Champions Forever, The Movie

[CurtEgerer]

1.5 hour documentary on the 1973 F1 drivers with Stacy Keach doing the narration:

<iframe width="800" height="450" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/H4Clc7tzDcs?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Chuck Miller]

Whoa Curt....

That means they had 3 working titles for this movie...

'Champions Forever' (which I never heard before)

'One by One' http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071942/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3

And the VHS I've had for about 15 years...

'The Quick and the Dead'

GREAT movie..... The very last scene is one of the most haunting I've ever seen... It's of Cevert waving at the camera, he died later that year.

[StephenAcworth]

That is sooooo much better than anything produced recently (AKA RUSH)... shame the quality isn't a little better... wonderful how all this old footage is becoming accessible through the internet!

Takes me back to the time I was lucky enough to visit Ken Tyrrell's wood yard F1 workshops and be given a guided tour of their (very basic) facilities... wish I had kept the correspondence I had with the team then... and had a camera to take photos with...

[70tangerine]

love that movie…

btw,,…..I never got to see RUSH….but I did see some previews in a theater and my first impression was that I did not like the up close in your face computer graphics and imaging…just did not feel real..felt more like a vid game...

[CurtEgerer]

Those would have been some great pics Stephen! One thing for sure, there is STILL stuff out there and being uncovered. A few days ago, a friend of mine obtained a box of photos from a former Audi/Porsche engineer who is now in his 80's. Personal photos never before seen. Over 300 of them. There are priceless photos of the early development of the rally quattros and some prototype 911 stuff from the 80's. Hopefully, I'll be able to share some of them soon.

Re: Rush. Haven't seen it either and really have no desire. The real documentaries like that shown above are what interests me.

[rmakosaito]

Funny, a few weeks ago I pre-ordered "1 the movie" on Amazon - the site suggested that I pre-order Rush, but I had no interest. I haven't seen either, but something about Rush just doesn't seem right. It might be that Lauda is probably my earliest hero, from of all places a Readers Digest article I started in my dentist office. I took home that issue (with their permission) because, as a 10 year old kid, it just sounded so great. Next came the AFX set with the Ferrari... I guess I don't want Ron Howard to ruin that for me.

Anyway, I do recommend "1". It is a well-constructed documentary, my wife even sat through it.

[StephenAcworth]

I followed the development of RUSH via Ron Howard's FB and Twitter feed and it seemed like he was doing a really great job at recreating the cars and the atmosphere of the circuits but the finished product left me cold... it captures nothing of the essence of racing... and is a poor representation of the era... however, the movie Curt posted, whilst perhaps the editing is naive from todays standards, captures the ethos of the period and the racing... the speed, the twitchiness of the cars, the delicate balance to keep the cars on the edge, and the consequences of tripping over the line... very visceral and very compelling!

Thanks so much for posting this, Curt, I now spent nearly three hours watching it twice and wish I could download a copy for keeps!

Stephen

[Jim Garfield]

I hadn't seen that before, really good. Some rare footage of The Bog too! Interesting that one of the cameramen was Michael Delaney, wonder if that's where McQueen got the name?

[CurtEgerer]

whilst perhaps the editing is naive from todays standards, captures the ethos of the period and the racing... the speed, the twitchiness of the cars, the delicate balance to keep the cars on the edge, and the consequences of tripping over the line... very visceral and very compelling!

That's really what it is. And it simply can't be replicated in modern 'films'.

Another good source for period films is Powerslide TV from Germany. It's all in German, but it doesn't really matter! Here's one at Spa 1970:

<iframe width="800" height="600" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/dzI7cN8fqMU?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[StephenAcworth]

I hadn't seen this one before: some eclectic editing but there are some clips of the Porsche F1 car and some 935s on track in anger...