Pete Wright: I'm Pete Wright.
Andy Nelson: And I'm Andy Nelson.
Pete Wright: Welcome to the next reel. When the movie ends
Andy Nelson: Our conversation begins.
Pete Wright: Grand Prix is over. It has always seemed to me that to do something very dangerous requires a certain absence of imagination.
Trailer: From the glamour capitals of Europe comes the exciting drama of the men and the women who live the passionate adventure of Grand Prix racing. James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, Yves Montan, Brian Bedford and Jessica Walter, dramatic new stars Antonio Zobato and Francoise Hardy. Toshiro Maffune and the world's champion Formula One drivers. Now, Metro Goldwyn Mayer, Director John Frankenheimer and Cinerama take you out of the grandstand and hurl you into the most exciting experience of your life.
Trailer: Five, four, three, two, one, and.
Pete Wright: Oh, Andy. It's about time we got into some good f one on this damn show.
Andy Nelson: Did we I I'm trying to remember. Did you have me time this because it's racing season? Is this is it starting soon? Is that why No. Like, because I I asked you if there were any any series that we had that you wanted to time in particular points of the year.
And I'm trying to remember if we put car racing last because it's timed to some car racing.
Pete Wright: Well, just some car racing. We're in we're in midseason right now. The the next race
Andy Nelson: Of Grand Prix?
Pete Wright: Yeah. Grand Prix. And so we just finished this last, last race was Miami. We had a US race, and, next race comes up, is it this one as we record this, it's the twelfth. So this coming weekend is the Emilia Romana.
So we're back to Italy. So it is I mean, it's, you know, it's timely. Although, I think by the end of this series, we'll end about the same time. The other thing we just got lucky with is that, you know, the movie f one, the Brad Pitt movie, which has been scheduled and rescheduled, is due to release this summer. Right?
It's it's coming, and I don't know the exact release date.
Andy Nelson: June, I think. So it'll be Yeah. Right in the middle of our season.
Trailer: Right in
Andy Nelson: the middle of
Pete Wright: our season. And that's Of our series. That's very exciting. And, that is one that I had on the brain as we were thinking about this series.
Andy Nelson: Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, we're kicking off the last series of our fourteenth season of this show, and this is your pick. It's car racing. I guess just talk a little bit about why you wanted to have this series about car racing on the on the show.
Pete Wright: I grew up with cars. Like, I just have always loved cars, but I'm a pretty recent convert. Like, the last, I don't know, five, ten years, a a pretty recent convert to just loving racing, particularly f one. I and probably in line with drive to survive on Netflix. I binged every season of that when it was, you know, several years ago.
And I just I I just really fell in love with it. I think the sport of f one is so bonkers from what goes on on the track and what goes on behind the scenes. The way the sport is structured, the way the teams are structured, it's not like anything else. And there is such an extraordinary amount of money involved for so few people to potentially succeed that I am just enamored by it. I really am.
I'm just a little bit obsessed by by all of it. And so the movies that I want to watch deal with a lot of that. Like, it's dealing with the big extravagance of people at the edge, you know, people who are romantically dysfunctional, professionally self destructive. They they they really only exist as complete forms on the track. You know, I I think all of these movies in some way, shape, or form give us that classic, I don't know, maybe what, Hemingway adjacent masculinity and toxicity.
And I think these movies do a a good job of that with the exception of I I can't answer about the art of racing in the rain, which is gonna be our last movie, which is also a dog movie. So, that ought to be fun too.
Andy Nelson: A little bit of a different twist on that one. Yeah.
Pete Wright: So I'm a big fan of this idea of racing as a metaphor for control, and I think that what happens on these tracks is magical and dangerous and terrifying and extraordinary. And I am thrilled to talk about it. This first one is, you know, as we talk about Grand Prix, it is a a fictional tale, but it might as well not be because the all of the people that are dealing with big things in this movie were directly modeled on real people. It was shot on real tracks during the real season of Grand Prix, and the season was short then. I think in the sixties, there was only, like, 10 total races.
And Nine. Nine. Nine total races. And the first one we get in the movie is, you know, Monaco, which is the legendary, street track. And the last one we get is Monza in the days when there were still banks.
And that made that track extraordinary and different from all the other tracks. And so the it's still considered one of the fastest tracks in f one, but the fact that it had banks and was so destructive to cars and drivers makes it truly iconic. So we we sandwich that between a story that is you know?
I I I think the
Andy Nelson: let let's just
Pete Wright: okay. Let me say this.
The driving is so cool. Am I right?
Andy Nelson: The driving Super cool. Is phenomenal. Yes.
Pete Wright: This movie pioneered of the story. So I are f one drivers really supposed to be known as, you know, romantics? I don't know. The story's the story is less than. But here's the other piece I like about it.
I'll just get this out of way, and then you can start talking. I am stunned in this movie at how well it documents team dynamics off the grid. Right? That is crazy to me that I'm I've got my f one subscription. I I I pay money to watch the behind the scenes grid stuff.
This is like I have Criterion Channel and f one. Those I got that's a part of my subscription. And the way these guys talk to each other is documented perfectly in this movie. Absolutely perfectly. So the racing is incredible.
The team dynamics on and off the grid are fantastic. And then there's also some sort of a movie story in here that we'll just say is, you know, one third of the movie. It exists. It's present in the I
Andy Nelson: think it's, like, two thirds of the movie of the three hour movie.
Pete Wright: This movie is substantial too. It's a long movie. But, anyway, I'm sorry. I've been going on. You go ahead.
Talk talk to me. What do you think?
Andy Nelson: It's it's interesting because, like, I'm not a car guy. I my car racing enjoyment goes as far as watching good car racing movies. Like, that's what I if I'm if I know anything about it, it's because I've watched a movie that is is been about a race or a series of races. And like any good sports movie, it's like, that gives me a a glimpse into that world. And that's kind of my my understanding here.
And so, like, I I walked into this really not knowing much about the Grand Prix. And over the course of it, I was like, oh, okay. So it's a series of races. I just, like, go into thinking it's a race. Like, I'm like, oh, no.
It's actually a bunch of races that they do collectively, and they get points. I never quite figured out, like, when people were getting points or how, and I guess it doesn't really matter. You get to the end of it, and it's like, oh, they're all so close. Who's gonna win? Like, they they set it up where the four guys were mostly following are the four that theoretically could win if they win that last race in Monza.
But I do like that they're also aside aside from the great race footage, which is fantastic, and John Frankenheimer, like, just did some amazing work figuring out how to craft the capture of race footage on the tracks. It's it's wild. But that aside, they they did some interesting things. He chose to kind of do some interesting things in the story that helped people like me just have a better understanding of what's going on with the race. Like, when we have our first race, and we also need to talk about the the fantastic, credit sequence, which is really cool.
But as things are getting ready, we are also getting some interview footage with this the the main racers that we're following overlaid over the top of it. That's kind of like almost like an interview for television or for a show or something where they're giving us some information. And it actually kind of gave me an interesting perspective of things. Like, James Garner gives us that interesting line about the fact that that they're shifting gears over 2,600 times in a race, you know? And it's just like like, I don't know.
Just, like, they were talking about different things like that, about the struggle, about the the the way they have to focus, and it just it made for an interesting way to kind of craft this to give me a better understanding of, like, the scope of these races, the style of these races. I still don't understand why they ever do any races in the middle of a town or a city as opposed to just putting them on tracks where it's gonna be safer, and you're not gonna have people crashing into houses or oceans, things like that. Like, I still don't understand that aside from the fact that it looks cool and it made for some great video games in my youth that I loved playing where you're riding through the city. But I thought that was an interesting element here, you know, that they gave that to us to just kind of explain this a bit more as we start kind of getting to know, these four main characters that we're following, which, you know, I liked the way that they set that up.
