John Travolta has given some wonderful performances in movies and TV shows like Grease, Pulp Fiction, and American Crime Story, and has been in the business for over 50 years. But the actor has largely remained in front of the camera for that entire period, something he's looking to change with his upcoming movie. Travolta makes his directorial debut in Propeller One-Way Night Coach, an upcoming Apple TV drama film about a young boy on his first-ever flight. The film had its global premiere at this year's Cannes Film Festival, drawing mixed reactions from critics.

CANNES, May 19 — Superstar John Travolta said on Sunday he had channelled some of cinema’s greatest filmmakers into his plane-themed directorial debut which has premiered to mixed reviews.

“Propeller One-Way Night Coach”, which will appear on Apple TV at the end of May, is a loosely autobiographical tale about Travolta’s first flight as an eight-year old with his mother.

“It’s an homage to many filmmakers,” the 72-year-old plane lover told reporters on Sunday in Cannes.

“You do see Truffaut in this. You do see Lelouch. You do see Fellini. You do see Bergman,” he added, name-checking some of Europe’s 20th-century masters.

Critics appear to differ, with some praising the only 61-minute movie as a “slim and winning boyhood reverie of air travel (Variety), as “weird and endearing” (The Hollywood Reporter) or a “sweet, odd diversion” (The Guardian).

But a critic at The Wire savaged it as “a disaster that leaves no survivors” while the BBC called it a “dud” that “shows why great actors can be bad directors.”

Travolta cast his daughter Ella Bleu as an air hostess, while using other family members in key roles.

“I’m braggadocious, but her (Ella Bleu’s) presence in this movie... it’s a star is born. It’s just magnificent,” he told reporters.

Travolta, who starred in “Pulp Fiction” which won top prize in Cannes in 1994, appeared visibly emotional as he received a surprise life-time award at his film’s premiere on Friday. — AFP

PARIS, May 16 — Hollywood star John Travolta was given a surprise lifetime achievement award at the Cannes Film Festival yesterday as he premiered the first movie he has ever directed.

The man who became an icon overnight with Saturday Night Fever was visibly moved as he accepted the honorary Palme d’Or before the screening of Propeller One-Way Night Coach, which is based on a book about his first experience in an airliner.

“I just can’t believe it. This is beyond the Oscar, really,” he said as he accepted the tribute.

The festival has been laying on the love for Hollywood legends this year despite the big studios staying away, with honorary Palmes for Barbra Streisand and Peter Jackson as well as a gala screening for Vin Diesel and the stars of The Fast and the Furious franchise to mark its 25th anniversary.

Travolta — who has never won an Oscar — revived his flagging career with his iconic turn as hitman Vincent Vega in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, which won the festival’s Palme d’Or top prize in 1994.

Many critics hailed it as his greatest performance, one that has since gone down in cinema history.

“My favourite movies in the history of my life have always been the winners of the Palme d’Or,” Travolta said.

Behind the camera 

Cannes had kept the award under wraps until the actor walked on stage for the premiere wearing a black suit and a white beret.

The 72-year-old said he had been hugely surprised to have his directorial debut, which stars his daughter Ella Bleu as an air hostess, accepted at the world’s most prestigious film festival.

When Cannes director Thierry Fremaux told him in November that “it would be the first film ever accepted that early I cried like a baby,” he said.

“I had no expectation my film would be accepted,” he added.

Propeller One-Way Night Coach is a one-hour self-financed autobiographical tale about Travolta’s flight as an eight-year-old with his actress mother from New York to Los Angeles in 1962.

“This is the blueprint of my life,” said the actor, a lifelong aeroplane nut, who narrates the story.

“What you’ll see in the movie is completely my perspective on what I witnessed people go through.

“Everyone that was in the movie is sitting in the audience right there, my family,” he added.

Travolta was bitten by the acting bug early.

Born in New Jersey to an Irish mother and an Italian-American father who ran a tyre store, he left school at 16 to try his hand at acting and dancing.

Two years later he landed his first big stage role in the Broadway musical Grease.

He was nominated for an Oscar in 1978 for playing disco-dancing champion Tony Manero in the low-budget Saturday Night Fever and was launched into the Hollywood stratosphere by his role in the movie version of Grease the same year.

The rights to Propeller One-Way Night Coach have been bought by Apple, Travolta said.

Asked if he would direct again, he said he had watched all sorts of directors as an actor.

“I really believe that I can navigate around all of that, and anything I would choose to do, but I really feel I have to have passion about the material to do again what I’ve done here,” he said. — AFP