52 replies to this topic

[Keir]

During the Speedvision special on the movie "Grand Prix", John Frankenheimer said that after the movie was over, he thought that they had killed the wrong driver. The Jean-Pierre Sarti character was the most liked character in the movie and according to the buzz that followed, that the audience was, in general, pissed off that their favorite had been killed. Now, "Grand Prix" is not renowed as the most realistic movie regarding it's plot line, but the death of Sarti, I felt was the most accurate part of the plot. Not the way he was killed(that was a bit contrived), but the fact that he was killed at all. Isn't it always the most popular guy that dies?? Senna, Gilles, Rindt, Courage, Bandini, Collins, etc.

So, my question is very simple.
If the movie "Grand Prix" was a real season in racing, who would be your favorite driver and if you got the chance to do the movie over, who would you kill, or would you kill anyone at all????

I'll sit back and see what develops and then chime in with my answers.

[Ray Bell]

Just don't kill Jim... he's great. Yes, I thought it wrong for Sarti to die... perhaps Barlini, but that would have been a portent of things to come, wouldn't it? Someone would have seen it as an omen and sued Frankenheimer for putting it his mind, so that he didn't try to get out of the crash at Monaco...
You didn't mention Jim Clark in your 'popular' list... or Bruce McLaren.

[Todd]

Without naming any names, some of those drivers became "the most popular guy" only after they died. It wasn't a universal popularity during a few of their lives.

[404KF2]

Go ahead, name them.

[Huw Jenjin]

eeeyack, why would you want to kill anybody?
I think i am right in saying that Bill Gavin, who wrote a book on Jimmy Clark (Correct me if im wrong), was a Kiwi in and around motorsport at the time, and he wrote the script to "Grand Prix". he would definately be the guy to give you the answer.He did a film called "Once were Warriors" which won many awards recently.
However I am interested to know who were the drivers that were not universally liked?
I remember being quite badly effected by Sarti's death the first time I watched it, so for a movie, to actually touch someone in that way is a real success, particularly if you are looking at it from the viewpoint of a cynical "expert".
I would have prefered James Garner to have been carted away before he overdid those later hammy Rockford movies.

[Ray Bell]

I never saw those, but I was a real fan of him in Maverick... wasn't so keen on Bart.

[Fast One]

I could never warm to the Scott Stoddard character, Varlini's dying would have had no tragic import, so if someone had to die in the movie, it had to be Sarti or Aron. The fact that Sarti's death affected so many of us shows that Frankenheimer made the right choice. Besides, if had been Aron, we would have been denied the "historic" significance of the black flag being issued by the Ferrari team to Varlini. And I agree that it reminds us that in motor racing, death has no favorites.

Most American movie makers seem to think we will only accept happy endings, and "rewrite" books like The Natural, denying them any artisic point in order to enable the crowd to leave the theater with smiles on their faces. Sarti's death is what makes Grand Prix haunt us to this day, in spite of a pretty bad script. Without that tragic ending, Grand Prix would be another of the dozens of bad racing movies we have forgotten.

[Keir]

As usual, some of you have gotten off the subject.
This isn't about who is the most popular, or when they became so, it's about art trying to imitate life.
I agree with Fast One and being American, I would naturally hope for the best from the Pete Aron character. The Scott Stoddard is probably one of the more complex characters written for the screen, but he's way over the edge to really have much of a fan base. Some people have compared the character to Jim Clark, but not anyone who knew Clark would say that, Stoddard was more like Piers Courage without the humour. I'm sure that Stoddard would have the usual Brit fan base of "press on regardless" types. As Sarti had the always fanatical "tifosi". And speaking of Sarti, I liked the character and I have never spoken to anyone who didn't like the Sarti character. From the point of view of a real racing season, the Sarti's usually die and the "make believe" world of "Grand Prix" reflected the real racing world quite acurately in this area. Frankenheimer never says who he thought should have died in the film, but hints at the Aron character. I truly believe this would have been a mistake and really wouldn't ring true. Now, Barlini flying over the banking, that would have been interesting, but, I liked Nino too!!
Everyone on the set disliked the actor Antonio Sabato, to the point that Chris Amon was instructed to give the young Italian "the ride of his life" in the prop car connected to the GT40. At the end of the lap Sabato was cowering deep inside the cockpit!!!

