Grand Prix (1966 Film)

''Grand Prix'' is a 1966 American sports drama film directed by John Frankenheimer, produced by Edward Lewis, and written by Robert Alan Aurthur with uncredited story contributions by Frankenheimer and rewrites by William Hanley. It stars an international ensemble cast, including James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, Yves Montand, Brian Bedford, Jessica Walter, Françoise Hardy and Antonio Sabàto. Toshiro Mifune has a supporting role as a race team owner, inspired by Soichiro Honda. The picture was photographed in Super Panavision 70 by Lionel Lindon, and presented in 70mm Cinerama in premiere engagements. Its unique racing cinematography is one of the main draws of the film.

The film includes real-life racing footage and cameo appearances by drivers including Formula One World Champions Phil Hill, Graham Hill, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark, Jochen Rindt and Jack Brabham. Other drivers who appeared in the film include Dan Gurney, Ludovico Scarfiotti, Richie Ginther, Joakim Bonnier, Bruce McLaren and Jo Siffert.

One of the ten highest-grossing films of 1966, ''Grand Prix'' won three Academy Awards for its technical achievements.

Plot

The story follows the fate of four Formula One drivers through a fictionalized version of the 1966 Formula One season:
* Jean-Pierre Sarti (Ferrari) – A Frenchman who has been World Champion twice, is nearing the end of his career and is feeling increasingly cynical about racing itself.
* Pete Aron (first Jordan BRM, then Yamura) – An American attempting to repeat past successes and overcome his reputation as a reckless, second-tier driver; he signs with the newcomer Yamura Motors.
* Scott Stoddard ( Jordan BRM) – A British driver recuperating from a bad crash that left him hospitalized; he becomes dogged by recurrent pains while dealing with the emotional turmoil of his rocky marriage.
* Nino Barlini (Ferrari) – A charismatic yet arrogant Italian racer, he's Ferrari's No. 2 driver, being a promising rookie and former world motorcycle champion.

The film's subplots revolve around the women who try to live with or love the racers with dangerous lifestyles. The married Sarti begins an affair with American magazine writer Louise Frederickson, who initially has little interest in motorsports. Aron has a brief romance with Stoddard's unhappy wife Pat while Stoddard deals with living in the shadow of his family's history, being unsure if he can live up to the prestigious racing legacy of his late brother.

The story concludes at the Italian Grand Prix, its winner likely to become World Champion. Sarti's wife Monique shows up just before it begins; she comes face-to-face with Louise and tells Sarti that she'll never grant him a divorce, even as Sarti wishes to end their unhappy union. Sarti's car has technical difficulties at the race's start, with the other drivers facing a close contest for first. Sarti is killed in a spectacular crash. His Ferrari teammate, Barlini, is flagged off the course by team leader Manetta, resulting in a tight race between Aron and Stoddard to the finish line, Aron getting the checkered flag. While a jubilant Aron magnanimously invites Stoddard to the winner's platform to join him, the shock of Sarti's death takes its toll on the celebration. The film ends with Aron alone, walking along the circuit of the final racetrack.

Cast

* James Garner as Pete Aron
* Yves Montand as Jean-Pierre Sarti
* Brian Bedford as Scott Stoddard
* Antonio Sabàto as Nino Barlini
* Toshiro Mifune as Izo Yamura
** Paul Frees as Yamura's voice
* Adolfo Celi as Agostino Manetta
* Claude Dauphin as Hugo Simon
* Jack Watson as Jeff Jordan
* Donald O'Brien as Wallace Bennett
* Albert Rémy as a field doctor
* Eva Marie Saint as Louise Frederickson
* Jessica Walter as Pat Stoddard
* Françoise Hardy as Lisa
* Enzo Fiermonte as Guido
* Geneviève Page as Monique Delvaux-Sarti
* Rachel Kempson as Mrs. Stoddard
* Ralph Michael as Mr. Stoddard

Production

Director John Frankenheimer later said when he made the film he had the "choice of making a ''Grand Hotel'' type picture or a ''Test Pilot'' type picture" and he chose the former.

The making was a race itself as fellow Hollywood icons Steve McQueen and John Sturges planned to make a similar movie exploring the life of racers, with the McQueen/Sturges team initially using the title ''Day of the Champion''. Due to their contract with the German motorsports complex Nürburgring, Frankenheimer had to turn over 27 reels shot there to Sturges. Frankenheimer got ahead in schedule terms anyway, however, and McQueen's project ran into a wide variety of problems. Said German race track was only mentioned briefly in ''Grand Prix''. McQueen's racing film eventually took the title ''Le Mans'', with it seeing a 1971 release (five years after ''Grand Prix'').

