Grand Prix is a 1966 American drama about motor sport featuring an international ensemble player. The picture was directed by John Frankenheimer with music by Maurice Jarre and stars James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, Yves Montand, Brian Bedford, Jessica Walter and Antonio SabÃÆ' to. Toshiro Mifune has a supporting role as owner of the racing team, inspired by Soichiro Honda. The picture was photographed in Super Panavision 70 by Lionel Lindon, and presented in 70 ° Cinerama in a premiere engagement. The unique racing cinematography - partly credited to Saul Bass - is one of the main drawings of the film.
The film includes real-life racing recordings and cameo appearances by racers including Formula One World Champions Phil Hill, Graham Hill, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark, Jochen Rindt and Jack Brabham. Other drivers who appear in this film include Dan Gurney, Richie Ginther, Joakim Bonnier, Bruce McLaren and Jo Siffert.
One of the ten best-selling films of 1966, the Grand Prix won three Academy Awards for its technical achievements. The film was released on DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray Disc in May 2011.
Video Grand Prix (1966 film)
Plot
This story follows the fate of four Formula One racers through a fictional version of the 1966 Formula One season: Jean-Pierre Sarti (Ferrari) - A Frenchman who has become a double world champion, he is nearing the end of his career and feels increasingly cynical about the race itself.
Subplots in the movie revolve around women who are trying to live with or love racers with a dangerous lifestyle. Married sarti began an affair with American magazine writer Louise Frederickson, who initially had little interest in motor sports. Aron has a brief love affair with the unhappy wife of Stoddard, while Stoddard deals with living in the shadow of his family history, unsure whether he can live up to the inheritance of his late brother's late races.
The story ends with one last race, the winner becomes world champion. Sarti's wife, Monique, appears just before it starts, face to face with Louise and tells Sarti that she will never give her a divorce even when Sarti wants to end their unhappy union. Sarti's car had technical difficulties when the race started, with other drivers facing a tight contest for the first time. Sarti was then suddenly killed in a spectacular accident. His racing partner Barlini, marked by Ferrari team leader Manetta, produced a tight race between Aron and Stoddard to the finish line, Aron getting a checkered flag. While the cheering Aron invites Stoddard to the winning platform to join him, Sarti's death shock brings the victim to the celebration. The film ends with Aron, alone, walking along the circuit from the final horse race.
Maps Grand Prix (1966 film)
Cast
- James Garner as Pete Aron
- Eva Marie Saint as Louise Frederickson
- Yves Montand as Jean-Pierre Sarti
- Toshiro Mifune as Izo Yamura (voice dubbed by Paul Frees)
- Brian Bedford as Scott Stoddard
- Jessica Walter as Pat Stoddard
- Antonio SabÃÆ' as Nino Barlini
- Franç§oise Hardy as Lisa
- Adolfo Celi as Agostino Manetta
- Claude Dauphin as Hugo Simon
- Enzo Fiermonte as Guido
- GeneviÃÆ'¨ve Page as Monique Delvaux-Sarti (as Genevieve Page)
- Jack Watson as Jeff Jordan
- Donald O'Brien as Wallace Bennett (as Donal O'Brien)
- Jean Michaud as the father of the children
- Albert RÃÆ' Â © I as Surgeon in Monte Carlo (as Albert Remy)
- Rachel Kempson as Mrs. Stoddard
- Ralph Michael as Mr. Stoddard
- Alan Fordney as a sports announcer
- Anthony Marsh as a sports announcer
- Tommy Franklin as a sports announcer
- Phil Hill as Tim Randolph
- Graham Hill as Bob Turner
- Bernard Cahier as a journalist
Cast Not Specified
Non-actors appeared including broadcaster Raymond Baxter, who interviewed Nino Barlini after he won the British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch.
Production
Director John Frankenheimer later said when he made the film, he had a "choice to create a Grand Hotel type image or a Pilot Test type image" and he chose the first one.
The making is the race itself as fellow Hollywood icons, Steve McQueen and John Sturges are planned to make similar films that explore the lives of the racers, with the McQueen/Sturges team originally using the title of Day of the Champion. Due to their contract with the German motor sport complex NÃÆ'¼rburgring, Frankenheimer had to surrender 27 rolls of shots there for Sturges. Frankenheimer stays ahead in terms of schedules, however, and the McQueen project is experiencing various problems. The German racing tracks are mentioned only briefly in Grand Prix . The McQueen racing film finally took the title of Le Mans, with it seeing the 1971 release (five years after the Grand Prix ).
The production team began by using connections to racing figures Dan Gurney, Phil Hill, and Carroll Shelby, all of whom helped them in trying to break through the reluctant formation of Europe. The process of making a movie means disrupting the course of important practice and in turn blocking the actual racer activity. The Grand Prix team initially faced a very warm response from the Ferrari company, with the firm worried that the movie would undermine their work. Frankenheimer cuts together about thirty minutes of detailed recording after filming in Monte Carlo, temporarily halting film production, and sending short pieces to the company's management. He received such a positive response that he gained unprecedented access, allowed to shoot inside the Ferrari production floor along with the actual racing vehicle. The director uses this beginner relationship to encourage other entities to assist the filmmaking process. Many of the real-life drivers of that era eventually made cameo appearances at the Grand Prix , some even speaking briefly with the actors.