One last question, can anyone explain the Jordan BRM owner?
I have never seen a more anal character sketch in my life.
Why have Aron on your team if you genuinely don't like him?

[Ray Bell]

Surely the final scene... wandering around Monza and musing over the the injustices of life or whatever it was... couldn't have been played by anyone but Garner.
Was the Jordan owner the infamous Louis Stanley? And wasn't Stoddart supposed to be Stewart?
I don't know these things, I think I just went to see the scenes of the circuits I read so much about in live colour. And to hear the sounds. This was all about 15 years before I saw a GP live.

[Keir]

Ray,
I don't know who Geoff Jordan was fashioned after, certainly no one I had ever seen in GP racing and definitely not Stanley!!!!
Stoddard wasn't a Stewart clone, but they used the Stewart helmet in the racing scenes. Jackie never would have cracked under the pressure at Monaco!!!!
The actor, Brian Bedford, reminded some of Jim Clark, but Bedford wouldn't know Clark from clerk, so the resemblance is a little uncanny.

I'd love to have Frankenheimer elaborate on his "killed the wrong driver" thing and what would he have done differently as far as the ending of the movie.

Any Frankenheimer fans out there care to comment???

[Ray Bell]

See how young I was when I watched it? I didn't see the nuances you do at all. Must have just approached it, as I said, as a chance to see the big scenes, and otherwise as light entertainment.

[Wolf]

I think Sartis was obvious choice. I liked Sartis the best, but didn't much object to his death (anyway it was not his fault, and we should have been used to Montand characters getting killed long before that*). Hence I think the 'kill the nicest guy, and give the title to American' approach to be most suitable for that film, but the end with Garner character walking down the track obviously denies usual cliche- I thought it to be a nice touch of PHill.
* Have you seen that B/W french flic (don't know the title in english, should be 'Wages of Fear' or something like that) where Montand races with truck full of nytro through South American jungle? That was sinless killing if I e'er saw one.

[Keir]

Looking back on "Grand Prix", and I do often, I'm reminded that some of the movie was "soap opera" sappy, some very unrealistic, and some, what we would hope, was close to the real deal. Opinions vary, as usual, but for me the Nino Barlini character was a sixties vesion of Helio Castroneves.
Pure and unadulterated enthusiasm for the sport!!!
Sarti, Aron and Stoddard were portrayed as the typical veteran drivers of the day, but without the "Innes" influence. Now, that would have been something!!!! But one clown prince as portrayed by Sabato seemed to be enough for Frankenheimer.
All the racing scenes were first rate, even by today's standards and I never really minded the "story"
scenes at all. I wonder what Frankenheimer would have done if he could have filmed an "R" rated film????
It boggles the mind!!!

[Ray Bell]

Undoubtedly he would have chosen someone to christen the seat of a Lotus 22 dressed up as a Ferrari...

[Wes]

I'd kill Montand, have Garner's engine completely let go on the last lap, and have Sabato ignore the Ferrari black flag and win the race, and hence, the championship.

Off subject: Ronin, a more recent Frankenhemer movie, contains some of the best car chase scenes in memory. In fact, Frankenheimer used much of the same technology he developed in Grand Prix. Thankfully, he did not use any of the Grand Prix writers. A decent movie, check it out.

[Keir]

Wes,
You certainly would piss a lot of people off!!!!
And I don't think the movie would have done well.

[Ray Bell]

My version would have had Scott Stoddart and Nini Barlini competing for the hand (etc) of some fair maiden, missing practice at alternating events due to her fluctuating responses and their desire to be with her.
That would have spiced it up... but who would have played the girl?

[Wolf]

Then it must be an italian belle. Or Simone Signoret?;)
But they would both have to miss last practice together (to settle that matter once and for all). [p][Edited by Wolf on 06-27-2000]

[Ray Bell]

Wolf, you have an evil mind!

