Jessica Walter on the movie Grand Prix

I wanted to share this because I was partly responsible for the Grand Prix content. A friend of mine is a TV writer/blogger and mentioned he was about to interview Jessica Walter because the TV show Arrested Development is back in production... What my friend didn't know was that her first movie role was as James Garner's wife in Grand Prix. So I fed him a couple questions...
Full interview: Exclusive Interview: Jessica Walter talks 'Arrested Development', 'Archer' and more. - Blogomatic3000

 

A. Neat stuff! Thanks for sharing.

B. Whoa! I hadn't realized the connection of the two roles. I'm not sure I would have ever figured it out.

 

I love the movie Grand Prix... and Jessica Walter's character was not the nicest one there she irritated me, but she is a very good actress.

 

Well played Dave ! I remember riding the bus to downtown Dallas, eating at Shumacher's BBQ, going to Magicland, and then seeing Grand Prix. Those split screen shots were amazing. Still the best racing movie ever, in my opinion.

About the time it was showing, I was racing a Surtees Ferrari and a Cox Chapparral on the local slot tracks.
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Each to his own. I liked "Michel Vaillant" a lot more.

Grand Prix was good when it came out. By today's standards it looks dated. Worst part is the story.

 

*Like*

 

Not to nitpick, but she played the wife of Brian Bedford's character (Scott Stoddard) who has an affair with Garner's character.

 

Whoops. Usually fast forwarded through the all those scenes anyway.

 

I don't know about that, if anything it holds up pretty good because most of what you see on screen now is all fake special effects, at least they were really driving the cars. The story was a kind of corny, but if there was no story line, it would basically be LeMans, where there was hardly any dialog until at least 15 minutes into the movie.

 

That is what I liked MOST about "Lemans"...little dialogue but fantastic car shots...my favorite line is.... "the machine is good" !!!!!

 

I liked "Lisa" the most, Nino's girlfriend. Francois Hardy

"Its Marvelous to go very fast"

 

Grand Prix is OK, but LeMans = Best racing movie ever

 

LOL! They won an oscar for screenwriting. NOT!

 

Bob Bondurant served as a technical consultant for Grand Prix and trained James Garner to drive Formula cars in the race sequences.

 

Thanks.
Way cool.

 

That is just really, really cool. Thanks FarmerDave.

I love Arrested Development and Archer too (so the interview was very interesting!)

Speaking of which -- the show "Archer" has a Grand Prix episode (C'est Le Grand Prix), where they are in Monte Carlo... The "time" that Archer takes place is sort of a hybrid of mostly the late 60s combined with today, so it's always interesting how they handle technology/cars in the show. Pretty sure they got everything wrong with F1, but sometimes they are quite on target.

 

Same here, terrific thought regarding a cameo.

There was a race between the two films ? Wasn't Lemans in theaters several years later ?

 

-1

Pretty bad movie. No story, no dialogue, poor acting and fake cars.

Or was that Grand Prix?

 

Some of the driving in GP was fake too. Garner was the only one who did some good laps.

Don't get me wrong, I like GP but I would never call it the best racing movie ever. There are others I like much more (Senna, Siffert, Vaillant to name a few).

 

I have this on Ebay. Local SCCA had an advanced showing, David Hobbs was the MC. We all received this movie book and a postcard of the cast:
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I have real hope that the best parts of Ron Howard's Rush will be as great as the best parts of LeMans, Grand Prix.

 

+1

Someone forward this comment to Ron. Hopefully that idea hasn't been written off by Hollywood as too "boring" for modern, mainstream audiences.

If there aren't any extreme mechanical close-ups (ie racecar porn) and I don't get goosebumps from roaring F1 engines within the first 10 minutes, I'm walking out.

 

Yeah, that episode was quite amusing... supposedly in current times, but racing 1960's car. I think it was a tribute to Jessica's participation because there's a line in the episode when she says. "OH, I know a thing or two about those Grand Prix drivers."

 

She's still a sexy broad.

 

Andreas, How can you say that about Le Mans. It didn't need a story, dialogue or acting ... it was all about the racing and sounds. Perfect car racing movie. Don't need actors wasting car filming time!

I love it. Makes my hair stand up and I want to go and jump in my car and go and do a few laps!
Pete