Real racing footage in "Grand Prix"?

They were shooting footage at the actual races.Speedvision had a making of special quite a while back.As I recall Enzo didn't care for the movie idea until they showed him some of the footage they took.It's been a while since I saw that so my memory is a little fuzzy.I wish they would release a dvd of this movie though.

 

There were camera cars running in some of the races that season. Several years ago Speedvision ran a "Director's Cut" of the movie with commentary from John Frankenheimer. I have a VHS of the show, but I haven't watched it in quite a while.

 

Every time we get back from the track (DE events) we all get together and watch that film. The overhead shots of the cars in the rain at Spa are the most beautiful track shots ever taken..

 

I picked up the DVD of LeMans last night, boy did I enjoy watching it again. It is in letterbox format, great footage........ except the P-car won.

 

P.S. The LeMans DVD was $14.95 at Border's.

 

"Grand Prix" includes real race footage from Monaco, Belgium, England, Holland, and Italy during the 1966 season. But there is no genuine "in-car" footage from these races, other than from a camera car following the pack at the start of the Belgium GP. The movie was filmed in Cinerama, and the cameras were HUGE, not the little cigarette packs you see today. Most of the footage is faked using mockup cars.

"Le Mans" had an actual camera car entered in the race to collect footage, but of course most of the footage there is faked as well.

 

What looks like real racing IS real racing from 1966 as previously stated. What looks like acting was done in F2 cars bought and/or rented for special effects the days before and after the actual race.
What looks like typical movie stuff is just typical movie stuff of coreographing 10-100 people to cut a scene.

 

Good grief. We disagree on that statement. I literally could not sit through "Driven", I have never seen anything so ridiculous and just plain hokey. Truly awful!

Gary

 

Sorry Andreas, but I've got to agree with Gary here- "Driven" was execrable! In addition to the lame plot (such as it was), from a car guy point of view you have to admit it was absurd. Hell, driving my 348 Challenge car on the street is a bit of a chore, what with the solid suspension bushings, short sidewalls, minimal ground clearance, etc.- can you imagine hijacking a Champ Car or F1 car and firing it up (from behind the wheel no less!) for a joy ride down a public street? What a joke!

 

The special effects in Driven were absolutely awful. They looked like something from an anime cartoon. I rented this movie and took it back the same night. If I like a movie I rent, I will usually watch it two or three times and then purchase it if I really like it. I could not get Driven back to Blockbuster quick enough.

 

Road and track had an article on the making of Grand Prix.
I'll see if I can locate it, or maybe their archive?

 

I guess it's inevitable that a bunch of car guys would pick apart racing movies- for that same reason, I can't bring myself to watch lawyer flicks (too many absurd departures from reality for me to be able to suspend disbelief). I could live with the lack of a plot or acting chops if these flicks at least bore some relation to reality, but I guess Sly didn't learn too much about racing from his brief stint hanging out with Bernie, et al.

 

Regarding Grand Prix - I wish I had seen the 'making of' show. A couple of the things I remember reading through the years about the movie:
- that Yve Montand was a big chicken and could barely stand to have the car he was sitting in - not driving but being towed - go more than about 30mph;
- that for a promotional event surrounding the 30th anniversary of the movie, Jacques Villenueve was invited to drive one of the original cars (Gurney Eagle maybe?) and after a lap or two got out kind of shaky and expressed amazement that anyone would drive one of these light powerful cars at speed with no downforce.

Regarding LeMans - thank God for DVDs - start it at about :22 minutes for the race start and watch til McQueen gets out and says 'watch out for the red Lola." Skip dialogue as necessary. Skip all non-racing parts except at 1:24 where the blond is leaning on a brown 365GT2+2 in the rain outside of McQueen's trailer. etc. . . .

 

Oh my god, Andreas. I'm going to have to put you over my knee for that one. Driven?! That story was horrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrible! It's funny how they were able to make a more realistic-looking racing movie 30 years ago than today. I think the fact that, with Le Mans, they barely even had a story is why racing fans enjoy it so much (most of them, anyway). They chose to focus on the racing instead of fluffing it up with BS love stories, triumphs of good over evil, etc.

 

Well, the Museum of Fine Arts here in Houston had a screening of Lemans on the full size screen.

It was awesome, even after reading the book on the special effects.
(Ferrari turns to reskinned Lola just B4 hitting the trees airborne.)

That's where I bought the book about how the movie was made.

 

Post #500, just for the hell of it!

 

Hey Speedy, how come you got "500" twice?

In thirty years they're going to look at how ridiculously horrible the special effects in Driven were. Even by today's standards. I did like Days of Thunder. Not sure why, but I think there's something comfortable and easy about movies like that and Top Gun that appeal to guys. The problem with Driven is that it took itself too seriously.

 

I think the plot and storyline is what i dislike about grand prix.Lemans is more like a documentury with actors i guess.I like Driven for what it's worth. I was hoping it would have been better but it is a racing movie so i can live with the bad plot.

 

I have to side with Tifosi 12 on this one. I love Le Mans for what it is, but it is not one of the great movies of all time; and I say this even though I saw it a half dozen times while it was in release. Le Mans nearly bankrupt Solar Productions, and Grand Prix has never been mentioned as one of John Frankenheimer's great achievements (although I disagree on that point).

First run, big budget movies are judged on their commercial success. If you spend 50 million making a movie that grosses only 3 million you won't be in the business long. At one point I heard that you have to gross $3 for every dollar it costs to make a movie just to break even. I don't know if that's true or not, but it gives us an idea of what is at stake.

In order to attract a large paying audience you need a story people can relate to. People are interested in the human condition. They want to see people they can identify with caught in a struggle or situation that reveals their character. That requires a story line that goes beyond the struggle to win a 24 hour race, otherwise it's a documentary, even if it's a fictional account.

McQueen, one of our most popular actors, was known for his low-key performances, but in Le Mans he is so low key he could be dead. While working for CART I was struck by the changes that drivers went through as race day neared. A driver who was open and forthcoming on Thursday was locked away in his own personal world and totally unapproachable on Sunday as he focused on the job at hand. Mc Queen tried to portray this intensity, but the story didn't allow him to show the range of emotion a driver goes through over the weekend. Either that or he was so intent on getting the driver's mood right that he forgot the basics of storytelling. In the excellent book A French Kiss with Death they state that McQueen really wanted to impress his friends in the racing biz with the fact that he "got it". In this instance he may have "gotten it" to the point of ruining the film for all but the most ardent race fans.

It helps to step back and look at other sports films for confirmation. The Natural, The Rookie and Everyone's All-American are about people first and the sport second.

As for Driven, Stallone, intent on saving his career, tried to re-create his earlier success by draping a different sport around the premise he used so well in Rocky, and he failed miserably. While watching that movie you are struck not by the story, but by this feeble attempt by a panicky movie idol to use over-the-top special effects and implausible plot lines to resurrect his sinking career.