LeMans, the movie

I agree with you....Lemans is....whoa amazing...did you know most of the cars used in the movie were purchased by Steve McQueen for the movie!
Imagine the expense!

-jt

 

Are you sure?

--Dan

 

Le Mans was a big commercial failure. All the movies about motor racing were commercial failures, excepting Grand Prix. That´s the reason because they don´t want to make more movies about racing.
Well, I´ve heard that Luc Besson have produced a film about "Michel Vaillant" (a French comic about racing). They inscribed a Panoz and a Lola in the real 24 Hours to shoot the film, just like the producers of Le Mans did with a Porsche 908.

 

I'm not sure about that, what I do know is that Porsche lend McQueen a couple of Porsche 917 and that Ferrari was about to do the same with the Ferrari 512S, but when the Il Commendatore Enzo Ferrari understood that Ferrari wasn't going to win the race in the movie he was furious and refused.
So McQueen had to buy the two (three?) cars himself.
// Peter

 

There was a book a couple of years ago called "A French Kiss With Death" all about the movie in great detail - highly recommended.

I don't know all the cars used, but the film company bought or hired three Ferrari 512S , s/n 1004, 1026 and 1036. 1026 was badly damaged by fire during filming, Derek Bell was driving and got scorched, the car was eventually rebuilt and is currently owned (for many years) by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason.

For the big crash featuring a 512S, they decided Ferraris were too valuable to wreck but (at that time) Lola T70s weren't, so they fitted the Ferrari works-type longtail bodywork onto a Lola and radio-control gear to wreck it.

I bekieve one of the 917s was a car owned and raced by David Piper, repainted in Gulf colours after the race, in which he had his bad crash during filming - s/n 013 IIRC.

Paul M

 

Steve McQueen's mind was more on racing then acting

 

True, I mean he placed 2nd in the sebring 12hrs race and he did most of the driving himself for the movie. Total car nut. It was an excuse to drive those cars. Which is why your avg. moviegoer or film student will think it's total crap. But for car fanatics, they can relate to his passion and enjoy the racing scenes and the cars. These days, I doubt any movie studio would give anybody the green light for a movie like that- it would cost a buttload to make and few people would watch it.

 

You guys are ignoring another movie that had racing as a backdrop: "Bobby Deerfield" with Al Pacino. Pretty dreadful.

 

Why the bad guys win in the movies about racing? Ferraris always loose!!!

 

On the subject of a movie about Ayrton Senna, it was announced several years ago that this was in the works and Antonio Banderas was named
to play the lead (he may even have been the producer as well?) but after that nothing seems to have happened.

Looking at Banderas now, he is way beyond the age of Senna when he passed away so if this project moves forward, there may have to be a new actor to play the lead.

As for Le Mans, according the the book "French Kiss With Death", the production was a complete diasaster from the beginning. McQueen was hell bent to impress his racing friends, out of his mind on coke and was shuffling mystresses around the set until his wife and kids were summoned to the location.

Anything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong and McQueen, who was
given carte blanche to do whatever he wanted, was way over budget
before film even started rolling. Writers and directors came and went so what was left was a pieced together script with McQueen under huge pressure to finish the production with the studio breathing down his neck.

The movie is a racing classic of course and even the many flaws somehow make the movie more interesting.

The business of racing has changed so much since the 60s and 70s that today, commerically, it would be nearly impossible to negotiate through all
of the racing bureaucracy in order to get a film the magnitude of "Grand Prix"
off the ground.

Remembering Stallone wanted to do a movie about F-1 and was in negotiations with Bernie Ecclestone which eventually fell through and the
dud "Driven" was then moved to the CART series. What has Stallone done since "Driven"?

BHW

 

Here is a story about a racing movie that almost was: In June of ‘85 I was sitting on the pit wall at Le Mans with my brother, generally enjoying the heat, the crowded industry of everyone else, and the view of a troop of Hawaiian Tropic girls who were sashaying about in loose formation. It was my brother who pointed out a gray haired man methodically taking pictures and writing up notes of every car as it was readied for qualifying.
“Isn’t that John Frankenheimer, the director? You know, of the Manchurian Candidate.”
“Not a clue,” I replied, “Let’s ask him.”
It was indeed, though how my brother, who has no more connections with the film industry than I do was able to spot him I don’t know.
He was very charming and in great form; actually he was having a wonderful time in the pit lane. He told us that he was planning to shoot a movie on endurance racing. The plot would be about a young driver working with an old hand, and he was there to photograph all the cars so that he knew the sort of atmosphere and background he wanted. He also told us that his production company was on the new Porsche 956 customer car list (it became the 962) and that everything would be coming together soon. Needless to say I offered to drive for him, as in the lead’s Winnebago, the tea van or for that matter nails into the set wall . He scribbled down my name and then a Hawaiian Tropic girl’s bikini got snagged on an air hose and everyone forgot to everything while the pit lane watched to see if the scrap of cloth would either tear or, if the coupling became disengaged, be blown right back to Hawaii.
As the summer went on I heard less and less of the project, and by early next season all talk had vanished. What a pity! I would loved to have seen the film for as a director he knew how to shoot a car so that it looked like a feral animal during the hunt.
Kram

 

Didn't Frankenheimer do "Ronin"? There are some great car-chases in there.

On another note:

Does anyone know anything about these movies:

"Ferrari" (2003)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0346946/

and

"Formula Villeneuve" (1983)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0315603/

?

 

Yeah, he made Ronin. He was a great car enthusiast. And a great filmmaker, of course.

That film you mentioned,"Ferrari", it´s an italian TV movie about the Commendatore. I haven´t seen it but I´ve read that it´s not a great film, just average. Hard to find it, everyway.

 

"Formula Villeneuve" was a documentary about Gilles Villeneuve that is available from Duke Video (VHS only, I believe).

 

I agree with you. Le Mans was great.