Misses the mark

This has all the ingredients for a good British comedy of the period but unfortunately misses the mark largely due to some poor scripting and the charmless performance by the leading man, Michael Craig. He plays Hopkins the aircraft designer as an overbearing character with no romance at all. Anne Helm is suitably spunky as the American love interest but there is no chemistry between the leads apart from when he puts her over his knee for a spanking, something that would not be tolerated now but was not uncommon in movies at the time. So you cannot see why on earth they suddenly get together at the end. The Americans are caricatures but the rest of the cars that are pretty well done. The real stars are the steam engines but unless you’re a fan I wouldn’t bother.