Pete Wright: Okay. Couple of things that you brought up. And I also want to just walk through a little bit of team structure, and I know it's not related to the movie, but I'm curious how it will impact your view of the film. So I'll just bear with me for a minute. First of all, the city circuits are economic.
Like, when you put a race in the middle of a city, you get greater accessibility for fans, you get increased media exposure, and you get terrifically increased economic benefits for the host city because all of the stores on the track, like all the hotels, they all get booked. People don't have to go so far. It's it's just crazy. So you get Singapore.
Andy Nelson: You get The all all of the the paving companies they had hired to repair the roads afterward.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Right? Look. I mean, Las Vegas the the new Las Vegas circuit, they ran into some real trouble because of manhole covers that weren't properly welded shut for the race. So they have to go around and weld all the streets tight for these races and then go around and unweld them again, right, when the race is not so, yeah, there I mean, it's there is a huge economic benefit to doing these city circuits even though
Andy Nelson: It just seems so dangerous.
Pete Wright: It is so dangerous. It's so dangerous. Die. Dangerous. Yes.
I know. It's it's just amazing. You know, they're not as fast. Right? I I think the highest the highest speed I know was we've got two records.
The highest speed was Valerie Bottas in 2016 who hit 231.4 miles per hour, 372 and a half kilometers per hour. The fastest track, was actually is Monza, widely considered to be Monza, and the fastest lap speed was actually set by my hero then racing for Mercedes Lewis Hamilton in 2020. He now races for Ferrari. So, anyway, I think that understanding how the teams are put together is important. Now today, there are 10 teams, and that's it.
And on each team Wow. There are two drivers, and that's it. And here's what they're racing for. You you mentioned they're racing for points. They are racing for points.
Each team is racing to win what's called the constructor's cup, and that's the combination of points between two drivers. Each driver is racing for the Driver's Cup. Right? They're winning for racing for their championship over the course of a season. So each driver is both a competitor and a co op a collaborator with their single other teammate.
The team is made up of hundreds of people, engineers, designers. They're all they're the ones who make the cars. So this collaboration between the people who make the cars and the two guys who drive them is crazy intimate. It is an incredible study of of how teams work together. When teams fall apart, they fall apart gloriously because drivers hate the people who make the cars.
The people who make the cars don't think the drivers can do it very well. You see that in this movie when Pete Aaron gets gets drummed out. He's like, the car's working. You know? Cars, you you didn't do your part.
You didn't do your part to win this race. Like, you're part of the team, and you failed when it counted on the track. That's all you need to do is drive. We did our part by making you a great car. That dynamic is consistent and huge in these races.
Now back in the sixties, in this era, it was much, much messier. You could enter a third car if you wanted. You could actually sell a car. Yeah. You could sell a car to somebody else and have them run independently and still have points credited to your team because you made the car.
Like, it was a it was a hot mess. So everything has been dramatically tidied up since then, and it's it is, you know, a lot less dangerous than it ever was even though it is much, much faster than it has ever been.
Andy Nelson: Do they all have the exact same shell? Like, because I was other than the paint color, like, these cars all look exactly the same. And I was like, is is that the design of the race itself? Like, this is what the car shell is. You figure out whatever your internal workings are, and that makes it a Ferrari or a Honda or, or whatever the car might be.
Pete Wright: Yeah. That that is so the engine is bespoke. The engine is obviously where everything really comes to to, you know, mean something. The actual engineering standards are very, very tight. Right?
So you can do certain things to your car, but generally, it's the cars are going to look exactly alike because those are the limits. Right? The the what they're testing, the whole kind of aesthetic of f one is we're testing the the combination of man and machine together, and the machine is a thing that cannot change very much. In fact, the weight limit on these things is incredibly tight. Like, you know, back in the day, I think the weight limit was, like, 600 kilograms.
Now it's 800 kilograms, these cars. So they're very, very lightweight. That's why even today, you look at these cars, and there's just vast swaths of unpainted carbon fiber body because paint weighs something. And, and so they're trying to save every single gram off of these cars. Tires.
Are you using hard tires or soft tires? You know, what is your strategy? How you can only pit a couple of times in a race. Like, there are limits to how often you can pit. All of these things, right, they're trying to make them as consistent as possible and give the teams as little leeway so that they can really taste test the athleticism of the drivers.
Andy Nelson: Gotcha. It's interesting, and I think we get enough of that for for me in the film. Like, I don't need all of the details. Like, I don't need to be a fan to actually appreciate the movie. Like, I
Pete Wright: think I really want you to be a fan, though.
Andy Nelson: But they do a really good job, though, of setting up this story so that I can understand and I mean, car racing. You basically, you know, people get in a car, the light turns green, they go, and whoever crossed the finish line first wins. Like, there's a pretty basic setup to what you're watching here. It's not that complex. And so, I mean, it's it's easy enough to kind of follow along with what they're doing.
It just is like the point system, and and there are some elements that you don't quite that are a little more kind of the nitty gritty that help kind of understand as we get closer to the end of the film. And we don't get to see all the races, like, of the nine races that would have happened in 1966 at this particular point in time. I think we're only seeing six of the races and then the other three they mentioned, but they never actually show. Although, thought it was interesting. They actually shot a a lot of footage in one of the, one of the tracks that they, which track was it?
Pete Wright: Is it Spa?
Andy Nelson: It was it was the German Nurburgring
Pete Wright: Race Track. The Nurburgring.
Trailer: Yeah.
Andy Nelson: They they shot, 27 reels of footage there. But and this this goes and we'll talk about kind of, like, the the making of this story. But when John Frankenheimer wanted to make this, Steve McQueen also wanted to make another movie, and he and John Sturgis at the time were working together on a movie called Day of the Champion. And they had an exclusivity contract with the Nurburgring Racetrack. And I don't know if Frankenheimer knew that, but shot it anyway or didn't know that.
Anyway, he shot at the track and then had to turn all 27 reels that he had shot over to John Sturgis, and just they they can mention the track, but they can't actually use any footage of it. So, anyway, it's it's kind of interesting. And so John Frankenheimer, his project went through. Steve McQueen's had a lot of issues, which is why when we talk about Le Mans as our next film, that will not be for, for five years. That's 1971 when that film comes out.
Pete Wright: Which is actually really interesting because that was right around the very end of use of the Nurburgring as a racing as the as an f one racing. I haven't seen day of the champion. I'm is it I'm assuming
Andy Nelson: that's why. No. They were trying to make the film called day of the champion. And then because of all the problems, it essentially became Le Mans.
Pete Wright: Well, this is a thing that you and I should do because you can go today to the Nurburgring when it's not closed for races, and you can just register and take your car and drive as fast as you can around the circuit. And it's apparently very, very cool to do. And you'll you'll drive it, and you'll see people driving crazy in their, like, delivery vans. And I mean, it's just crazy what you can do with the Nurburgring and set set your own little little records. I love it.
We should do that. Totally. Totally.
Andy Nelson: Oh my goodness. What do wanna talk about? Do you wanna talk about the melodrama and get that out of the way?
Pete Wright: Yeah. Let's get that out of the way. Let's just get it get it going.
Andy Nelson: Alright. We've got our four, it's kind of four main racers. It really focuses on three, James Garner as Pete Aaron, Yves Montand as Jean Pierre Sarti, and Brian Bedford as Scott Stoddard. Antonio Sabato is there as Nino Barlini, the second of the Ferrari team behind Sarti, but he doesn't quite get as much screen time as the other three. But we just know he's young and cocky and sleeps with all the women everywhere he goes, and, is close to winning that last race.
With and then another weird thing happens that I scratched my head at quite a bit. We'll talk about. Okay. Yeah. So anyway, we've got Antonio Sabato as Nino, and that's kind of all I have to say about him.
