Grand Prix

According to a recent biography of Steve McQueen, Grand Prix was supposed to be a project that he and John Frankenheimer were originally to work on. But the two had creative differences and went their separate ways doing separate racing pictures. What McQueen eventually did was Le Mans. I think Frankenheimer wound up with the far better product.

Grand Prix is a Grand Hotel type film involving several people and their lives over the course of a few months on the European racing circuit. Many of the types fans of the sport will most likely recognize.

James Garner is the American driver who's had a run of bad luck. A car crash has forced him to try and be color commentator for television, a role he can't fit in. Japanese auto industrialist Toshiro Mifune is offering him a way back into the circuit.

Brian Bedford's sustained a serious crash and even before's he's healed he's driving through a lot of pain. His wife Jessica Walter thinks he's certifiable and she drifts into an affair with Garner whom she thinks is showing good sense in going for the life of sports television commentator.

Antonio Sabato, father of the famed Calvin Klein model of the last decade, is the Epicurean live for the moment driver who doesn't take anything seriously except for the time he's actually competing. Definitely not his women as Francoise Hardy finds out.

The veteran of the circuit, the Michael Jordan of the profession, is Yves Montand. The only real happiness he has is driving, not even an affair with journalist Eva Marie Saint is bringing him that. Montand is trapped in a loveless marriage to Genevieve Page who's the daughter of another automobile industrialist. His name means more prestige for daddy's firm, so she'll tolerate all infidelities.

Montand is getting old and like many afraid his reflexes won't be there for him at one critical point too many. Back then these guys were racing at speeds of 180 miles an hour. Your life saving decisions at some point are taken out of your hands at those speeds.

Whether it's the NASCAR circuit in the USA, the Grand Prix of Europe or even midget go cars, auto racing may in fact be the only truly international sport there is. It's stars come from every corner in this world except Antarctica. The sport is held in just about every country there is. It's also never become has politicized as the Olympics have become on occasion. The drivers who compete and the supporters and sponsors around them are an international fraternity that national boundaries have no meaning for.

Despite the presence of so many international names, the star of the film is the sport itself. All the stories of the players are done against that backdrop. It's a tribute to John Frankenheimer that the individual stories did not get lost in the making of Grand Prix. The film won three Oscars, for Sound, for Sound Effects, and for Film Editing.

Grand Prix is the best film on auto racing ever done. And it's presented in such a way that even people who don't follow the sport, can appreciate what the drivers go through. If possible see this one on the big screen.

Readers may not remember (or possibly even know) that when this movie was released in 1967, it played in theaters equipped with CINERAMA, and let me tell you, that was an eye popping experience! The movie played for eight solid months at the Mann Cinerama theater in Minneapolis and they packed them in every night for the entire run. I think I saw it about a half dozen times in this format (not to mention some 20 more times in other theaters, television and VCR/DVD). 1967 was also such a wonderful year in motor sport. Dan Gurney won at Spa in his Eagle, one week after winning LeMans with AJ Foyt, who had in turn won Indianapolis a week before that.

Going to a Cinerama theater in those days was a big event. You got dressed up. I still have the playbill type program for Grand Prix that you got with your ticket. I also have Maurice Jarres great sound track album as well as an interesting record associated with the movie featuring Formula One engine sounds from Monaco, Spa and Monza with narration by Phil Hill. Great stuff.

It's hard to rate this film. Its got a soap opera plot pasted on to some really fine cinematography, editing, music and racing sequences. The real stars of this film are the cars, the beautiful F1 'cigar' cars of the 60's with their exposed engines and elegant lines. Within a handful of years aerodynamics and advertising would change the look of racing forever. Even the plot hints at the change taking place at the time-- from the gentlemen's league of the 50's to the ravenously commercial and brutally competitive environment that Formula 1 was to become. Frankenheimer followed the tour through a season, to the storied old tracks such as Nurburgring, Spa and Monza (before safety and television considerations changed them to much shorter, less idiosyncratic shadows of their former selves). There are cameos by Graham Hill, Bruce McLaren, Jim Clark and Lorenzo Bandini, names tinged with tragedy in retrospect. Technically this film is quite an achievement. Many of its developments, however, did not really take, such a multiple images, and the splicing of soft music to intense action scenes. The film, then, is not one of great importance in movie history. But there are a lot of racing fans who hold a special, if not top, place for Grand Prix in their lists of favourite films.

This movie simply put, is the greatest racing film of all time. Filmed during F1's glory days of the 1960's. I saw it a the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood in 1967 when I was 7 years old. My brother and I made our father take us back several time more, and to this day it's wonderful action sequences and amazing score (by Maurice Jarre) have never left my top 5 list. It was filmed in Super Panavision (a format log gone because of cost), ULTRA wide screen. The lives and loves of 4 drivers are followed during the Grand Prix season, with authentic racing scenes, fantastic locations (especially Monza's old bank turns & Spa's road circuit) and a good story line. Eva Marie Saint & Jessica Walter are great.

Nothing ever attemped since has even come close. Drivin is a pathetic joke next to it.

Just waiting for the DVD to come out!

Forget about cinematic technique or even plot: This movie will blow you away. Yeh, the plot is cookie-cutter, but they took the trouble to hire performers who could make it work well enough to not detract from the outrageously realistic action sequences. Part of the whole point is that personal lives become somehow smaller (and thus dearer) next to something like the Grande Prix F1 circuit.

I don't recommend pairing this in a screening with _Days of Thunder_ for two reasons: First, GP is LONG; second, DoT will pale by comparison.

BTW, if you can rent it in DVD, get it that way and watch it on as big a TV as you can find. The soundtrack is incredible and the widescreen work is like nothing you'll ever see anywhere else.