One by One

It was the days when F1 was really a lethal sport for crazies... the interviews of many of these guys, knowing that most of them finished burned alive in their cars few months or years after the filming, is so tragically poignant. Cevert in particular... so genuine and open about his passion, Jackie and their friendship. A future world champion until his fate was sealed this terrible day at Watkins Glen 1973. Awesome footage of movie quality of these 1973 raging motor beasts mastered by their crazy fearless masters... rarely seen so vibrant footage of a long gone era. And of course the awful drama of these 2 terrible and visceral graphic scenes that demonstrate why so few could ride these mechanical monsters. A documentary that explains the essence of this sport during these early eras: epic, raw and dangerous. One of the best ever.

I now realise I have seen clips of this documentary used in other F1 films and it's good to see the whole film. It has some interesting and candid interviews with leading drivers of the day with no PR person in sight interrupting the interview. It starts with the horrific Tom Pryce accident in Kyalami but after that it's not too graphic. It's also sad to see Francois Cevert discussing how smoothly his team mate, Jackie Stewart, drives in the same year died. Another thing which is striking is how tatty and worn the cars look compared to immaculate specimens you see today and also how soft their suspension was. Also surprising is the amount of surplus people in the pits who have to dive out of the way when the cars come in The film is of its time and has a lot of the 70s trademarks - swirling aerial helicopter shots, rambling incidental music, lingering female breast shots, and goes down odd cinematic avenues to try and set the scene before jumping back into f1 but I am not complaining. It's also filmem, to a degree, from a 'let's teach the Americans about f1. Most of the video footage is of good quality and with age it has become a good historical record of an F1 era which must be fading fast, even from the memories of those who lived through it. Much like Steve McQueenks Le Mans

My interest in F-1 started in the early 70s. Back then, the only TV coverage of F-1 in the US, was a few minutes of Monaco on Wide World of SPorts, between other segments. Any other footage I saw of F-1 races came along once a year when Auto Expo auto show would run some of the Castrol films covering motorsports during the previous year. When One By One opened in Los Angeles, I skipped school and drove 60 miles to see it! Then went back with my parents on the weekend, then skipped another day of school the following week. I was a big fan of Tyrrell team and had been sad at the loss of Cevert at Watkins that previous year. I appreciated that the film became a tribute to him. The film had been intended to be about the passing of the torch from Stewart to Cevert.

As some have noted, the film was later released on video as "The Quick and the Dead", with that morbid addition of Tom Pryce and the course worker losing their lives. That aside, the movie captures the atmosphere of that era quite well. It was tragically common up to the early 80s for at least one driver to be killed per season in GP racing (same applied to most of the big league motorsports), and the film brings that to our attention in a very non-gratuitous way.

Something to watch in the off season. On one hand possibly the worst ever example of 1970's documentary film making (the editor must have been on LSD and the musical score later probably appeared in Deep Throat) BUT put that to one side and enjoy the spectacle of those incredible 1973 F1 cars and just how far the sport has come in the intervening years.

OK, so this was made in 1974, and, wow!, it shows! It's about 80% filler & time wasted. It's obvious the the producers & director deliberately include a lot of 70s risque crap.

What IS worthwhile is the 20% of material that shows racing, incidents, discussion of racing by the drivers, a tour of the Nurburgring with Jackie Stewart, and the display of just how primitive and chaotic F1 was at the time.

It was, compared to today, a poorly administered exercise in making rich people richer, and letting fragile egos of a few European men play with lives of drivers and the welfare of their families.

It's not a proud time for F1, and this documentary suffers mightily in retrospect for choices made to put style first over actual content. It is, maybe, an effort to celebrate excess for its own sake. At best - trying to be generous - it's an experience of F1 of the times, moreso than an exposition.

Fortunately, there are much better documentaries and far better resources for learning the history of F1.