Like, you know, he sleeps with all the women. He kind of has that really quiet girlfriend, you know, who doesn't really seem to want to. She's not interested in she doesn't seem interested in racing. She doesn't drink. She doesn't smoke.
You know, she doesn't dance. And she just kind of follows him around, and then she, he she sees him fooling around with two of the Japanese women that have come over with, Toshiro Mifune, and she runs off with an American to, go relic diving in the in the Isles Of Greece. And that's
Pete Wright: Which which is fine.
Andy Nelson: Which is fine.
Pete Wright: Let her go.
Andy Nelson: That's essentially that story that we have there. Meanwhile, Yves Montan is the number one of the Ferrari team. What did you think of Yves Montan? We've talked about him a few times, like in z, I think it was the big one that we talked about with him, and Le Circlet au Rouge.
Pete Wright: Obviously, I love Yves Montan. I think he's he's fantastic because in all of these, you know, race cycles, you have these guys who have been around a long time and seen everything, and they just they just look tired even when they're on camera and, you know, they're talking about how amazing they are. Like, this season, he's we have Sartee driving for Aston Martin, and his name is Fernando Alonso. And he's a guy who just looks tired. And you know he's still very, very good, and yet, my goodness, what's he doing there?
Like, he's just I and so I I found a real affinity to this guy. I thought he was he he's exactly where he needs to be. He's exactly where he deserves to be. And even though I hadn't seen the movie, I could tell you from the moment he's sitting on the bed having that conversation with with Pete that he was gonna be the one that we were gonna lose in this movie because he stayed he outstayed his his usefulness in the field.
Andy Nelson: Well, so here's a question I have. He was 45 when he made this, which is kind of shocking to me because he he's one of those actors who always looks older. Right. But I'm assuming this is also another sport where, like most sports, you kind of age out at a certain point. Like, what's kind of the average age of these drivers?
Like, I'm assuming twenties and some into their thirties, but probably not past I mean, racing, it kind of I don't think it's like football where it's a young man's sport. I feel like you could be a little older in race, but I guess I don't know.
Pete Wright: You can. The average race is around is the is high twenties, but, you know, you look at the things that you need to deal with when you're driving these cars. Right? This this is all about stamina. It's about being able to handle extraordinary heat in those cockpits, and it's about reaction time under that kind of pressure.
And as you age, you just physically you age out of being able to react very, very quickly at high speeds. And so the youngest right now is 22, Oscar Piastri, and the oldest is Fernando Alonso at 41.
Andy Nelson: Okay. That gives you some perspective. It's right on. So 45 for him might be on the old end anyway. Yeah.
Right. Yeah. So yeah.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Which I think is believably overstayed his welcome. I guess that's what I'm trying
Trailer: to say.
Andy Nelson: You know? Well, and and I think that works for his character because, I mean, you know, he expresses exhaustion kind of with this. Like, he has that conversation with Aaron, about how he's just kind of like I don't know. It's kind of like, are are you do you ever feel like you're done? Like, you just need to leave?
And like, you really get that sense from him that he's past that point. And even in his conversations that he has with Eva Eva Marie Saint, who he ends up kind of connecting with, you get this sense of him being kind of ready to just move on and have a relationship. But it's also one of these things where it's like, it's in your blood and you can't let go, and he still needs to kind of keep doing it. And that's that's, I think, the struggle that we get in a lot of these sorts of stories of any of them where it's like any story about somebody in a profession who's really, really amazing at that profession and just can't let go and move on.
Pete Wright: You know what's interesting about this one too, though, that I really appreciate is that the the the end of the film, when we when he meets his ultimate end, it's not because he stayed too long explicitly. There is a a mechanical failure. Right? There's a collision, with a pipe, and it causes a catastrophic, accident. It's not because had there been no pipe, he couldn't have gotten around the bank.
Like, he was able he was still able to hold his own, and maybe this would have been his last race. Yeah.
Andy Nelson: He came from last place. He started thirty seconds behind everybody because his car stalled, and he was, they said, he can actually win this thing the way that he's driving. But again, that also spoke to the thing that he talked about when they showed up late with his car to do the tests and everything, and we're like, he's just like, this is what they do. When you're not a guy that they're happy with anymore, they purposely do this to you because they they they subconsciously or not maybe subconsciously, but they know that by doing that, their intention is that you're gonna push yourself harder to be even better so that you can get back on top. And he says what happens is people take more risks, but a risk is still a risk.
And I think that's kind of what happens is, like, he's driving like a maniac as he gets up the track, doing it very well, but he's like, would he have been in that position if his well, if his car had installed, obviously, was the biggest problem. But I don't know. It's it's one of those things. It really boiled down to him just being in the wrong place at the wrong time as that pipe came flying off. You know?
Right. And and I think that's
Pete Wright: a a real testament to, like, the, you know, the the combination of ego, you know, that sort of egoic pride that he wants to go out on his terms, and he doesn't want their manipulation to work. At the same time, he could win, and you could make an argument that it's because in part of their manipulation. Like, he was maybe motivated in a way through anger, frustration, whatever, to perform extraordinarily, which is the bittersweet sort of arc of Sarti. I I really, really like it. I appreciate that a lot.
Andy Nelson: What do you think of his, little love triangle that he has going on? Because when we talk about part of the story, we're also dragged into the story of these the relationships they have with their women, which I gotta say, Frankenheimer seems more interested in the men and their racing than he does in the relationships.
Pete Wright: I don't know, man. Frankenheimer is he's so good at the racing stuff in this movie. And maybe I'm glad he isn't better at the romance because we might have actually had more of it at the cost of more good racing. Yeah. I I don't know.
I the relationships with women, I I mean, that's not stuff that as a fan of f one, I see and pay any attention to. They all have relationships, and they all sort of bounce around from relationship to relationship. And I find I like in the real race, I don't care about it, and I really also found I didn't care about it here. None of the relationships felt particularly strong. His with the PR click click person, I just didn't I I never really felt I always felt like it was a distraction before we got back to more racing, which maybe was the point.
Andy Nelson: PR click click. That's Eva Marie Saint.
Pete Wright: I am. That's what I'm calling because doesn't he call her click click when you're done with your click click at one point?
Andy Nelson: Think so. Right. Because she's stuck with me. Do all the photoshoots and everything. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. It's it is interesting, and she's, you know, conveniently written into the story to be I mean, she's a reporter, but she's written into the story to be kind of like following the circuit for the duration of the season, which I don't know. For me, when I look at, like, the way that the season plays out, like, on the calendar from 1966, the real season, like, first race, May 22. The second one, June twelfth, then July 3, July sixteenth.
Like, they're spaced out, like, you know, two to four weeks apart. And I did I don't know. I guess I was like, is she there the whole time, or is she, like, go to the race and then come back, like, a week before the next race? Like, it just seemed like, why are they like, because it May through October. So is she just, like, in a six month assignment?
I don't know. I don't know how that works, but it seemed just like a convenience written for the story that she's here to follow around just so that she can essentially be the love interest for Sarti as we go through this thing. And then, of course, we learn about his the tragic nature of his relationship that he's stuck in with the fact that he doesn't love his wife. She doesn't love him. They both see each other as kind of a necessary evil because she's running his his automobile company back home and is doing it well.
But she also tells him when she shows up later in the movie, like, you're never divorcing me. Like, we're gonna stay together because this is how we run this business. She doesn't care about his little hussies or however she sees them, but so it's it's kind of like, I found that actually more interesting than anything he had going on with Eva Marie Saint. As much as I love Eva Marie Saint. Like, I just love her.
I think she's great. But
Pete Wright: Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Me too. And I think that that leads to another challenged relationship when we get to Scott Stoddard, played brilliantly by Brian Bedford.
