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The Lost Movie and Grand Prix: The Lost Movie was the highlight here. It's a documentary about Steve McQueen trying to bring the European racing scene to the screen. Not the easiest thing to do. Camera's are big and bulky and the race scene doesn't have a lot of time for movie people. Moreover at the same time Frankenheimer is working on Grand Prix and no one wants to be the second movie about F1 racing. Initially McQueens team have the lead as the two productions shoot side by side picking up footage at Monte Carlo and Monza but then McQueen gets locked into an endless shoot in Japan that pushes his own production back, Grand Prix secures the support of Ferrari and the studio pulls out on McQueen, leaving him with a lot of footage but no movie.
Spurred me on to give Grand Prix a look. It's a damnable impressive production that must have been incredibly dangerous to make. The little F1 cars of the day tearing round tracks with huge 1960s movie cameras strapped to their bonnets and Hollywood stars in the drivers seats. The footage they capture is incredible. Back then it would have been spectacular to watch because up till all anyone had seen was little black and white images from a distance. Here you're right amongst it and in Technicolour. Today it's great to watch because you get to see the old school race cars, the ridiculously deadly tracks and death defying lengths spectators would go to try to get a decent look at the track. It's just a million miles away from the modern world.
As a film though, it's disappointing. It's got such a hard on for the risks the drivers put themselves in that there's not room for a lot else. All the drivers wander around looking depressed. Where's the wild flamboyant playboys and girls in mini skirts? The plots pretty stupid too. A British drivers wife leaves him because she can't stand being with a man who takes so many risks. She takes up with James Garner who is also a racing car driver. Doesn't make a lot of sense there. Garner's a block of wood and by gad there's a lot of talking about not much. There's one good character in it. An Italian racing driver who's having a ball, with a hot model girlfriend, having threesomes with Japanese chicks. He should have been the centre. The one good, non racing scene, in this is when his girlfriend dumps him and he plays it cool. Great fucking scene watching him deal with it. Only vaguely true moment in the whole thing.
Plus it's three hours long.
Spurred me on to give Grand Prix a look. It's a damnable impressive production that must have been incredibly dangerous to make. The little F1 cars of the day tearing round tracks with huge 1960s movie cameras strapped to their bonnets and Hollywood stars in the drivers seats. The footage they capture is incredible. Back then it would have been spectacular to watch because up till all anyone had seen was little black and white images from a distance. Here you're right amongst it and in Technicolour. Today it's great to watch because you get to see the old school race cars, the ridiculously deadly tracks and death defying lengths spectators would go to try to get a decent look at the track. It's just a million miles away from the modern world.
As a film though, it's disappointing. It's got such a hard on for the risks the drivers put themselves in that there's not room for a lot else. All the drivers wander around looking depressed. Where's the wild flamboyant playboys and girls in mini skirts? The plots pretty stupid too. A British drivers wife leaves him because she can't stand being with a man who takes so many risks. She takes up with James Garner who is also a racing car driver. Doesn't make a lot of sense there. Garner's a block of wood and by gad there's a lot of talking about not much. There's one good character in it. An Italian racing driver who's having a ball, with a hot model girlfriend, having threesomes with Japanese chicks. He should have been the centre. The one good, non racing scene, in this is when his girlfriend dumps him and he plays it cool. Great fucking scene watching him deal with it. Only vaguely true moment in the whole thing.
Plus it's three hours long.
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