What about his role in 'Grand Prix'?!
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ricomyeloma — 9 years ago(September 27, 2016 06:26 AM)
I agree. I thought his performance in GP was the "ultimate cool".
Another movie that was always under the radar was the WWII movie "36 Hours". I highly recommend it, also starring Eva Marie Saint and Rod Taylor. -
denise1234 — 11 years ago(July 25, 2014 11:59 AM)
hkfilmbuff^
Wonderful, wonderful film!
The last scene ('The Lonely Racetrack') with Garner on the empty racetrack is very poignant to me now.
Farewell to a great actor and splendid man ~
111c
~~ The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means ~ ~ Oscar Wilde -
hkfilmbuff — 11 years ago(July 25, 2014 06:18 PM)
denise1234,
I cannot agree more. Notwithstanding all the adrenalin-pumping race footage, the split-screen reverie and the final scene of the deserted track with the background sound of roaring engines left the most indelible impression.
Like your Oscar Wilde quote too. -
denise1234 — 11 years ago(August 09, 2014 08:30 PM)
hkfilmbuff^
So agree!
I own the movie and just this year got a nice home theater with a very big screen and 1908great sound (was a present!), and what a treat to see it somewhat as it was intended to be shown (as opposed to on a typical TV).
And thank you re: the Wilde quote. I don't think there is one quote by him that I don't like.
~~ The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means ~ ~ Oscar Wilde -
Synergetic11 — 10 years ago(June 15, 2015 10:25 PM)
Grand Prix is one of the greatest films ever made, period, in any genre. Actually, like Kon Ichikawa's unbelievable masterpiece "Tokyo Olympiad" from the year before (1965), which it was modeled after, it transcends all genres, including the archetypical and oldest genre, drama itself, to become pure cinema, pure art.
The storyline without the racing scenes is nothing. The storyline WITH the racing scenes, which are two-thirds of the film, is everything and then BEYOND everything. It is about man's struggle with technology and his own limits of endurance, the limits of intensity.
Also the quality of the shots in the film, the locations, etc., are just eye-poppingly amazing. It such a beautiful great film when it could have easily been a grimy and ugly great film in a "Road Warrior" kind of way.
I think the best cameras and lenses, the purest cinematography was produced in films like "Tokyo Olympiad" and "Grand Prix." We'll never see the likes of films like these again. This was just a period in time when high-art and high-tech were perfectly suited to each other in an almost organic way. Needless to add, it is also Frankenheimer's best film, WAY BETTER than "Manchurian Candidate" and "Seconds."
Frankenheimer wanted Steve McQueen in the lead, which would have been awesome but Garner, McQueen's next door neighbor at the time, ended up getting the role when Frankenheimer's partner and McQueen took a big dislike to each other. Garner also turned out to be a natural talent as a driver, although, unlike McQueen, he had had no real interest in fast cars or sports-car driving before. Bob Bondurant, who trained him to do his own Formula 1 driving vouched that if Garner had wanted to he could have easily had a career as a race-car driver. In the very short time (3 months?) that he had to train for the film, Garner was already driving on the level of a pro, whereas Yves Montand, who also did his own driving, was only average, and Bedford still a novice who had to have a double in the film. Bedford was great in the acting department though and if McQueen had been in the film, they should have just added another lead character and not lost either Bedford or Garner. -
anthny_platt — 10 years ago(February 24, 2016 10:25 AM)
Though Bob Bondurant (who went on to form a famous racing school) said that Garner could have been a professional Formula One driver, he was actually too tall for any of the cars designed for that circuit. Nonetheless, he delighted Frankenheimer and many of his producers and directors since (particularly Steven J. Cannell of "The Rockford Files") with his ability to perform as a world class stunt driver. It allowed Frankenheimer to mount a camera directly to a car and pan from Garner's face to the track ahead, and allowed for many a shot that would have needed to have been done differently (to obscure the stunt driver's face) in many of the shows he was in.
McQueen was a friend and next door neighbor of Garner's, but Garner reported that it took McQueen four years to forgive him for landing that role in "Grand Prix". Apparently McQueen wanted the producers to come beg him to appear, and that didn't happen.
Garner invented a Hollywood driving stunt. During the filming of "The Rockford Files" Garner backed the ubiquitous Firebird away from a spot where the road ahead was blocked (by the bad guys). He then spun the car 180 degrees and accelerated away in forward gear without stopping. He was to do this difficult maneuver several more times during the run of the series. This stunt is now known as a "Rockford".
