Runtime: 176 minutes
Directed by: John Frankenheimer
Starring: James Garner, Yves Montand, Antonio Sabato, Toshiro Mifune, Eva Marie Saint, Jessica Walter
From: MGM
A movie selected in part due to its cheap rental price on the streaming sites.
Of course I've been familiar with Grand Prix for years; it being offered on the streaming sites for less cost than usual was why it was picked by myself. Thankfully I was not let down by a movie directed by John Frankenheimer and starring a wide variety of quality actors: James Garner, Yves Montand, Antonio Sabato, Toshiro Mifune, Eva Marie Saint, Jessica Walter, Francoise Hardy, & Adolfo Celi.
Grand Prix covers a season of Formula One auto racing and focuses on a quartet of drivers. As this is a hair under three hours long, there is plenty of time to show each one experience ups and downs throughout the season. Of course, all of them are shown having romantic entanglements, of course one of them as an existential crises and of course the female reporter covering the events has a relationship with one of the drivers. Some events presented are more cinematic than realistic for a typical auto racing season and it seemed like some ethnicities are stereotyped.
All that being said, I still thought this was very good. The story was never dull despite its length and the dramatics at least were captivating. The true highlight though was seeing clips of several races throughout; those were all impressive even by 2020 standards. Cameras were all over the place... on the ground, helicopter shots, and on the cars themselves-a few times they panned from the driver to the front of the car or vice/versa, and while it was going at race car speeds. Seeing those scenes streaming on a nice print and watched on a large television-it was a thrill. The movie started off with a bang: the legendary Saul Bass did the opening credits, which was preparation for the storied Monaco Grand Prix. For almost a century now it has been held on the narrow streets of that French principality. Mix in a nice Maurice Jarre score & various split screen effects and it was the type of film you only seemed to get in the wild 60's.
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