Downhill Racer

One of the movies that I recorded during the TCM programming salue to Robert Redford because I hadn't seen it before was Downhill Racer. It's getting its next TCM airing tonight at 8:00 PM, so I watched it to be able to do the obligatory review on it.

As you might be able to surmise from the title, the movie is set in the world of ski racing, notably downhill as opposed to the tight turns of slalom. So we get a lot of scenes of resort towns in the European Alps, as well as footage of people racing. In the opening racing scene, a member of the US ski team breaks a leg and has to be operated on, watched by team coach Eugene Claire (Gene Hackman). The US team has a spot open, and invited to compete is David Chappellet (Robert Redford).

Chappellet being new to the team, he doesn't quite get the politics that go along with making one's way up the ladder. He doesn't have any sort of performance history, so he gets a start time that implies he'll have to deal with a rutted course which will make him go slower. So, rather stupidly, he says no, I'm not going to race this time until you give me a better number. The next time, he moves up from1 starting about 88 to starting about 77, but puts forth an oustanding effort to take fourth place overall. And he still complains about his starting position, this time not just to coach Claire.

After the season is over, Chappellet returns stateside partly for summer training, and partly for a chance to visit his father in Colorado. The two of them have a frosty relationship, with Dad not understanding why his son likes to compete, especially in a world of strictly amateur sports where there's a question of how the heck one is going to make a living. It's not an unreasonable concern.

In any case, Chappellet and the rest of the team go back to Europe, where Chappellet proves himself to be a real contender, albeit one who takes a lot of risks. Perhaps too many for the coaches, who are consistently in conflict with him. At the same time, one of the leading European ski equipment manufacturers, Machet, is willing to underwrite Chappellet with equipment. Machet has a young, pretty secretary named Carole (Camilla Sparv), and she and Chappellet start an on-again, off-again relationship as everybody goes around Europe in the run-up to the Olympics. Will Chappellet finally be able to best the Austrian and French powerhouses?

To be honest, Downhill Racer is as much a character study of the Chappellet character as it is a narrative about the competition. The competition part is nicer for the scenery than it is for the story part, which is unoriginal. The après-ski parts are I suppose not particularly more original than in any other sports movie, but they're well-enough acted and pretty to look at. Ultimately, Downhill Racer is as much time capsule as it is sports movie, but it's an interesting one that's worth a watch.