I'm I mean, this is a guy who is just riddled with personal turmoil and supremely British cultural pressures and familial pressures and recovering from a horrible accident.
Andy Nelson: And he was the second? Was he the second behind Aaron, or was he the first?
Pete Wright: And Yeah.
Andy Nelson: And He Okay.
Pete Wright: He was second.
Andy Nelson: He was second.
Pete Wright: Okay. Because remember, Aaron was up on the podium and invited him up to join him.
Andy Nelson: That's at the very end, though. Oh, I thought that's
Pete Wright: what we were talking about.
Andy Nelson: No. No. No. I'm talking about well, because they're on the because at that point, they're totally different teams.
Pete Wright: Right.
Andy Nelson: I'm talking because, yeah, at the beginning of the film, when he has his accident, he's the first driver, and Aaron is the second. Right? And Aaron refuses to let him pass, which causes the it's debatable if he refuses to let him pass or not. But, anyway
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Andy Nelson: That's that's what gets him into his accident and everything. And they're both ray they're at that point, they're both with Jordan BRM, British Racing Motors.
Pete Wright: Yes. And so at at that race, you see very briefly, Aaron puts his hand up out of the cockpit, and that indicates that there's a there's some sort of a problem, and he's gonna be making a move. But, arguably, Stoddard doesn't either doesn't see it or sees it and tries to make his move as Pete's car, the the gearbox fails between third and fourth, and that causes a collision and, ultimately, the accident. So you can kinda make the case that that Pete is also right. Like, he did what he could do in a very complicated situation, but that also sets up a debilitating accident for Stoddard.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Which I think is interesting. And you already are getting a sense from I can't remember the guy's name who is their head of Jordan BRM, but, like, he seems to not like Pete. He finds Pete to be a problem and doesn't feel like Pete is really as effective, and it seems like he's kind of like the problem driver, and he'd rather have Scott win because Scott seems like he can win. And Pete seems like he's just, at this point, a little bit of a mess and not really getting them what they need.
And it almost seems like they probably would love to get rid of Pete, which is weird because, like, we're just starting off the season. And so I don't know. Was that was all of his reaction to Pete, like, from the previous season? Or, like, is there another thing that's going on beforehand before they get to this that he would have been referring to?
Pete Wright: Well, I think one of the things that's really believable about that relationship is that is that every driver is like, every, you know, athlete, every professional is the summation of the baggage that they bring to the current season, and that's Pete. I get the feeling, though it's not explicitly detailed in the movie, that you are exactly right, that Pete's performance has probably been rocky, all, all along for recent seasons. He's not valued anymore as a part of the team. He's not able to deliver the points of the team, for the team, and it it might be better if he found his way out and they were able to replace him with a younger, hotter driver. This happens every season and will continue to happen every single season in real f one.
This was a really believable relationship.
Andy Nelson: Well, it's just it's interesting also because it just sets up this relationship that we have between Aaron, this American who's a little reckless, who's determined to win, and Scott, Stoddard, who is a great driver. And we also he's kind of got this marriage that is, you know, kind of good, kind of bad. It seems like there's some relationship issues with his wife, but it really seems like the issues stem from the fact that she would love him to quit this life, and he doesn't wanna quit this life, like we hear so often in these sorts of stories. That seems to be largely what we're dealing with with the relationship here, with, jeez, Jessica Walter, which was a shock to see her so young and beautiful after all those wonderful years of of of being, the mother of the Bluth family. But,
Pete Wright: I So funny. I know. It's crazy. It's crazy. So good.
Yeah.
Andy Nelson: Right? But, but it's it's just interesting to kind of get that dynamic between these two teammates. And this is going back to what you were talking about is, like, the perspective that you have of the racers where there's the team cup that they're trying to win, but they're all also trying to win the individual cups. And, you know, I suppose it's like the Olympics or any of these other sports. It's it's interesting that you get that dynamic set up so so clearly here at the beginning.
And then that Scott is so immediately kind of, like, injured and has to go through a lot of recuperation before he can get back on the track, which I can't remember how was he in the second race, or was it not immediate that he got back into the race?
Pete Wright: No. It was not immediate. Right. He he didn't come back right away. Because that's part of that that middle arc of it's of you know, they bring out his brother.
You you get the sense that they lost lost his brother somehow in a race, and they bring out his brother's old four. Right. Yeah. They bring out his brother's old car, and he get out of the garage at their estate, and he gets in it, and they push it. Some another race had happened in that interim.
Andy Nelson: Well and I guess that's another question I have that doesn't make sense to me is that, like and, again, I don't know the rules to this sort of thing. But if if Pete is one driver and Scott is the other and he's injured in the first race and can't race anymore, wouldn't they be better off, like, bringing on another racer immediately so that they like, I I assume that these people have other racers kind of like, you know, understudy types of people in the wings ready to step in so that by the time they get to that second race, they already have another driver. Because otherwise, they're never gonna be they can't compete really for that team cup anymore.
Pete Wright: Yeah. You're exactly right. And every team does have backup drivers, and they pull backup drivers from the other formula tiers. Right? They'll they'll have them say, you know, we're gonna pull you up from f two into f one for this race or this set of races.
Andy Nelson: Oh, okay.
Pete Wright: So there's always two races, but there there are the principal racers who are who are the ones whose pictures are on everything. And, again, it was really messy in the sixties, so you could do pretty much whatever you wanted. You you pull a racer from somewhere else. It's fine. Like, there was there's no issue.
Andy Nelson: I gotcha. Okay. So I don't think they showed that. Did they actually have other racers from like, was Jordan VRM, did they have a second person racing? I I guess I just didn't even notice that.
Pete Wright: I don't think they paid in they gave us any reason to pay attention to it.
Andy Nelson: Okay. Alright. Yeah. Interesting. Because, I mean, Scott comes back to race, but it's just it is one of those things that I assume that they would have had a second in there so that they could still compete for that other cup.
Pete Wright: Right. And and here's the the thing about his return. In terms of the kind of a narrative climax of his story, it it felt a little bit empty. Like, it it felt a little workaday. And I was wondering what the strategy was behind that.
Like, are they trying to give us the sense that it's just another day on the job? Because it almost felt like an emotional missed opportunity that this guy overcame so much, and he was back behind the wheel. Like, I what I wanted to feel was, oh my god. I regret that this is your path because look at what you've recovered from only to put yourself back in a seat that risks doing it over and over and over again to yourself. And the other side of that, which is look at what humanity can overcome.
Oh god. I love sports movies. And I think it was it was, maybe played stoically British in in a way that just gets him back in the saddle to race. And his his primary interest at this point is, I wonder what my wife is doing right now.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Well and that becomes a big, a big struggle. That's interesting with his story. And I I guess that's one of the issues with the way that they crafted his character that, like, you don't necessarily get that same perspective that it's all about the racing with him. I mean, it it is, but he just seems there to race and stuff.
I don't know. It's it's it's an odd character because I just don't he never sees seems quite as fervent, like, as Nino or something, you know, other than he definitely wants to get back in after he's been injured. But it's just a different, a different read. And really, it does seem like I don't know. Some of it is like, is he doing it because he wants to get his wife back?
Because we haven't even talked about the whole other love triangle that we have here with the fact that you've got Pete, who is Scott's racing partner, James Garner, and Brian Bedford. And Brian's wife is, Jessica Walter, who decides she's gonna leave him after he's had this injury, and she tells him his bedside is he's all bandaged up. It's just terrible. And, and and then she because she kinda kinda knows that he won't be able to let this go and stuff and decides that she already has this antagonistic relationship with Pete. But, of course, we see it through movies that antagonistic relationships turn into relationships, and the next thing we know, the two of them are a thing.