[SteveB2]

I think Sarti was the right one to kill off. Barlini would have been the safer choice as he was probably the one the viewer was least emotionally involved with. Sarti's death brought into play a neat juxtaposition between Sarti's wife and Eva Marie Saint's character. They were at opposite ends of a progression from being emmotionally involved with their driver to emotionally withdrawing as a means of self protection. Eva (I can't remember the character's name) was very naive with regard to relationships with drivers while Sarti's wife seems to have long ago resigned herself to the fact that Sarti would die like so many of his colleagues. Smack dab in the middle is Stoddard's wife, who is making the transition from one to another. Trying to extricate herself from the stress of it all. I think it would have been more interesting to see her (instead of Aron) at the end reflecting on the nature of it all in light of the fact that she failed to remove herself from Stoddard's life. (Maybe watching him go off to practice in next year's car right after Monza.)

After reading all of this , I've been wondering if I've been letting my wife drag me to too many chick movies. If Frankenheimer would have made this movie about the women, it might have had better dialogue but, it would have ruined the racing and the movie. I'd better rent Terminator as an antedote.

[Eagle104]

All these scenarios are fine, but, the "I don't drink. I don't smoke." chick still gets my attention! (heh heh) Of course, though, I'm Italian...what can I tell you?!

"Then, what do you do?" Nino Barlini

[Keir]

Eagle,
Any girl like that gets "my" attention and I'm only half Italian. In fact, I think the only thing that's required is a pulse. Francoise Hardy still looks good today!!!!

[Joe Fan]

Anybody who says "When I see an accident, I put my foot down because everyone else will lift" or something along that line, needs to be the one who dies. If it would have happened to anyone else, it may have not had the same effect. Besides, viewers began to get attached to Sarti's character. Certainly every racefan has had one driver that they really liked and supported get killed in an accident. Why should a movie be any different? It only hammered home the reality of motorsports, especially that period. Everything else about the movie was done very realistically in relative terms when it comes to your average movie. Incar camera shots brought the viewer into the cockpit. This wasn't supposed to be your typical fairly tale ending type movie with actors being filmed sitting in stationary cars with rolling scenery running on a screen behind them and everybody goes home safe with a happy ending. This was a movie that wanted to realistically bring Grand Prix racing to the viewer.[p][Edited by Joe Fan on 06-28-2000]

[Ray Bell]

Yes, like those girls in Keir's dreams, and perhaps the ones in the bar mentioned some time ago, the movie had a pulse.
The downside was perhaps that line... it was probably the line of the Purdys or the Jenkinsons or the Eoin Youngs, but not of the drivers, and in that way it tended to detract from the reality as seen by the enthusiast. It was more like the way the outsider would have seen the drivers.
An interesting proposition with the final scene, too. Resignation or hope? A glorious future or death? Could she have expressed it all?

[Wolf]

Joe Fan.
The line You used is, if I'm not mistaken Phil Hill's, and I see more of him in Garner's character than in Sartis. One's got to use all his expirience if he's to win. The other similarity with him is that many people think (wrongly or rightly) that he won championship only because Sartis lost it. But with Hill, I think they're wrong.

[Joe Fan]

Wolf, you are probably right about that line fitting Garner's character more, especially since Aron was younger than Sarti. However, the director must have felt that the "When I see an accident I put my foot down..." line matched the driver who would end up getting killed. It seemed more believable to the viewer. It was also probably ironic since he had put his "foot down hard" on the throttle whenever he seen a bad accident and now he himself was the bad accident. Since Aron didn't seem to have a big love interest, Sarti's death had a more dramtic effect since he obviously did.

[Ray Bell]

Speaking of Phil Hill and 'Grand Prix' and filming it and all (and I can't find the thread that mentions this car, but if someone puts me right I'll drop this post and put it there), here's a picture I found that shows the camera car trying hard not to pass poor Dan and his Climax-powered Eagle at the start of the race, while Jim Clark stalled on the grid and is behind them somewhere. A minute or so later all hell broke loose, as I recall...



Once again, from the Nigel Snowdon book, 'The Ultimate Excitement,' although this is only a backdrop to the picture series on the page. You can see the camera attached to the front of the car just ahead of the right hand wheel.

[SteveB2]

Ray,

I posted that picture of the camera car in the other thread, but I can't for the life of me remember where it was. So...(if this works) I'll just try to put it up again.



BTW, your picture is great. I haven't watched my tape of Gran Prix since. Is the footage from that particular moment in the race in the film?

[Huw Jenjin]

Who drove the Camera car, was it Bruce McLaren?