The production team began by using connections to Grand Prix drivers such as Dan Gurney, Carroll Shelby and former Grand Prix World Champion Phil Hill who all assisted them in trying to break through an otherwise reluctant European establishment. The filming process meant disrupting vital practice runs and otherwise getting in the way of the actual racers' activities. The ''Grand Prix'' team initially faced a particularly lukewarm response from the Ferrari company, with the firm concerned that the movie would overly sensationalize their work. Frankenheimer cut together approximately thirty minutes of detailed footage after filming in Monte Carlo, temporarily halted the movie's production, and sent the short piece over to the company's management. He received such a positive response that he gained unprecedented access, being allowed to shoot inside Ferrari's production floor alongside the real racing vehicles. The director used this budding relationship to push other entities to help with the film-making process. Many real-life drivers of the era ended up making cameo appearances in ''Grand Prix'', several even briefly speaking alongside the actors.

The F1 cars in the film are mostly mocked-up Formula Three cars made to look like contemporary Formula One models, although the film also used footage from actual F1 races. Because Yamura Motors is a fictional race team, the producers struck a deal with Bruce McLaren's newly formed McLaren team to have his car, the McLaren M2B, to be painted with Yamura's colors. The paint scheme used was designed to resemble that used on the contemporary Honda RA272 cars competing during this period. On two occasions, because the McLaren could not take part in these races, another car was painted in the same colours: Bob Bondurant's BRM at Spa, and at Zandvoort for the Dutch GP, the Lotus 25 BRM entered by Reg Parnell for Mike Spence.

Some of the footage was captured by Phil Hill, the 1961 World Champion, who drove a modified camera car in some sessions during the actual Monaco and Belgian Grands Prix. In order to realistically film the racing cars at speed, the camera car used for much of this filming was a Ford GT40, a fast and powerful endurance racing car of the same type that dominated races such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans during the last half of the decade. This was some of the earliest experimentation with in-car cameras for F1, particularly in terms of first-person shots aimed at putting the audience in the position of the racers.

The actual level of driving ability possessed by the movie's actors varied wildly. Bedford couldn't drive at all and was only ever in the car for close-up type shots, with the production's driving instructor calling the actor's situation "hopeless". Montand and Sabàto faced significant challenges, both of them struggling with even basic skills. Garner, on the other hand, proved competent enough that he trained exclusively with iconic Shelby Cobra driver Bob Bondurant, with the actor's interest in cars growing greatly as a direct result of his involvement in the film. Garner's talents on the road became strong enough that some of the professional drivers, including Bondurant, remarked that the actor could have been a successful Grand Prix driver if he had not gone into making films; director Frankenheimer himself agreed. Garner's devotion to the part caused him to do his own stunt in the scene in which a fuel leak in his vehicle sets it on fire. Garner's car was fitted with a higher rollbar and had no seat, since he was too tall to fit in a contemporary F1 car.

The helmet design that James Garner's character uses is often confused with that of then-Grand Prix race driver Chris Amon from New Zealand. The main difference is that the blue and red colours are reversed. Furthermore, Amon's helmet had a silhouette of a Kiwi bird on the side of it, while Garner's did not. Brian Bedford's character Stoddard used a helmet design that was the same as that of real life 1966 BRM driver Jackie Stewart. As Bedford couldn't drive, this was done so that they could shoot footage of Stewart driving the BRM (with a balaclava over his face to hide that it wasn't Bedford driving) and pass it off as Stoddard. Sarti's helmet was Surtees', and Barlini's was Lorenzo Bandini's.

Circuits featured in the film include Circuit de Monaco (Monaco), Clermont-Ferrand (France), Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps (Belgium), Circuit Park Zandvoort (Netherlands), Brands Hatch (United Kingdom), and Autodromo Nazionale Monza (Italy). The Nürburgring (West Germany), Watkins Glen International (USA), and the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez (Mexico) were all mentioned in the film but there was no footage shown.

The camera cars used during actual GP races were a Lotus 25 Climax at Monaco and a McLaren M2B Ford at Spa, both driven by 1961 F1 World Champion Phil Hill. A camera was mounted at the front only at Monaco, and an additional one filming the driving wheel was in place at Spa. Aerial shots were filmed from an Alouette III helicopter. These shots were taken so close to the actual roads that the cameraman's shoes became stained with bits of greenery from the tips of nearby trees. Several other camera cars were used during the shooting of fake races, including a modified Ford GT40 and an AC Cobra.

Although making various technological innovations in their filmmaking, numerous difficulties bogged down the movie's production. During filming with wet roads, several cars lost control to the point that one driver broke his shoulder bone and another nearly careened into the upstairs window of a house. The production team often decided to include unplanned accidents caught on film in the final movie, coming back hours later to shoot before-and-after scenes so that things fit in the final cut. For major accidents that were part of the story-line, the crew constructed a special cannon-like device that could fire gutted cars a considerable distance.

Title designer Saul Bass was credited as visual consultant, montages and titles. He made extensive use of multiple split screens. During the making of the film, both Frankenheimer and Garner were interviewed by television personality Alan Whicker for the BBC
...