Big Prize

Once again, TCM has a pair of movies coming up in close succession that are on my DVR and that I haven't posted about. So one of them is going to get a post a good day and a half before it shows up on TCM. That movie is Grand Prix, which TCM has on at 2:30 AM on May 21 (so still just before midnight May 20 in the Pacific time zone).

Now, with a movie with a title like Grand Prix, you'd expect it to have a climactic scene set at the big car race, and in fact you'd be right. What's slightly more surprising, however, is that the movie opens up at a car race, the Monaco Grand Prix. Even more surprising is that this isn't a plot device where the movie opens up near the end and then goes into flashback. It is, however, an effective way of introducing the audience to the main characters, or at least the drivers:

Frenchman Jean-Pierre Sarti (Yves Montand) drives for Ferrari, one of the big names in Grand Prix racing. He's the sort of older champion, and the stand-in for Continental tradition.
The UK was a big player in Grand Prix at the time as well, so they have a top driver in the form of Scott Stoddard (Brian Bedford), representing the sort of "England may be different from the Continent, but the way we do things is right" mentality.
And, since this is a Hollywood movie, you need an American, who is also of course the shorthand for a brash up-and-comer who does things his way, which might not be what the "sophisticated" Europeans like. That racer is Pete Aron, played by James Garner.

Monaco is a notoriously tight racetrack, nowadays with limited opportunities for passing, since it's right in the middle of a ridiculously crowded city. And, since this is a car racing movie, it's unsurprising that there's a big crash, since those are cinematically more interesting than just cars going around in loops. It's Scott and Pete who get into a crash, with the result that Pete loses his driver's spot in the championship while Scott ends up badly injured enough that he may have to retire. An American journalist, Louise Frederickson (Eva Marie Saint), there to do an article, can't comprehend why Jean-Pierre and the other uninjured drivers take a sang-froid attitude to it all.

But Louise winds up becoming interested enough in the sport that she has an affair with Jean-Pierre, even though he's already married to a woman who is never going to grant him a divorce, because not granting your unahppy spouse a divorce is one of the most original plot devices in movie history. Almost as original as the flashback. And it's not the only affair in the movie, as Pete starts seeing Scott's wife Pat (Jessica Walter), who was never particularly thrilled with her husband driving a race car.

Pete stars working as a color commentator for one of the US broadcasters, but there's another upstart about to enter the picture: Japanese car constructor Yamura (Toshiro Mifune), who is wealthy enough to think about entering a third car into Formula 1. With that in mind, he offers Pete a second chance at driving.

One more driver enters the picture, the new European Nino (Antonio Sabato), who is the second driver for Ferrari. And then to make matters more interesting, Scott "recovers" from his injury, at least enough for his crew to pick him up and put him in the car which he can drive. All four men wind up close to each other in the points race going into the final race, the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, a race track which was apparently notoriously fast.

To be honest, the story in Grand Prix is little more than serviceable, largely because it's tough to be original with car racing movies. All the tropes have been done to death. What is, however, more original about Grand Prix, is that they were able to get on the real race tracks and get real footage from Forumla 1 drivers as well as the sort of sports car that would do races like the 24 Hours of Le Mans and could be repurposed to drive enough laps on the Forumla 1 circuits to get useful footage. This is an era of Formula 1 that was much more dangerous than today (I'm not much of a fan of car racing but the people I know who are Formula 1 fans tend to think of today's racing as little more than a procession). That, and many of the tracks are either no longer used or used in very different configurations today.

If you like auto racing, especially if you're into vintage cars, I think you'll love Grand Prix.