Grand Prix | | Cast : | James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, Yves Montand | | Director : | John Frankenheimer | | Studio : | | | Format : | | | Released Date : | December 21, 1966 | | DVD Released Date : | September 18, 2001 | | Language : | | | Audience Rating : | NR (Not Rated) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | July 26, 2005 | | Summary | Grand Prix | Content
 | Simply put, the greatest racing film ever made (or will be made).
There will never be another one like it because it is a masterpiece in every respect. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 14, 2005 | | Summary | Masterco | Content
| The best F1 picture ever made. It presents a whole season of a golden era of Grand Prix racing. Its glamour, excitment, its simbols and all its thrills. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 14, 2005 | | Summary | GRAND PRIX and THE GAMES | Content
| Giving the movie five stars is a no brainer. Everyone who ever managed to see this film in a theater loved it. Eva Marie Saint had a pretty long career as a leading lady considering she wasn't glamorous and she wasn't sexy, though she often played in sexy parts. Most often she was the blonde madonna type, chic and shiny, as in NORTH BY NORTHWEST, and she had Actors Studio cachet, people thought she was a serious actress. She was fine playing opposite Brando in ON THE WATERFRONT and with Paul Newman in EXODUS. She played Kitty, the American visitor to Israel, and sometimes in GRAND PRIX she seems to be channeling all of "Kitty's" mannerisms, for both parts allow the US viewer to somehow enter, through her eyes, a complicated and complex European social system we might otherwise fail to register with. This is what she does best, and as the journalist Louise Frederickson she goes right to the heart of the matter, travelling on an expense account through Monaco, Nice, Monza, everywhere the story of Formula One takes her. And what a story it is!
As soon as Monaco explodes into the fiery crash that injures poor Scott Stoddard, we see that Pete Aaron is carrying around the burden of guilt for this accident, even though Scott himself went in with his eyes open. This gives GRAND PRIX a good dramatic edge that some of the other racing movies don't have. Such as LE MANS or WINNING, even though I like them both too. Here in GRAND PRIX director John Frankenheimer lets us see Aaron's inner working out of his guilt. At the same time we see Yves Montand struggling through his conflicts about racing politics and his own preference for l'amour. The two storylines ping and pong back and forth creating their own tension. This is one feature that belongs on DVD pronto. And while they're at it, tell me, what about THE GAMES with Ryan O'Neal? Not a racing picture per se, but it is the Olympics version of GRAND PRIX, with Charles Aznavour playing the Yves Montand part. I don't think THE GAMES came out even on video! What's the story and why are they suppressing the great movies about competition? THE GAMES is from a treatment by Erich Segal, the author of LOVE STORY, and features his LOVE STORY ephebe Ryan O'Neal in a prominent role. O'NEAL plays an Ivy League sprinter, a golden boy, who decides to enter the Marathon at the Olympics with a little assist from his best friend, Sam Elliott, whose deep deep voice is put to good use as he joins O'Neal in a Tokyo hot tub and calls him "baby" throughout in a Barry White baritone. When O'Neal tries to recover from not enough sleep, Sam Elliott hands him a pill. Then when the runner stumbles in the business section of Tokyo, Sam flags him down and palms him off with another pill. You know trouble is on its way!
But what about Stanley Baker, the most brooding masculine man in British acting, coming over like Heathcliff and dominating not Cathy Earnshaw but tall, bumbling Michael Crawford in his full Frank Spencer mode straight out of "SOME MOTHERS DO `AVE `EM." Crawford plays a milkman, Harry Hayes, who gets taken up by the toffs who run the Royal Running Club and match him up with tyrannical, overbearing coach Stanley Baker. In one scene Crawford flops around a padded room, wearing extra clothes, while the thermostat registers 150 degrees, while Stanley Baker barks orders, while himself stripped for comfort down to a skimpy pair of white bikini underpants. It is bizarre indeed.
Well, so is Charles Aznavour as the Czech track god Valcek, once the world record holder and now ordered at age 41 to re-enter the Olympics by his Communist boss to give Communism a good name. And there is an Australian story with an aborigine abused and misused by two white yobbo trainers slash bookies.
A great show with lots of action and a wonderful performance by Leigh Taylor Young as a coed Ryan O'Neal takes a shine to.
In the meantime at least we have GRAND PRIX on VHS! |
| Rating | | | Date | January 31, 2005 | | Summary | The Best Racing Film of ALL time | Content
| Nothing can compare with the exciting way this film distills the essence of Grand Prix racing. The BRM's, the Lotuses, the Ferrari's, and the Honda's are incredible machines and their power roars in this film. They are the mechanical equivalents of James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, Yves Montand, Toshiro Mifune, Brian Bedford, Jessica Walter, Francoise Hardy, Antonio Sabato, and Genevieve Page - some of the best actors of their generation. The cars were at that amazing pinnacle of design before technology subverted esthetics. The actors offer compelling performances. The film comments on how the characters struggle to balance their personal lives with the demands of an increasingly voracious public clamoring for a vicarious thrill (much like we as viewers crave being a part of the exciting racing action depicted in the film). The cinematic achievements are incredible - I still marvel at the remarkable footage that captures the failure of a front suspension strut. Frankenheimer used no process shots in the making of the film. GRAND PRIX has the noise and visceral feeling of the track - and also the dream-like euphoria when speed transcends time to become poetry. The cars, the drivers, the fans, and the tracks are all well represented. Frankenheimer melded art and technology to create a beautiful and awesome film. GRAND PRIX also includes the amazing photography of Lionel Linden, a wonderful musical score by Maurice Jarre, and brilliant editing by a team lead by Henry Berman.
Like, a previous viewer - I was privileged to see GRAND PRIX several times during its initial release (in my case at the Cinerama dome in Hollywood) where the 70 mm Cinerama print, the projection, the sound, and the screen allowed the optimal presentation of the film. Now with home systems offering comparable sound and picture - it's time to restore this film so that a new generation can experience the excitement captured by this film. Turner Classic Movies will be presenting the film on Saturday 02/19/2005 at 12:30 AM and on Thursday 04/07/2005 at 04:00 PM if you want a preview. |
| Rating | | | Date | November 25, 2004 | | Summary | GET IT ON DVD ALREADY!!! | Content
| I saw this movie in my small town theater at the time of it's release, I was 7 years old. The opening in-car scenes were so intense as I sat in the front row that I became ill and missed the rest of the movie that day. Stallone tried, or at least he thought he did, to make a racing movie of this caliber with Driven. Driven doesn't even come close. The next best would have to be either Steve McQueen's Le Mans (which is available on DVD) or maybe Winning although I haven't seen Winning in quite awhile.
Contrary to what one reviewer says there's absolutely nothing hard to rate here. The cinemaphotography is second to none, the acting is top notch and the story line is as well. Contrast that to Le Mans which is nearly a dialog free racing observation. Both are excellent for fans but Grand Prix is a better story.
Come on, this is EASILY the best racing movie ever made and is widely accepted as such except for maybe someone who knows next to nothing about the genre. The footage is awesome here and it's way beyond time that it got the deserving DVD with extras while some of the original cast/production are still alive to do commentary. Unfortunately we lost Frankenheimer in 2002 maybe about a year after doing a Speedvision special presentation of this great movie, I was fortunate to have tapped it. James Garner, like all of us, unfortunately isn't getting any younger and Eva Marie Saint, Brian Bedford, Jessica Walter and Antonio Sabato are all still around for possible commentary as well. Great movie, lets give it what it deserves! |
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