Grand Prix 1966

Great weekend to watch the classic!!




Great behind the scenes portion.

 

Second best racing movie ever made.

The best racing movie ever made was 93% racing and 7% blather, instead of 50%/50%.

Can you guess which one it was ?

 

Just caught the end of Le Mans tonight. it was and still is the best movie about racing every made. Puts Ferrari vs Ford to shame and all the others to shame.

 

Yep. Movie about pure racing with almost no nonsense.

 

"The danger? Well, of course. But you are missing a very important point. I think if any of us imagined - really imagined - what it would be like to go into a tree at 150 miles per hour we would probably never get into the cars at all, none of us. So it has always seemed to me that to do something very dangerous requires a certain absence of imagination."

"I used to think nothing could be better than motorbike racing. Three times I am a World Champion on my motorbike. I am happy. Then I go into one of these, these cars: you sit in a box, a coffin, gasoline all around you. It is like being inside a bomb! Crazy, but of course the cars are faster, and that is the most important thing."

"You have to remember that at Monte Carlo, because of the nature of the circuit, you have to shift gears over 2600 times during the race. That's an average of once every three seconds. No reason to expect gearbox trouble....on the other hand, potential problems *are* in the back of your mind at all times."

 

"What was I supposed to do? Assault him with my crutches ?"

"Do you ever get tired, Pete ?"

 

"What are you doing for diner tonight ?"

"How many guesses do I get ?"

"Nine"

"Nine guesses ?"

"Nine o'clock"

 

"Aaron's on fire, he's well and truly on fire."
"You don't smoke, you don't drink, you don't dance; what do you do?"

 

"Gas leaking?"

"When I see something really HORRIBLE, I put my foot down -- HARD. Because I know all the others will be lifting theirs."

"There are 24 drivers in the world qualified to drive formula one. A mere handful who can become champion. Right now I am inclined to believe, you are not one of them"

"Does that look like 16,000 dollars to you?"

"Have you had Ouzo?" "I have had everything"

"Scott put Scott where Scott is"

"Why do you wear your sunglasses like that?" "Like what?" "On the top of your head. Looks ridiculous"

 

Fun fact ...cars supplied by Jim Russell Racing Drivers School UK were formula junior cars with bodywork changes.

 

"And what do you think of this man? In the middle of the race, he decides to take a swim! It cost me two seconds!"
"Pete, do you ever get tired, of the driving?"
"No."
"Lately, I sometimes get very tired, you know? Very tired."

"Before you leave I want to tell you something. Not about the others, but about myself. I used to go to pieces. I'd see an accident like that and be so weak inside that I wanted to quit - stop the car and walk away. I could hardly make myself go past it. But I'm older now. When I see something really horrible, I put my foot down. Hard! Because I know that everyone else is lifting his."
"What a terrible way to win."
"No, there is no terrible way to win. There is only winning."

"What means far more to me than anything else is: our good name! Our reputation represents desire for perfection of the highest quality. I gamble that reputation gladly, because I have *absolute* faith in every car that leaves this factory. But I will not risk it on a driver in whom I cannot have an equal faith. There are fewer than thirty men in the world qualified to drive Formula One; a mere half-dozen, perhaps, to win. At this moment, I am inclined to think you are not one of them."

 

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Quite an array of then current F1 drivers in the movie- how often do you not only see but hear Bruce McLaren. Saw Grand Prix and LeMans in the theaters with my father and brothers in the day as a kid and they will always be the two best racing movies for me.

 

A lot of the dialogue comes from Robert Daileys book thr crule sport- literally verbatim.


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I would happily argue that Grand Prix is THE best racing movie ever. LeMans is good, but the lack of script really hurts it. the racing filming is great.

Rush is just ok, Ferrari v Ford somewhat ok... and anything else is horrible.

 

What makes "leMans" best is the lack of dialog--and yes this makes it a boring movie for people that do not understand racing--but it makes it a better movie about racing !

 

Both great films, but Lemans, gets the slight edge for the lack of script.
It allows you feel and immerse in all the action, without following a dialog.
My .02

 

I treated both films as documentaries.

 

See I see it differently. In racing - McQueen's character would have been talking to the mechanics, and team manager a lot more rather than just sauntering up to the car waving and a couple of whispers... but I get it. I think that is the part that does not work. I read the book a French kiss with Death about the making of the movie - and McQueen was so difficult during the making that the writers just could not get a good script. he started filming the movie with no scrip... I agree its a great period piece, and it has some beautiful shots, but I think it could have been a much better movie. as it is I watch is a couple of times a year, but I watch Grand Prix far more often. GP is a movie you can pick up almost at any point and it sucks you in.

 

"Racing is life, everything that happens in between is just waiting around".

 

Perhaps a minor item, but Francoise Hardy, who played Nino Barlini's girl Lisa in "Grand Prix" died a few days ago at the age of 80.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/jun/12/francoise-hardy-french-pop-singer-and-fashion-muse-dies-aged-80

 

R.I.P Lisa...

 

Frankenheimer was a genius and Grand Prix was a groundbreaking film in many ways. Le Mans is essentially a film without a script and a director (Lee Katzin, who was brought in after John Sturges quit) who was mostly just a cleanup man sent to salvage something by the studio. McQueen’s ego and self indulgence basically kept it from being the movie it could have been.