Q Planes

Q Planes (aka in U.S. as Clouds Over Europe) is a 1939 British comedy spy film starring Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier and Valerie Hobson. Olivier and Richardson were a decade into their 50-year friendship and theatrical collaboration and had just completed Othello with Richardson in the title role and Olivier as Iago, when this film was made. The film was produced by Irving Asher, an American, with British film impresario Alexander Korda as executive producer.

The name Q Planes may have been derived from the British "Q-ships", armed ships disguised as merchantmen, used in the First World War as decoys to lure German U-boats. The film was directed by American director Tim Whelan (Sidewalks of London and later in 1940, co-director of The Thief of Bagdad), who had been in Britain since 1932, working for Korda at Denham Studios.

Plot

In 1939, advanced British aircraft prototypes carrying experimental and secret equipment are vanishing with their crews on test flights. No one can fathom why, not even spymaster Major Hammond (Ralph Richardson) or his sister Kay (Valerie Hobson), a newspaper reporter, who is working undercover in the works canteen used by the crews at the Barrett & Ward Aircraft Company.