And look at that RRCW car all crossed up in front of him!

[Ray Bell]

Sometimes I wonder how much you've missed, Huge. There was a lot about it in some other thread (I couldn't find it)... Phil Hill drove, I don't know if it's in the movie, and that would be Jo Siffert in the tank-slapper.

[Marcor]

I’m not sure that MOTOR SPORT liked the movie in 1966 !
Here what we could read in the editorial MATTERS of MOMENT of MOTOR SPORT Volume 42, N°8 August 1966.
Times change !
…The point it is time to make is that big-time motor racing is changing, and not necessarily for the better. Some of the uncertainty as to who has won, which threatens to make a nonsense of International rallies, is beginning to affect motor racing, pace Indianapolis and Le Mans.
Far more unfortunate is the incursion of film companies at Grand Prix practice periods, with a camera-car actually leaving the starting-grid in a race, driven by a professional racing driver - and not so long ago the G.P.D.A. said so emphatically, no more cameras on racing cars when a real race is occupying a circuit !
We may be old-fashioned in outlook. But it seems astonishing that something like £4.25-million should be spent jointly by M.G.M. and Warner Brothers to make a couple of motor-racing films when, as Derek Jewell emphasises in his masterly article on the subject in The Sunday Times Magazine of July 10th, in the 1964 Mexican G.P. the world championship changed hands three times on the last lap. Even M.G.M. Director John Frankenheimer admits that to put that sort of drama on the screen would get him laughed out of the cinema.
Think what a magnificent G.P. team you could prepare for half the money these film producers are spending ! Real motor racing is so dramatic and full of interest and sensation that it seems so futile to over-sensationalise the Sport on celluloid. And when doing so interferes with the real thing it makes us very angry indeed…
…If motor-racing films are such good box-office that it is profitable to spend millions of money on them, shooting racing cars from guns like puffed wheat to get truly blood-curdling accident sequences, buying £100,000-woerth of faked F.3 cars, and investing up to £20,000 in a single camera car, we suppose nothing will suppress it - but filming should be confined to non-race days, not intermingled with the real thing, as it has been at major G.P. races this season.
However, when drivers of the calibre of the Hills, Mc Laren, Rindt, Ginther and Bonnier accept a signing-on fee said to be £750 each, as film stars, with Clark, Surtees, Stewart and Ireland facing them in the opposite camp, it is hard to define where acting ends and professional race driving takes over.
The racing driver of 1966 seems in some danger, too, of being out-classed by actor racing motorists in public esteem - and some day of losing races to them.
The distressing distortion of motor racing is not confined to the cinema. Jazz bands, pop-stars, aerobatic teams and parachutists are nowadays deemed necessary to maintain interest in the sport.
A certain god-like photographer, whose gaze no-one except no-one except himself escapes, having paid us the compliment of saying we behave as if Victoria were still on the throne, we admit that we preferred the days when one great motor race was sufficient to draw the spectators in their tens of thousands, when supporting events were quite unnecessary, and when the French G.P. even survived being held on weekdays and being started in the early hours of the morning. Do you recall the excitement of the last two Donington GPs when the presence of the German teams and Dick Seaman drew record crowds ?
If we regret the passing of an age when people supported motor racing because they liked motor cars, not on account of sensationalism and side-shows, and when drivers were knighted for their skill, prowess, bravery and service too their country instead of earning a supplementary income from the film industry, we also have hope that the present blight is but a passing phase. Anything which undermines the prestige of G.P. motor racing is to be regretted, especially as it is one of the few such pursuits in which Britain leads the World. With the high speeds and powerful performance of present 3-litre G.P. cars, the formidable spectacle of 7-litre Le Mans hammering home the might of the dollar and dragsters they say can reach 100 m.p.h. from a standstill in 3 seconds, modern motor racing surely shouldn’t need artificial stimulation ?
In any case there is plenty of evidence of genuine enthusiasm for motoring sport among the ranks of those who drive veteran and vintage vehicles, almost entirely without financial gain and often at considerable personal expense. MOTOR SPORT is proud to have played its part in furthering their cause and intends to continue to do so…

[Marcor]

About The 19th British Grand Prix and the movie Grand Prix: (on the same publication)

A large and representative entry was arranged, the outstanding omission being the Ferrari team, their absence being attributed to various causes, depending on which "spokesman" you listened to…Whatever the reason, the result was a complete absence of works Ferrari, which tend to make the event a motor race rather than a GP motor race.