And, Brian is all bothered about that, and and that's the whole other bit of melodrama that we have going on.
Pete Wright: It is. And that it's just I've I we every time we cut to the lodgings, hotels, bedrooms, bed chambers, rooms with too many doors, I found myself just wishing we could get back to the racing or the politics or something like that, like the horse trading. And I feel like Eva Marie Saint and Jessica Walters are undersold in this movie, underutilized at the script level.
Andy Nelson: Well, that's the thing. And and, again, that goes to I think the the focus of the story was the racing, but I felt like in the process of putting the scripts together, they're like, well, we need something going on outside of it because it takes place over all of these months. And, yeah, let's just throw in these relationships. I mean, we have some some some slog moments where we really have to kind of wade through the relationships with these with these women. And I think it's a little unfair and frustrating because I'm sure they could have crafted it better.
I'm just not exactly sure what the story would have been like, but it's it does make for kind of like a a little bit of a drag when we get to the stories off the tracks.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Right. Part of the thing that's frustrating about it is that we don't have a larger swath of or or stable of women drivers in f one. Because f one and I think you know, largely the way f one is portrayed is it's just a bunch of generally white guys, Lewis Hamilton, and mostly Europeans. Like, right now, there are three US races in this f one circuit and no American drivers.
Like, there's just no American drivers represented in f one right now. It's just it it like, we don't have we have there are women who drive very, very fast, and there are not enough of them that are famous at a level of Lewis Hamilton, Charlotte Cleric. Like, there just aren't enough. And so we don't have them represented in entertainment. It's the vicious cycle.
Like, we have f one hasn't had its its, like, women breakthrough to win races moment. That makes movies, I think, more interesting because right now, the only role that we have for women in the nineteen sixties in an f one movie is this one. That's the only role there is for them, is bouncing around relationships and love triangles, and that sucks. And I think that's one of the things I'm bringing to this movie is I don't care about that because it under serves the entire story that we can't talk more enthusiastically about the role of women in the sport, let alone this the dumb angles in this movie.
Andy Nelson: You know, that makes me think of, like, heart like a wheel, which I don't know if you've seen, but that would be a nice film to add onto this series down the road. That's the, Bonnie Bedelia one where she's, the drag race driver, Shirley Muldowney. I guess I don't know at what point did we get to that place where women were more regularly driving? But I think even in that film, she's kind of struggling with the idea that she's a woman who's wanting to be a dragster. You know?
Pete Wright: Yeah. Like, I I don't know what it's gonna take to get the Danica Patrick story because Danica Patrick is a phenomenal athlete, just extraordinary, and largely, you know, commentates right now. And I I think is, like, what what what happened? Why didn't we get a Danica Patrick movie? Or did maybe we did, and I just missed it.
I don't know.
Andy Nelson: I don't know if I've heard of one. Well and, you know, to be fair, not everyone's life, as as great as they are at something, not everyone's life is, like, designed to tell a a cinematic story. You know? Not that she couldn't. I just don't know enough about her, but I'm just saying you never really know.
Pete Wright: Well, I'll just say this. Danica Patrick is all of everything. The the issue is she's she's NASCAR. Like, she's NASCAR and IndyCar. Like, that's her circuit.
And she is she's she I think she's a commentator on f one, but she's, I'm just I'm just gonna say it, she's extraordinarily beautiful too. She's an incredible athlete and extraordinarily beautiful. She is made to be A character in movie. Yeah. A character in a movie.
Like, it's just that movie would sell tickets. I just know that it would. She's so good.
Andy Nelson: Well, hey. I mean Let's do it. Let's make that movie. Somebody should make it. That would be We're gonna have see.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Next Real Pictures.
Andy Nelson: Well, I suppose, you know, she has been accused of promoting conspiracy theories through her prod podcast. So, engaging a discussion about alien involvement in human human DNA. So maybe there are reasons it hasn't happened yet.
Pete Wright: I don't listen to her podcast. Okay. Enough with that.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. So, anyway, that's that's essentially the melodrama. And then, you know, we haven't really talked about James Garner's character. But, yeah, he's he's struggling trying to figure out how to I don't know. I guess this was part of it that I did I never really understood because it he's kind of declared to be kind of a reckless, not as great a driver.
But I have a hard time telling when I'm watching because he's always like, he like, it looks like his gearbox is not working. Like, am I meant to think that it's his team that's problem, or is he the problem? Because I never really see him doing anything on the track other than the one time, and I guess I wasn't sure how to read this, where it seems like he is not letting Scott pass him. But I couldn't from my perspective, it's like he's trying to win. He thinks he can get ahead.
He just needs to get his gear shifted, and then he can go. And so he doesn't wanna let Scott pass, and then he finally decides to let Scott pass because it's just not working. And that's when he has an another issue with his brakes or whatever, and that causes them both to crash. But, that's the only time that I would say there's a recklessness to his driving, but I don't know. Because even later, you see when Toshiro Mifune, hires him to kind of now be his driver, there's that moment where it's like he's, he's gonna show him the film, and this was the Mexico race that we never really get to see.
But he's trying to show him where his problems are, and he's just like, why do I need to watch the film? I'm like, okay, this is a problem with people. And maybe, I don't know, when it became a regular occurrence in sports to commonly film and so that the athletes could watch the footage and discuss it with their coaches to look at you know, as somebody who worked in sports video ages ago, like, it's a pretty important part of the process. So you can really see what you're doing wrong and really kind of have those conversations about it. And he seemed like, why should I have to watch it?
So I'm like, maybe it wasn't a thing quite yet. I don't know. But anyway, may maybe that's another element of him not, like, being a little too, bullheaded with the way that he was acting. But, I don't know. I mean, what were your impressions with the way they crafted him as as a driver?
Pete Wright: You know, there I I I think this is another thing I really liked about the movie. Even though I felt like Garner was the character of Pete Aaron was less a leading character in the movie and more a foil for other elements of the film to bounce off of. I do think that this character you see this archetype show up in the sport all the time, which is, hey. Everything kind of works against me. Like, I am fundamentally a good driver, and I could win races if everything worked in my favor.
And I've gotten lucky before where some of those things have worked in my favor, but I feel like my skill has not deteriorated to the degree that my equipment has. And I can't I am not enough to make up for that. The world sees me as if as a slowly declining driver, but I believe in my heart of hearts that I am more. And that's the Pete Aaron story. Right?
Does Pete Aaron come back authentically at the end to redeem himself in all those areas? And my argument is no. My argument is at the end of Monza, he's just lucky again. He would have lost the race. That, it it does not ultimately let him off the hook for all of the experiences that that he's dragging behind him.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Well and that's, I guess, that speaks to the other weirdness in this movie that I was just kind of surprised by. The the way that he wins, it's such kind of a weird letdown to the film where, basically, he's in he and and Scott are running second and third behind Nino, who's way ahead, and they've been struggling trying to see if they could get past him. They never get close. It they never get close to Nino.
I mean, they're right there, but you never see them approaching and coming up and riding in his slipstream, all that sort of stuff. Sarti is racing up behind, and he has that crash that ends up killing him as we've already discussed. And because of that, the owner of Ferrari decides to pull their other driver, Nino, who's in first place as a way to show a sign of respect or mourning or whatever. And they said this is a rare thing. It's happened once before, something like that.
But I was just surprised that this is something that they would do, especially when they were in first place. And it seemed like such a a a simple way to kind of allow Pete to win that just was kind of a disappointment the way that it ended up happening. I don't know. Is that is is it a common occurrence, and how did it work in the story for you?
Pete Wright: This is not something that I was really familiar with because the the black flag in modern f one is an is stands for, like, immediate disqualification. If you get a black flag, you did something that means you're disqualified from the race. You've somehow kept racing. You didn't know you did something. Whatever.
