Ken Annakin | Subjects
| Structure and Story Telling | Visual Style
Feature Films: Miranda
| Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines
Classic Film and Television Home Page
Ken Annakin
Ken Annakin is an British film and television director.
Ken Annakin: Subjects
Some common subjects in the films of Ken Annakin:
- Rollicking comedy
- Ordinary people who strike back against the powerful (kid and defenses: Swiss Family Robinson,
swindle victims: Institute for Revenge)
- National caricatures in characterization (Hotel Sahara, The Longest Day,
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines)
- Working class heroes (Holiday Camp, the Huggetts Trilogy, servants: Miranda, Trio: The Verger,
waitress heroine: Murder at the Mardi Gras)
- Public festivals with crowds (British holiday resort: Holiday Camp, opera, zoo: Miranda,
race meet: Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, Murder at the Mardi Gras)
- Con artists (Trio: Mr. Know-All, Hotel Sahara,
Terry-Thomas: Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, Institute for Revenge)
- Mild sea-side wrecks of people on boats (hero: Miranda, Swiss Family Robinson)
Technology:
- Technology, often just invented (tree house, island defenses: Swiss Family Robinson,
early planes: Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, early cars: Monte Carlo or Bust!)
Ken Annakin: Structure and Story Telling
Story Structure:
- Multiple character-focus stories (Holiday Camp, Miranda, The Longest Day,
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines)
Ken Annakin: Visual Style
Costumes:
- Animal costumes (mermaid's fish tail: Miranda, gorilla suit: Murder at the Mardi Gras)
Miranda
Miranda (1948) is a charming farce about a mermaid in London. It opens with the sea-side setting
of Swiss Family Robinson. Both films have a mild sea-disaster at their start, with characters
wrecked in an isolated area near the sea-coast.
Also an Annakin tradition: the scenes where Miranda encounters large crowds at festive events: here
Covent Garden opera, and the zoo. Miranda makes sound or noises at both.
Much comedy is made from Miranda's fish-tail. This anticipates all the animal costumes in
Murder at the Mardi Gras. One might also note how dressed up the men in the film are. They are always
changing into various kinds of dressy suits or evening wear.
Miranda has a multi-focus story, like several of Annakin's films. All eight central characters
get nearly equal weight.
There are signs that the nurse (Margaret Rutherford) might be a lesbian, and that she gets a crush
on Miranda. If so, she is handled with great sympathy and delicacy. It is an unusually gentle portrait
for its era.
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) comes out an earlier, rationalist world view.
In 1965, people thought it was normal for "entertainment" to revolve around a technological subject, like
the early days of airplanes. Today, many people foolishly look to the supernatural for entertainment,
instead: pure drivel.