…The Swede Bonnier had an entry and some film-unit cars to choose from, none serious contenders…

…In the afternoon, Bonnier was driving a Brabham-B.R.M. V8 belonging to M.G.M. and it was fitted with dummy exhaust pipes and painted red to make it look like a Ferrari, but Hollywood was "double-crossed" when the B.R.M. blew up almost as practice started!…

…On Friday morning there was practice from 10.30 a.m. to 12.30 P.M Bonnier turned out in yet another fake Ferrari for the film-makers, this time a 1 ½-litre Brabham-Climax V8, it being the one he used to drive for Rob Walker last year.
… All 20 cars were present on time, though some were not absolutely correct and the Hollywood film-makers had "got at" Parnell’s entry so that his Lotus-B.R.M. V8 was red instead of its usual dark green and Spence had a white helmet painted with a circle of red dashes to make it look like Parkes’ helmet, instead of his yellow-hued helmet.

Bonnier was still in the "phoney pherrari", no doubt more intend of being a film star than a Grand Prix driver and one wondered if Enzo Ferrari realised his abstention was giving the film producers ulcers. One suspects that B.R.M. are not co-operating in the comedy for some of their mechanics were wearing the usual orange overalls and others were wearing red overalls.(How easy life would be if the colour film had not been invented)
…
Reflections after the race (Brands Bubbles)
1- The question of the winning car in Grand Prix racing having the owner at the wheel is indeed rare and I cannot recall the last time it happened. Must be back in the 1920’s, with the Maserati brothers.

2- After seeing the Spa Chaos the R.A.C. wisely curbed the enthusiasm of the M.G.M. film-makers, limiting their activities during practice and the race, and the Americans behaved like gentlemen and did not overstep the mark.

3- It was a day of fun, spectacle and music for the 50,000-strong who spectated, from helicopters to jet-planes "flying men" propelled by jets to "floating men" on parachutes, and military bands to Chris Barber Jazz. There were some motor racing as well.

[John Cross]

Those of us in England can see it (again!) on Saturday 22nd July at 2.10pm on ITV.

[Mike Argetsinger]

The posts from contemporary Motor Sport certainly bring back memories of how much bad feeling there was in certain corners about the presence of Hollywood. I was present at every GP that year and neither at the time, nor today, believed that the movie making got in the way of the real thing. Viewpoints were typically split along lines of whether you were signed up with MGM or Steve McQueen's outfit - which didn't withdraw from the fray until well into the season. John Frankenheimer was (probably still is!) a marvelous individual with a genuine passion for the sport. He did an incredible amount of research and went to great lengths to be accurate and authentic. It is easy to take shots if one is so intent, but we wound up with a wonderful movie that brings back that era like nothing else. Part of the genius of the production was its ability to cut in the real stuff with the artificial stuff. The cars were built up from F3 chassis (I think Jim Russell did the conversions - if memory serves me right) to look like the various cars actually racing. (There was a lot of side intrigue around this too. I remember people putting decals on the sides of the real race cars that said Trade Mark applied for - or words to that effect - the cars didn't have much, if any, signage in those days so the decals were very prominent - they can be clearly seen in some photos from that year.) Driver helmets were matched with real drivers and even the names were made close enough so that actual public address sound could be used (Sarti sounds a lot like Surtees when pronounced by an animated French or Italian announcer!). Of course they had bad luck on that one when Surtees left Ferrari mid season. The following year we had a special "premier" of the movie at Watkins Glen at the time of the USGP (I forget the exact time line - I think the movie may already have had its real premier but this was a special promo cooked up by MGM). Anyway MGM sent one of their PR people to Watkins Glen to make the media rounds with us during the final two weeks before our race. He was a terrific guy, I wish I could remember his name, and a real pro. I probably learned more observing him in action than he gained in return. The other day I discovered that I still have 2 or 3 complete sets of all the promotional stills from the movie and other materials that we used during that time. I will stop this ramble but the topic sure does bring back some great memories.

[C F Eick]

Does anyone know the adress of John Frankenheimer? Maybe he would like to join this forum, that could be interesting!