Maybe you knew it, but you kept racing belligerently. You get a black flag. You're done. You're off the race. I have never seen it used in this context.
So, you know, is it symbolic and kind of beautiful in its way? Yeah. But it's so lame that it only affects one team. Right? A driver died, And it feels very much when you're out of 20 racers and now you're at 19 because one's dead, maybe you should halt the race.
You know? Right? And and I think they're much more conservative about those kinds of things today. And so I totally agree with you. It it was a weird way to win, and and ultimately, we don't we don't know.
We don't know what would have happened had Sarti not died and had, you know, Nino been able to keep going.
Andy Nelson: Well, I feel like what would have happened is Nino would have won. I mean, they were, as I recall, in the last lap too. So it's like
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Andy Nelson: I don't know. It was just such a weirdly weird way to kind of let down that part of the story where it's just like, oh, look at that. Pete wins by default because he happened to be next in line. Well, mean, that's essentially how it plays. I'm like, what?
Okay. Yeah. So Lame. Yeah. And then, I mean, and then you have the little the the reconnection between, him and Scott up there on the the prize stand, whatever that's called, which was nice.
It was a nice moment to kind of allow them to get past the issues that they had had from the beginning of the film. But, yeah, you know, that's that's the melodrama that we're dealing with in this film.
Pete Wright: Yeah. It's it is interesting. I'm just looking up the history of the black flag, and it turns out I I the reason it feels familiar is we just had one last year for the first time in seventeen years. And but it wasn't at all due to any sort of death on the on the track. It's because you one of the regulations is once the race starts, you can't have any help.
If you slide off into the gravel, that's a penalty. If you can get yourself back on the track safely, you can continue to drive. But in this case, a a a driver had help from marshals to push him back onto the track, and he was immediately black flagged because he had assistance. That is a completely anodyne reason to get a black flag compared to a driver's dead on the field. But that's that was the it's very, very rare that that happens.
Andy Nelson: Well, you mentioned, like I mean, do they stop races now, like, if a driver dies?
Pete Wright: Yeah. That well, I don't know the last time a a driver died in modern f one. I mean, there I've seen them on fire. I've seen them pulled out, but they've they've lived.
Andy Nelson: Yeah.
Pete Wright: So I I can't I can't comment that. I they do they're very aggressive about safety cars and about, you know, slowing the race. But these cars, like, there is a certain degree of safety that comes with keeping the cars at speed. Once the car gets going, it is safest at speed. And if you slow it too much, it becomes dangerous.
It's it's harder to to keep safe because of the temperatures of the tires and against the asphalt, the asphalt temperature. And and so they have to be very conservative about when to slow and and speed the race. But
Andy Nelson: Interesting. Interesting. Well, let's talk about the, I know we've been talking a lot about the melodrama, but the production style was stunning, you know, and and I think that's what makes this such a, a fun ride to watch, you know. You you you've got a pretty fantastic just way that that John Frankenheimer I mean, we've talked about Frankenheimer a lot, a lot of his films, and we've talked about another of his great car films, which is Ronan, one of your favorites, and the way that they chose to shoot the real car work in that film. And he and here we have him on the tracks with, cars on cameras doing some fantastic work to kind of capture this, these races.
And, I mean, it's it's incredibly, incredibly exciting, and I think that's one of the reasons that you watch this film.
Pete Wright: Before we get feedback, I just want to acknowledge that the cameras were in fact on the cars and not the cars on the cameras.
Andy Nelson: I don't know. I don't know. Maybe there was
Pete Wright: some cars on cameras, but I think the intended use was the cameras were on the cars. Do you even know you said that? That
Trailer: was I
Andy Nelson: just I know. I'm saying all sorts of weird things. I called James Garner James Mason earlier.
Pete Wright: My god. Which would be a hell of a movie, James Mason as an f one driver.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Right. I don't know if he it would take to it quite as well as Garner did. Garner was apparently quite the driver. Apparently, Brian Bedford was completely not, and it could only be used in close-up shots, and which is why his face is always covered when he's racing because he was just like they're like, nope.
Not even a chance that this guy's gonna ever figure this out.
Pete Wright: The this this movie is special because you know, we talked about the fact that f one is is coming up, and, you know, the f one is being lauded as, oh my gosh. It's the Top Gun Maverick of of f one. And, boy, do we ever need this. Well, this movie was the Top Gun Maverick of f one in the sixties. Frankenheimer already did it.
Not only did he like we already mentioned, he drove like, he he filmed it in real races on real tracks with real drivers, Graham Hill, Jim Clark, Jack Brabham, Joaquin Rint, Bruce McLaren. Bruce McLaren was driving for McLaren. That's Bruce McLaren. Phil Hill, Juan Manuel Fangio. Fangio is legendary.
Like, all of these guys are cameoed in this movie and, you know, are driving support. It's it is the authenticity around the race stuff is pitch perfect. It is pitch perfect. All period machines, everything is real to the extent that they could be while being modified to have cameras on them. Cameras that moved and turned and did crazy stuff while being driven.
Incredible.
Andy Nelson: Well, and just figuring out, like, the whole camera system, I wrote down the company credited at the beginning for their race car mounts, Frick Enterprises coming up with these systems that that, allow not only, like, having the cars cameras on the cars almost to begin. Having the cameras on the cars while they were driving, allowing them to pan, which was a real surprise. Like, we actually have in mid drive Crazy. Watching a driver, and then the camera pans across the tire up to the track to watch. Like, it's it's wild.
And you can see what I found interesting. They talked about the banks and how rough the banks are and everything, but you don't really get that sense when you just see them driving on it. They look yeah. It just looks like a car in a bank. But when you have the camera on the car going around the bank, you see it's relatively smooth beforehand.
And then when it it hits the bank, I mean, it's really so much shakier. Like, you have that understanding of what they're talking about and why it's so difficult. And I liked being able to see all that. Like, it just was it was really stunning and just, oh, and we haven't even mentioned the way that they use split screens. Like, Saul Bass did the whole opening titles, not just kind of like the fantastic shots, but the split screens, but then also, like, duplicating images where it's like a whole checkerboard of, like, the same image across the screen, like, really cool stuff.
And then in the races, you have that where sometimes you've got, you know, a vertical, like, shot on top of another shot of two cars racing. You've got, like, three shots. And it's just it was fantastic. Like, the way that they edited and crafted this, it was just stunning to watch. I loved that.
Pete Wright: I yeah. I did too. I, you know, I was torn in the beginning of the movie if they had they'd lean too heavily into the bit of the split screens to the point of insect eyes. And I I got used to it so that when they came back to it as a montage tool to move us through a race, I found it much more effective. So I I guess you could say it's increasingly infect effective through the course of the film.
And I I really, really liked the way it allows us to to both feel like we're in the car and dizzy with all the stuff you have to think about in the car. Like, it it made me feel like a weird weirdly under a similar kind of pressure that that the driver was under, noting, of course, it's not even remotely the same.
Andy Nelson: I can understand that. I don't know. I guess I just for me, I just found it. I mean, this was definitely a period where they were really starting to explore that usage of split screens. We talked about it way back.
Well, this was actually a couple years later, but, Thomas Crown affair, just the idea of starting to play with this use as a tool, where they're still trying to figure out how to most effectively use the split screen. And I can see your point. Like, in the beginning, sure, there are times where it felt like they're doing it because they're doing it because it's kind of cool to look at. Like, when you start getting like, I can't remember, but like what like the one of the lights or something, and then suddenly you've got a grid of like, you know, 20 of that same image spread across the screen. Like, where they're trying to figure out, like, when is it most effective, you know, and and this there are times where sometimes you could argue that they might be going a little too far.