The F1 cars in this film mostly mock the Formula Three cars that are made to look like contemporary Formula One models, even though the movie also uses footage from the actual F1 race. Since Yamura Motors is a fictional racing team, the manufacturers made a deal with McLaren's newly formed Bruce McLaren team to have his car, McLaren M2B, to be painted in Yamura colors. Some of the recordings were captured by Phil Hill, the 1961 World Champion, who drove modified camera cars in sessions during 1966 Monaco and the Belgian Grand Prix. These were some of the earliest experiments with the camera in the car for the F1, especially in terms of first-person shots aimed at putting audiences in the drivers' positions.
The actual level of driving ability of film actors varies greatly. Bedford could not drive at all and was only in the car for a close-up type shoot, with a production driving instructor who called the actor's situation "desperate". Montand and SabÃÆ' face significant challenges, both struggling even with basic skills. Garner, on the other hand, proved competent enough that he was trained exclusively with iconic Cobra Cobby driver Bob Bondurant, with an actor's interest in the fast-growing car as a direct result of his involvement in the film. Garner's talent in the streets became strong enough that some professional drivers, including Bondurant, said that the actor could be a successful Grand Prix racer if he did not go filming; Director Frankenheimer himself agreed. Garner's devotion to that part caused him to take his own action in a scene where a fuel leak in his vehicle made him burn. Garner's car comes with a higher rollbar and has no seats, because he's too tall to fit in a contemporary F1 car.
The helmet design used by James Garner's character is Grand Prix Grand Prix rider Chris Amon from New Zealand. The only difference is the silhouette of a Kiwi bird that is usually on the side of the Amon helmet left by Garner, because his character is American. Brian Bedford's character uses the same helmet design as that of the BRM driver in 1966, Jackie Stewart. Because Bedford could not drive, this was done so they could record Stewart's footage of riding a BRM (with balaclava covering his face to hide that it was not really Bedford driving) and pass it on as Bedford.
Circuits featured in the film include Circuit de Monaco (Monaco), Clermont-Ferrand (France), Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps (Belgium), Circuit Park Zandvoort (The Netherlands), Brands Hatch (England), and Autodromo Nazionale Monza (Italy). The NÃÆ'¼rburgring (West Germany), Watkins Glen International (USA), and Autonomom Hermanos RodrÃÆ'guez (Mexico) are all mentioned in the film but no recordings are shown.
The camera car used on the track is the Ford GT40 which is driven by the figure of racing Phil Hill. The camera is mounted on the front and/or rear of the GT40 with front and rear body panels removed as necessary. Air shots were filmed from Alouette III's helicopter. These photographs were taken so close to the actual streets that the cameraman's shoes became tarnished with pieces of greenery from the tip of the nearby trees.
Despite making various technological innovations in their film making, many difficulties are hampering film production. During the shooting with the wet road, some cars lost control so that one of the drivers broke his shoulder and the other nearly approached the upstairs window of a house. The production team often decides to include an unplanned accident that was caught in the movie in the last movie, coming back a few hours later for filming before and after the scene so it fits in the final piece. For major accidents that are part of the story line, the crew built a special device such as a cannon that can extinguish the car at a considerable distance.
During the filming, both Frankenheimer and Garner were interviewed by television personality Alan Whicker for the BBC series The Whicker World.
Reception
The film earned $ 7 million in rental of North America in 1967.
After the release of 1966, Bosley Crowther called the film "a great and rambling compilation of racing recordings that shot furiously in the big encounter scene around the circuit, crammed into a huge photographic trick... Mr. Frankenheimer hooks you up with a row of incredible racing car shots , seen from every angle and every possible point of intimacy, that you really feel as though you've been inside it after you saw this movie.Next, the director and Saul Bass filling the mamut's screen from time to time with some charts and a montage that looks like a movie in a fair world.A triple and quadruple panels and even screen-filling checkerboards... tap the audience with stimulation that optically produces some sort of poisoning with a dazzling, random sort of race, but it works. "However, Crowther concludes" the big problem with this picture... is that their characters and romantic problems are stereotypes and cliches... You come with the feeling that you have seen almost everything there is to see in grand racing-prix, except the real people driving those killer cars. "
Forty-five years later, after being released on Blu-ray Disc, The New York Times reviewed the movie, with Dave Kehr saying "considered purely from a technical standpoint, the new disc is Beauty, with images that sharp and rich texture that matches the original 65 millimeter Super Panavision format, and a thundering soundtrack soundtrack... As a movie, though, the Grand Prix is never as grand as it is shown as reserved seats, road show attractions in the cinema of Cinerama, it's just a little over 176 minutes from this roller-coaster ride This Is Cinerama introduced the format in 1952, a high speed tour of the principal stopping on a Formula One tour, with the audience, as often as possible , tied to the driver's seat. "
Accolades
At the 39th Academy Awards, the Grand Prix won an Oscar for Best Sound Effects (Gordon Daniel), Best Editing and Sound Films (Franklin Milton). John Frankenheimer was nominated for Outstanding Directing by the Guild of America Board of Directors.
See also
- Le Mans (movie)
- Rush (movie 2013)
References
External links
- Grand Prix on IMDb
- Grand Prix at AllMovie
- Grand Prix in the TCM Film Database
- Grand Prix at Rotten Tomatoes
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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