/C F Eick

[Vercertorix]

Yes - it was Russell who built up F3's.

I always felt like I was watching two films, one of which I could sit through, but the other drives me out of the room every time - to this day. The race sequences were (and are) for the most part marvels, but the story is, to me, the absolute worst and lowest common denominator of soap opera.

Stoddard was a jerk; Aron was a bigger jerk... I thought pretty much all the people were incredibly self-absorbed wretches...

That's likely a minority opinion - sorry! I watch it for the racing, which (like the dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park") occupies about fifteen minutes out of two hours of tripe.

And even the racing - I guess Frankenheimer was being technically innovative and brilliant with the split and mulitple screens at Zandvoort, (don't remember now - was it Zandvoort?) but it just annoyed me because it loused up the racing!

[Ray Bell]

You're not easily pleased, are you Vercertorix?
Just imagine what it was like for me... half a world away from the nearest F1 car (well, we did see JB do a few laps of Surfers in 1966), and those classic circuits we saw and loved just from Motor Sport, SCG and R & T, this was a chance to go there... well, nearly!
It would be another 14 years before I went to Monaco, the only place I've seen a European F1 race live.
For that reason, no matter how the story line threads its dreary way though the movie, it was great to see. The biggest disappointment is the way it skips over so many races in the mid-season.[p][Edited by Ray Bell on 07-21-2000]

[Vercertorix]

Oh, God, Ray - horrible people! Just horrid people, self-centered, whiney... bleagh!

And yes, that was another thing, most of the mid-section of the season cut out - in order to concentrate on the soap opera!

Then coming back to Spa, solely for the purpose of loading an ersatz Ferrari into a sling so it could be fired across the track and into the side of a barn, for the sole purpose of killing a (gasp!) child to illustrate Dan Gurney's remark... just awful.

I guess everyone loves the film. I admit freely: it's entirely possible (maybe even likely) that I'm weird.

A straight documentary of almost any season through the sixties would have been of far more value to people actually interested in F1, and far more interest to the uninitiated than a two-hour episode of (name your own soap) with fifteen minutes of cars.

[Ray Bell]

Wasn't the gap in mid-season because some circuits wouldn't have them there?
And what would you give for a day or two with the scraps from the cutting room floor?
I wonder if all that film is still around... that would make good documentary stuff!

[Keir]

I feel I must return to this thread to illustrate one vital point. "Movies, in particular, autoracing movies, made for the sole enjoyment of the autoracing fan, are destined to sent the movie maker to the poor house." Just ask Steve McQueen!!!!

"Grand Prix", for what it's worth, didn't have the greatest of storylines, but it certainly didn't have the worst. There are too many character sketches that match up to the "real deal", to say that the writing was bad.

Was it on the "soap opera" side?? Motor racing always has a little bit of soap to keep things lively, as I have said in another thread, there are still stories to be told!!!

As for the racing scenes, they still hold up well today!!!
We're talking 34 years ago!!!!

In closing, "Grand Prix" will always be a classic, because it started out a classic!!!!

BTW - I loved "LeMans", too bad I was in the minority!!


FORZA GRAND PRIX

[Ray Bell]

I've got to agree, Keir. And I think that racing people looked at the story line rather caustically because they couldn't really relate it to either what they knew of their idols or how the public might see them.
I'll repeat my note about the cutting room floor, for some of that camera car stuff alone would be worth gold today, while the scenes missed out in the rain at Spa could no doubt fill an afternoon, and another and another. There was mention before of just a snip of Rindt's famous spin, was there not?
So, if anyone gets onto Frankenheimer tell him we're waiting. If anyone looks at the film, compare it not with real life, but with movies.. and not necessarily Oscar-winning ones.
Oh for a trip into Cinerama again!

[Junior]

Yes, wouldn't a "Director's Cut" of Grand Prix be wonderful? The way they can remaster old film now-a-days could make it possible, but if they can't make money on it it wouldn't fly. The cut footage is probably packed away in a storeroom somewhere deteriorating as we speak.

As for my opinions on the characters (sorry, I'm coming into this a bit late in the game), Sarti was the best choice for the "tragic death" character.