But to your point, I think it all ends up becoming more and more finely honed in as they go through the film, and it all becomes that much more relevant. And by the time you get to that last race, like, I don't know. I found it incredibly gripping when we would cut to those split screens.
Pete Wright: Yeah. No. I I I'm I'm agreeing with you.
Trailer: Yeah. And
Pete Wright: I'm just repeating your point. I'm agreeing. We could fight about it if you want, but I am we're on the same team.
Andy Nelson: Excellent. Excellent. And it was interesting because here's another use of split screen that I thought was interesting, especially as we got to the end. For each of our four characters, we have a moment where you have them racing on, like, one third of the screen, and then the other two thirds becomes part of their backstory or a conversation with one of the people in their lives as they were trying to kind of like their it showed their internal thinkings about all of this. Like, we have Nino when he's laying on the beach with Lisa, and they're talking about racing.
You have, Sarti talking with Eva Marie Saint as they're kind of, like, walking through his his property at one point. Like, you you have these moments that kind of give you a little bit of more of that sense that they're having these thoughts maybe while they're racing, and I like that. I like the way that they portrayed that.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Me too. I think it really worked especially at the at the end leading us into the final climactic kind of last twenty minutes, which is extraordinary racing. And the final crash, we've talked about the final crash. How did you how did you find the the final sort of execution of car off ramp?
Andy Nelson: I thought that worked. I mean, it it was interesting to kind of read how they were doing these sorts of things. Like, they had a I think it was like a propulsion thing that they would use to kind of, like, shoot a car where they needed to, like, whether it was into a house at one point or off the ramp into the trees at another point. Like, it worked. Like, I I felt like I was watching these cars in that situation going through the things, and, you know, it played.
I thought it played pretty well.
Pete Wright: Yeah. I did too. I like that, as gruesome as it was, the fact that the drivers can just fall out of the cars. They just just land in the tree. It it was almost vaudevillian.
Andy Nelson: Well, it's like you you you know, these accidents where your shoes you're literally knocked right out of your shoes. It's like that same sort of thing. Like, these drivers are knocked right out of their cars.
Trailer: It's
Pete Wright: crazy. Just crazy. One of the things that I I had sent you, did you have a chance to bust through that that simulation video?
Andy Nelson: Yeah. I mean, I I didn't watch it all. I just kind of jumped around and saw all of the different points.
Pete Wright: Seven minutes, man. Seven minutes long. You okay.
Andy Nelson: I I go around the track twice for each one. I'm like, I don't need
Pete Wright: to make sense. For each one. It's just
Andy Nelson: still do it twice. They do it twice. At least the first one, do it twice.
Pete Wright: On the original track of the full lap is it does include some overlap because that's why I wanna bring this up. Back in this day, that track in particular crossed itself. And so the ramp was right over a bridge that the drivers then had to drive under again. And so I you know, maybe Andy will put this in the show notes. Who knows if if it'll get in there?
But there's this video that is is a driver driving through a simulation, the Monza, which is how the drivers train. Right? That's how they they train these tracks in real life. They and so he's driving around the track over time. So you can drive the track when the bank was still there, and it's not there anymore.
It was, demolished in 1980. Anyway, you get to see where he came off and where he landed, where other drivers then have to pass the accident completely outside the situation where it happened. It is an alarming kind of realization that these drivers were were had to you know, what it feels like when they come into contact with one of their compatriots in flames. It's it is I think it's really stunning.
Andy Nelson: Well, and just I mean I mean, I imagine that's like any track because, I mean, it could be a crash right off the track. But in this one, it was in particular, like, horrifying because the way the car exploded, and then the cars that come right behind it are driving driving through flame and smoke as they kind of cut through that tunnel. I just felt horrified for the poor poor medics who had to, like, panic run across the the track as fast as they can so they'll get hit by these cars that are moving a 80 miles an hour. Yeah. It's crazy.
It's crazy. Yeah. My gosh.
Pete Wright: Overall, a good time.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. It's a fun movie. I mean, it is a long movie. It's three hours, like we said. But the car racing, it's absolutely worth watching.
I would imagine I mean, they shot this on on the, Super Panavision 70, and it was in the 70 millimeter Cinerama. I imagine this would be a stunning film to look at on a big 70 millimeter screen and just see that mass like those races on that massive screen, that rumbling and everything. I I can imagine how impressive that would be. This would be a fun one to see on the big screen, when it came when it if it would ever come around, I would definitely get tickets for that.
Pete Wright: How much on the headset, man? Big screen. It's great.
Andy Nelson: My TV is is a big screen too, but I'm just saying
Pete Wright: there's a difference. No. It's not different. You have a
Andy Nelson: Does little earbuds, do they rumble, make the whole Yeah. Theater rumble? Do they really? Uh-huh.
Pete Wright: Uh-huh. They rumble. They rumble. And I I bet. I I never mind.
I'm not gonna tell you what else I do. It's dirty.
Trailer: I
Andy Nelson: don't even wanna know. Don't even
Trailer: wanna know. Alright. Let's
Andy Nelson: let's move on. Any other points, or is that it?
Pete Wright: No. I'm done. Alright.
Andy Nelson: Well, we'll be right back. But first, our credits.
Pete Wright: The next reel is a production of True Story FM, engineering by Andy Nelson, music by Milano, Ace, Francesco D'Andrea, Oriel Novella, and Eli Kaplan. Andy usually finds all the stats for the awards and numbers at the -numbers.com, box office mojo Com, I m d d Com, and wikipedia.org. Find the show at truestory.fm. And if your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.
Andy Nelson: Imagine the thrill of finally watching that last movie on your letterboxed watch list. The one that's been sitting there for ages, taunting you. Maybe it's a classic like Casablanca or a more recent masterpiece like Parasite. Or perhaps it's a hidden gem you discovered through the letterbox community like The Farewell or Hunt for the Wilderpeople. With each film you watch, your watch list gets shorter and shorter, building anticipation for that glorious moment when you can finally say, I've watched everything on my list.
It's a feeling of triumph, like crossing the finish line of a marathon or a Formula One race. But here's the thing about being a movie lover. There's always another race to run. No sooner have you watched that last film than you discover a dozen more that you just have to see, then a hundred, then a thousand. Before you know it, your watch list is filled to the brim once again with new titles like In the Mood for Love, The Thing, and Portrait of a Lady on Fire, alongside classics like Grand Prix, Eight and a Half, and The 400 Blows.
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As a listener of the next reel, you'll get a special 20% discount on your membership whether you choose the pro or patron plan and whether you're a new or renewing member. Just head to the next real Com / letterbox or use the code next real to claim your discount and start building your ultimate watch list. Get ready to experience the thrill of watching your watch list dwindle down to zero and to see it bloom back to life with a whole new crop of incredible films. With Letterbox, the journey never ends. There's always another finish line to cross, another cinematic adventure waiting to be discovered.
Pete Wright: Award season, Andy. How'd it do? Did it win all the awards because it's so good, especially the melodrama part?
Andy Nelson: It's the sort of film that's gonna do well with technical awards for sure. Three wins, four other nominations. At the Oscars, it won best sound, best film editing, and best sound effects. At the American Cinema Editor's Awards or the Eddies, it was nominated for best edited feature film, but lost a fantastic voyage, which strikes me as a funny choice. I don't know.
Maybe I'll have to watch Fantastic Voyage again to see if I think maybe they were just upset that this it was three hours and you had to suffer through so much melodrama. Who knows?
Pete Wright: Right.
Andy Nelson: At the DGA Awards, it was nominated for outstanding directorial achievement in motion pictures for Frankenheimer, but he lost to Fred Zinnaman for a man for all seasons. And at the Golden Globes, both Jessica Walter was nominated for most promising newcomer for a female, and Anthony Sabato was nominated for most promising newcomer as a male, but they both lost Jessica Walter to Camilla Sparve in Dead Heat on a Merry-go-round. I haven't seen that. It's a heist film, though. We can add it to our heist film list.
