film, where the rocket project, the romance, and the sabotage plan all crowd the same launch window. The movie is already crowded. Henri wants Madeline back, Gaylord wants one last dinner, and Madeline ends up in the middle of both while the countdown keeps ticking in the background. The hosts keep tracking the plot as the academy meetings and launch-date calculations pile up, including the annoyance of learning that the best date is basically now or next year. That is not ideal. The side stories matter too, especially the Grundle and Anna thread that the original version carries more fully and that this cut only partly lets through. The episode does not try to make the film elegant. It notes how the cast keeps circling back around a machine that should be the main attraction but never fully is. Sir Percival eventually checks the papers and gives the launch date. Dilworthy and Smythe then sneak aboard the rocket with a plan to ruin everything from the inside, which fits a movie this determined to complicate itself. The recap stays close to the film's odd rhythm and its hard turn between comedy, romance, and spectacle. There is a lot of breathless selling around a story that keeps stopping to sort out who loves whom. That mismatch is part of the joke. The guided recap keeps moving through the domestic confusion, the launch logic, and the strange pressure of a rocket story that is never just about the rocket. It is dry, clear, and willing to call out the weirdness when the movie hands it over. For listeners who like AIP coverage that follows the plot closely and lingers on the movie's silliness, it lands well.

As heard by us

A brisk look at an Americanized rocket comedy that gets stranger as launch day nears.

The piece keeps its focus on Those Fantastic Flying Fools and the film's strange Americanized take on Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon. It follows the launch-date panic, the messy love geometry around Madeline, Henri, and Gaylord, and the sabotage that slips aboard just when the…

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Why you'd press play

For a rocket comedy where the launch date matters more than the rocket.

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