I’d never heard of Biggles, but it’s apparently an extremely popular series of books in the UK based on an ace WWI (and eventually WWII) pilot and his team. The first book was released in 1936, putting it smack-dab in the pulp magazine era.

The idea of a movie had been bounced around for many decades, but finally they got the ball rolling in the 80’s. The script was complete, and it was about to begin filming when the first Back to The Future was released, and the executives decided they wanted to cash in on the time-travel shtick. They re-wrote the script to accommodate a time-travel aspect, instead of it being purely in the WWI.

Seems like that would result in a disaster of a film, but by god they pulled it off. The casting choices were excellent, the story is well executed, but the real star of the show are the stunts, practical effects, and the sets!

The movie had less than half the budget of Back to the Future, but it really doesn’t feel like it, except in one specific special effect. The sets at times make it feel like a higher budget movie than it is, with the WWI trench scenes in particular looking excellent.

There’s some crazily well shot action scenes in this, and you can tell the director was having an absolute blast with them, and the cast seemed to as well.

There aren’t really any other movies I can think of that combine WWI dogfights with 80’s synth-y rock (from Jon Anderson of Yes, no less!).

It’s campy, it’s pulpy, it’s funny, it’s great. If you like back to the future or pulp stories, give this one a shot!

Also, slightly sad fact, the music video for one of the songs used in the film by The Immortials features one of Peter Cushing’s last appearances on film before his death.