Okay. And, Sabato lost to James Ferrantino in the pad and how to use it, which is, I don't know.
Pete Wright: Both of these sound like fake movies.
Andy Nelson: It definitely sounds like movies of the time, late sixties.
Pete Wright: Alright. Well, it didn't win best movie of all time ever, which is probably right. But did it win best money making movie of all time ever? How to do it at the box office.
Andy Nelson: Frankenheimer had a budget of $9,000,000 for his Cinerama Formula one production or nearly 88,000,000 in today's dollars. The movie opened 12/21/1966 opposite Murderer's Row, The Sand Pebbles, Gambit, and Funeral in Berlin. It did really well for itself, going on to earn 20,800,000.0 or 203,700,000.0 internationally, becoming the seventh highest grossing film of 1966. That lands the film with an adjusted profit per finishman of just over $650,000, doing quite well for itself.
Pete Wright: So it's a cult film, an indie hit is what you're saying? You know, f one is coming out. It's reported to be 300,000,000. I I ask that. I I talk about that just because I kind of can't believe it's only 88,000,000 in today's dollars.
Because what they accomplished with this movie with a $9,000,000 budget in the sixties feels to me to be extraordinary.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. With the work that they did on the tracks and
Pete Wright: everything. Yeah.
Trailer: Yeah.
Andy Nelson: Well and, you know, Frankenheimer cut quite a number of deals. Like, he showed the Ferrari team because they were nervous to be featured in the film as much as they are, and he showed them the footage, and they're like, oh, no. This is totally fine. Go ahead. And and and he made good showing, like, featuring the tires from, like, Goodyear and everything, which allowed him later to feature so heavily and get access to the Goodyear blimp for Black Sunday.
So it's pretty you know, he knows how to do his work, you know. And to that end, I mean, very technical director, but that made some good deals that helped him out quite a bit.
Pete Wright: I love it. Great movie.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. It's a good movie with some fantastic race sequences. I tell you that the melodrama bits really, really slowed things down for me, but I enjoyed it. Yeah. I would watch it just for the racing again.
And Jessica Walter. I mean, she was she was great to look at.
Pete Wright: She's just fun to watch.
Andy Nelson: I just hadn't seen her. She's one of those people that I know so much from Arrested Development that I'm like, have I seen her in anything beforehand? And then I see her in this, and I I sent a picture to my wife. I'm like, look who this is. And she's like, who's I'm like, this is Jessica Walter.
She's like, oh my god. So, yeah, it's crazy.
Pete Wright: It's amazing.
Andy Nelson: Alright. Well, we'll be right back for our ratings. But first, here's the trailer for next week's movie, Lee h Catson's Le Mans starring Steve McQueen.
Speaker 6: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On this circuit, circuit, the world's most famous motor race is run. For twenty four hours each year, men and machines are put to the supreme best, speed and stamina. There are 55 cars and 110 drivers representing countries from all over the world. They will drive day and night through sun and rain.
Beneath his racing suit, each driver must wear fireproof underwear capable of withstanding 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature of burning gasoline for fifteen seconds. Yellow effects and yellow lights along the circuit indicate presence of an accident. Yellow
Speaker 7: La Mam. The essence is speed, the objective is winning, and the danger is dying. Le Mans, where hour by hour, lap after lap, a man to man competition of champions never stops.
Trailer: Do you think it will be like a Nurburgring, a race between you and Staller? I
Speaker 6: hope not.
Trailer: Would this be the same kind of race you had with Delaney at the Nurburgring?
Trailer: Well, uh-huh.
Trailer: This is Le Mans.
Trailer: It's a different thing, you know. And what do you think of Staller? Staller?
Speaker 6: I think he's probably one
Speaker 8: of the best drivers in the world.
Trailer: Do you think that you and Delaney will end up having a close race here? Maybe. He's fast, I'm fast, so we're always together. Press is making a big thing about us.
Trailer: Yeah. But it's money.
Trailer: That's American. Michael,
Speaker 8: be careful. Now don't be a pain in the ass, Ariel.
Speaker 7: Le Mans. At 200 miles an hour, the pressure of winning and losing is tough enough. Explaining it to someone else makes it even tougher.
Speaker 8: This isn't just a thousand to one shot. This is a professional blood sport, and it can happen
Speaker 7: to you. And then it can happen to you again.
Trailer: What is so important about driving faster than anyone else?
Speaker 8: A lot of people go through life doing things badly. Racing's important to men who do it well. And racing, it's life. Anything that happened before or after, it's just waiting.
Speaker 7: Le Mans, the men, the machines, the motion picture. Steve McQueen stars in it. No one else could.
Pete Wright: And it's lap 38 here at the next real Grand Prix of podcasters. And, oh, there it is. A clean overtake by the members only feed. Absolutely textbook. If you're listening right now and still stuck in the standard feed, we've got to ask, what is your race strategy?
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That's trustory.fm/join. Flip the switch, hit the apex, and accelerate into the next level of podcast performance. Letterboxd, Andy.
What are you gonna do for Letterboxd for this movie? I imagine I hope it gets a heart. I think it's gonna be three stars.
Andy Nelson: It is three stars, and it does have a heart.
Pete Wright: Yes.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. I enjoy this. Like, the the it's just the the melodrama really kind of bogs things down. But, like, the race stuff is just fantastic. So
Pete Wright: Well, I I think the race stuff is clearly just a little bit more fantastic than you. It's not a five star movie for the same reason. The melodrama, the relationship stuff that isn't involved, with any of the f one mechanic is a slog. So I'm gonna come in at four stars and a heart.
Andy Nelson: Alright. Well, that will average out to three and a half and a heart over at our count at the next reel. You can find me over there at Soda Creek Film. You can find Pete there at pete wright. So what did you think about Grand Prix?
We would love to hear your thoughts about this one. Hop into the Show Talk channel over in our Discord community where we will be talking about the movie this week. When the movie ends our conversation begins.
Pete Wright: Letterbox you with Andrew.
Andy Nelson: How does Letterbox always do it? I I already know
Pete Wright: the one you're gonna pick, and it has a lot of flamboyance and fireworks. And I would have picked it too, but you picked it. I'm gonna make you go second. You have to listen to my regular English one. Okay.
This is a five stars from Vlada. There are not a lot of good movies about racing, much less contemporary ones. The point is usually in a lack of mythicality and festivity of the sport, but I just think that filmmakers are unable unable to treat machinery like Frankenheimer does. The racing sequences in Grand Prix feel like poetry, like ballet, like musical pace, angles, split screens, music, rhythm. Oh my god.
Such a masterful celebration of hard labor and vehicles plus interesting angles on some psychological torments and dilemmas, incredible technical achievement of a movie, cinema cinematographic porn. Oh,
Andy Nelson: look at that.
Pete Wright: Yeah. This this movie aroused Vlada is what we're saying.
Andy Nelson: Wow. I I hear it. Well, I have a, just Hearted by Sarah, who has this to say, and it's full of emojis. I'm not gonna read the emojis. It's really kind of more punctuation, but we'll just go like this.
Overture. Spectacular racing scene. Boring drama. Spectacular racing scene. Francois Hardy looking beautiful.
Boring heterodrama. I sleep. Intermission. Google informs you that Jessica Walter is Lucille Bluth from rest of development. More boring heterodrama.
I mean, it's one banana, Michael. What could it cost? $10? Spectacular racing scene.
Pete Wright: Boring hetero drama. I mean, really, I think I think that Sarah did in, what, five lines, what it took us an hour and a half to come to the same conclusion.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Yep. Good argue,
Pete Wright: Sarah. Thanks, Letterboxd.