At the Movies

In this month’s issue, you’ll find a very revealing interview with Robert Daley, who—in addition to being a renowned photographer and author (The Cruel Sport) also has spent time as a screenwriter working on such projects as “The Racers.” As a bookend to his insights into the making of that movie (and those of the book’s author, Hans Reusch, VRJ Jan. ’05), we’ve also unearthed a unique feature for you in the form of a test drive of one of the original Ferrari “Burano” racecars used in the making of the movie! With all this recent content devoted to the history of racing movies such as “The Racers” and “Grand Prix,” I found myself ruminating on one, final, burning question: “Why the hell can’t anyone make a decent racing movie!?!?!?”

It may have just been coincidence, but at the same time I was getting wrapped up in all this nostalgia for “The Racers,” the 2005 Academy Award nominations were being announced. Now, you may be scratching your head wondering where the connection is, but for me it came like an epiphany—boxing. Clint Eastwood’s critically acclaimed boxing movie “Million Dollar Baby” was nominated this year for about 452 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and even Best Key Grip (what is a key grip anyway?). After reading about the nominations, the connections started coming to me like the 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon. If you look at the sport of boxing, you have a fairly illustrious list of award-winning and/or critically acclaimed movies such as “Million Dollar Baby,” “Raging Bull,” and even the first “Rocky.” I know “Rocky’s 2–15” start to erode my premise, but work with me here. So, how is it that great boxing movies can be made (or baseball or football, for that matter), but no one can seem to be able to make a critically acclaimed movie based around auto racing?

Now, you might say that it takes serious star power behind a project, such as a Clint Eastwood or a Robert De Niro, to make it fly, but I don’t think that is necessarily the problem here. Racing movies have had such respected actors as Kirk Douglas (“The Racers”), Paul Newman (“Winning”), Steve McQueen (“Le Mans”), James Garner (“Grand Prix”) and Sylvester Stallone (“Driven”)…errr, scratch Sly…but Paul Newman has won Academy Awards for heaven’s sake, how much farther can you get up the Hollywood food chain than that?!

And the paucity of decent racing movies is certainly not due to a lack of good stories or content. A fantastic movie could be made on the wartime stories of drivers like Wimille, Grover Williams and Benoist (“Absent Friends,” VRJ Sept. ’04). I know for a fact that Brock Yates has been trying—sadly without success—for almost 10 years to get an adaptation of his Enzo Ferrari biography made into a movie. I’ve also heard of an on-again/off-again project on the life of Ayrton Senna. These are both movies that would be fascinating human dramas played out on a racing background, as compared to the long list of racing action movies that have had dialogue added to fill up space between crashes.

The more I learn about the making of movies like “The Racers,” “Grand Prix,” and “Le Mans,” the more I’m convinced that this last point is where the problem lies. Both Hans Reusch and Robert Daley have stated in their respective interviews that their original stories/scripts were, in their words, hijacked and replaced with inane drivel. Somehow, the powers that be in Hollywood have convinced themselves that racing movies have to be based around action first and story second. The result is such celluloid classics as “The Green Helmet”, “Velocity”—starring Jack Nicholson, no less!, “Days of Thunder” and—excuse me while I spit on the ground—“Driven.”

The trouble now is that the Hollywood well has been poisoned with 50 years of bad racing movies, so it will be very difficult for someone to overcome the prevailing stereotype that racing movies don’t sell. Perhaps the key is for us to get Steven Spielberg a ride in a Can-Am car. Come on, Mr. Newman, we know you read the magazine, can’t you help us here for the betterment of the sport?! In the meantime, I guess I’ll have to go back to watching “Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo” on DVD. Hey, at least there’s some great period footage…