It wasn't going to be Barlini, he was TOO young and his death wouldn't have been tragic enough. It would've been the cliche of "dying while doing what you love most". Plus, his character wasn't developed beyond a superficial hotshoe who likes girls and likes to go fast. (Wouldn't we all like to be Barlini?)

Stoddard's character is completely devoid of personality. There would've been no sympathy there what-so-ever. We get a brief glimps of him remembering his brother as he walks the Monaco course, but that's it. During his rehab, they turn him into a sulking machine who's working to get back in his car and prove something to his wife.

Plus, due to the fact that Bedford couldn't drive worth a damn in real life and was scared shitless of that tow-car contraption they used, they had to use another actor to do his race footage. This made it necessary to cover up his face completely. This plays a BIG part in connecting with the characters, as it in the seat of their car that we see them "at work". We get to see Sarti, Aron and Barlini's faces, but they could've had a manaquin playing Stoddard's.

Aron is the star of the film, and rightly or wrongly, in the tradition of American films, they're not going to kill him off. He had no emotional attachment to anyone (not even really to Stoddard's wife) and drove for a new team they introduced towards the end of the movie. So no one would've been present to "mourn" his passing. (With the possible exception of some of the other drivers.)

That leaves Sarti. He was the natural choice, as he had TWO females involved with him, both of which were very similar and very different women. His death is made more tragic by having him race for Ferrari, and by doing it at a time when his career is both at a high and winding to an end. If I recall, he appeared to be ready to quit racing and run off with the blonde when the season was through. Plus he was universally liked by the whole racing establishment, which is something that can't be said for any of the other drivers.


It's funny though. I must've seen Grand Prix when I was VERY young. I'd always had a memory of a race car driver crashing and dying at a point where a track crossed over itself. I clearly remember the picture of him hanging in the tree. It wasn't until about ten years ago that I watched the whole movie (pretty much for the first time) and realized that this was the movie I'd always visualized. It's funny how certain scenes from movies can stick with you for so long.

As for how I'd have changed the movie, I too would've liked more race footage, but of course we ALL would've. And while the soap opera story line is terribly bothersome, it holds the movie together and provides the means for creating the emotional attachment to Sarti (who's the real star of the film).

But the TRUE star of the movie isn't any of the actors or actresses, it's the racing itself. It's not about an American in F1, or a washed up driver winning a championship posthumously. It's about the joy and tragidy of racing.

(I noticed no one has brought up Stallone's movie yet.)

[404KF2]

Yes, Le Mans was great, too.

[Jonathan]

Wolf -

"Have you seen that B/W french flic (don't know the title in english, should be 'Wages of Fear' or something like that) where Montand races with truck full of nytro through South American jungle? That was sinless killing if I e'er saw one."

The origional "Wages of Fear" film (1951) was remade as the film "Sorcerer" (1977 ?) Directed by William Freidkin and starring Roy Scheider. I have never seen the origional Wages of Fear, But I especially loved this remake as a youngster.

[Keir]

Hey, give this a quick read ! There are some good ideas here that never got fully fleshed out !

[petefenelon]

Are you taking the mick, or do you genuinely see merit in reviving and bumping a fluff thread, one that's been dead nearly five years, on a film that's been done to death on this forum already?

[Keir]

petefenelon,

Do you ever get tired, tired of the posting? Sometimes I get very tired, tired of people who try to hijack threads!

Not interested ?? Then take a walk and try not stumble on your way out !!

[Macca]

Keir, Pete's right......................too many threads. I've searched and read the old movie-related threads, but I've no desire to resurrect them.

(You could always cut & copy a particularly good point onto the 'Out-Takes' thread.)

When (if) I finish my Bondurant BRM and Spence Parnell-Lotus models, I'll post them on the out-takes to simplify things.


Paul M

[Keir]

Paul,

I just think that Pete is tired, very tired !! ..... and the Pete in the movie was never tired !!

Plus, I'm real bad at all this "cutting and pasting" !!

La la la la, life goes on !!

[ian senior]

This is getting bloody ridiculous. Isn't one thread on this subject enough? One film, and not a brilliant one in the overall filmic school of things, yet it generates so much "discussion", purely because it's about motor racing. There have been other films on this subject, y'know.

I wouldn't dream of suggesting that some people appear to have some kind of Obssessive-Compulsive disorder.... but I might.