(racing car revving)
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(racing car revving)
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[Narrator] This is the untold story
of the greatest movie, never made.
A movie that would have been the world's
first authentic motion picture about Formula 1,
and starring the coolest man
to ever get behind the wheel, Steve McQueen.
- As far as reality is concerned my education was very good.
- We spent half our time keeping him out of jail.
- It was Steve McQueen driving this movie
and he was a racer.
- [Narrator] Of course, we can't show you that film,
but by piecing together never before seen rushes,
along with original on-set photos,
letters, scripts and interviews,
we aim to give you a sense of what might have been,
for the audience and McQueen.
- He embraced me; said "You can have anything."
- He is impossible to take your eyes off of.
Completely magnetic.
- A terrible window of death.
- I think it's a very pure thing; I'd like to learn more.
(racing car revving)
- [Narrator] This wasn't just a race on the track.
It was a race between two massive Hollywood studios,
determined to do whatever it took to win.
- You have to have the skill
to create something people think is real.
- [Christina] He was determined to make the definitive film
about Formula 1.
- It would have been bigger than "Jaws".
- [Narrator] This is the story of "Day of the Champion".
(racing car revving)
♪ People see me but they just don't know ♪
♪ What's in my heart, and why I love you so ♪
♪ I love you baby like a miner loves gold ♪
♪ So come on baby, let the good times roll ♪
♪ (instrumental music) ♪
[Narrator] The 1960s gave birth to a new America.
The country hoped for a new direction with the election
of John F. Kennedy, only to see him shot down in Dallas.
It sought harmony through the civil rights movement,
while protests over Vietnam
and the Cuban Missile crisis dominated the headlines.
America's cultural impact on the world during
that decade is undeniable.
Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Andy Warhol Elvis
and a movie industry in transition.
Old men who could not relate to the explosion
of youth culture were swiftly moved aside.
Films became brasher and more socially aware.
The inmates were allowed to take over the asylum,
so long as their movies made sense
and more importantly, dollars.
- Hollywood in the early 60s
is essentially the wheels are starting to come
off basically since the end of the Second World War
the breaking apart of the studio system
is happening slowly across that period.
And by the early '60s, 1963ish,
you have the lowest domestic output of movies ever
in American history.
TV was the enemy to Hollywood for a long time
but as they started to syndicate their movies
into TV and realized how profitable it was,
that barrier started to come down a bit.
And so you had actors like Clint Eastwood
who started out in "Rawhide"
and with Steve McQueen with "Wanted: Dead Or Alive",
it was a very popular show.
- [Narrator] From '58 to '61 McQueen starred
in a western TV show called "Wanted: Dead or Alive".
His detached and mysterious acting style made this stand out
from the average western serial.
It not only made him a household name
but helped to create his antihero persona,
which characterized so many of his future roles.
His big break in the movies came thanks
to another man with piercing blue eyes
when Frank Sinatra sacked Sammy Davis Junior
from "Never So Few" after an argument.
Sinatra and director John Sturges gave McQueen
the role of Bill Ringa,
with Sinatra insisting that McQueen got plenty of close ups
and screen time after seeing something special in the,
then 29-year-old.
- [Actor] Josh!
- I think everyone agrees, John Sturges,
one of his great strengths
was he could cast what he called the gut of the picture.
Don't worry about who's starring in it,
that'll take care of itself but cast that gut.
- Intuitively, a very good actor
and exuberant about his work, he enjoyed,
a warrior, like most good actors are.
- It was kind of a Pack picture, kind of Sinatra's Pack,
but with this one, young outsider.
Frank kind of saw to it
that Steve was at the right place at the right time.
I'm talking about on the playing field, turning a scene,
and off the playing field.
Frank was careful that he got the help when he needed it,
he got the angle when he needed it
and he got the brothering,
if you will, actor's coaching when he needed it.
- Certainly not an intellectual, he didn't read much.
He didn't know very much
about what was happening in the world,
but he enjoyed life and we became very good friends.
- [Narrator] McQueen would be the first to admit he
was no intellectual.
His difficult and abusive childhood giving no clues as
to the global stardom that would follow.
Born into poverty and raised
with a great deal of insecurity,
he was abandoned by his stunt pilot father at six months,
then sent by his alcoholic mother to live on his great,
uncle's farm aged just three,
he drifted through childhood committing petty crimes
and later admitting; "I was looking for a little love,
but there wasn't much of it around."
- I think the stepdad relationship
wasn't a good one, he used to beat on Steve.
His mother didn't really do anything about it
and he never forgave her for that.
- [Narrator] After several arrests for shoplifting
and stealing hub caps,
in his mid-teens McQueen ended up in a reform school
for 'delinquent' children just outside of Los Angeles.
- Steve ended up in Boy's Republic,
Chino and Steve hated it at first
and resented his mother for it greatly
but in later life he used to go back there
and meet the kids there and he would take items
from his movie sets there
and I think although he maybe didn't appreciate it
at the time, he came to appreciate it in later life
just what it did for him.
- His name was Mr Panter and he was the superintendent,
I guess, of the place.
And Steve was getting into all sorts of trouble at
that time and the guy eventually took him aside
after he tried to run away,
and of course they caught him, and he said,
"You better adjust to some regimentation
or you'll just be a very unhappy young man,
in this place anyway."
So with that, I guess he was able to learn
that maybe a little adapting to society would be okay.
(laughs)
- You have a choice in life
and he made a choice that this is not the life I want
to go down, I don't want to end up in prison,
I don't want to be just another statistic,
I want to use this as a springboard.
Let me use my anger, let me use my pain and my poverty
and make it into something amazing,
which the fact that we're talking about him now,
so many years later, is actually what he did.
- [Narrator] In 1947,
and already branded as one of life's "Outsiders",
the 17-year-old McQueen enlisted in the US Marines.
He served as a tank driver,
an experience that fueled his obsession
for anything with an engine.
Although there were occasional rebellions,
he eventually embraced the rigor
and discipline of military life
and was honorably discharged in 1950.
- He was on duty with the Navy in the Aleutian Islands,
just above the Arctic Circle.
He was cold and he was out somewhere in his jeep
and he was heating a can of beans in the exhaust pipe
of the jeep, a McQueen manoeuvre.
And a General on inspection showed up
and Steve's standing there to attention
and the General is saying, "What's going on soldier."
So the beans exploded and wiped out the General!
So who but Steve McQueen could be court martialled
for firing beans on a General, you know.
These things just happened to him."
- [Narrator] He was clearly aware
of his educational disadvantage, but his extreme focus
and life experience allowed him
to tackle any fresh conflict he encountered.
- Well, my scholastic standards weren't very good.
I went as far as the eighth grade but
as far as reality is concerned, by education was very good.
And perhaps a man that kicks around quite a bit
is a little stronger in quarters he needs to be stronger in
as far as dignity is concerned,
and a little lenient
in quarters about sensitivity and so forth.
I think if you've been kicked around,
you don't want to be kicked again.
- With the G.I. Bill of Rights behind him,
McQueen had money to learn a trade
and settled on trying to make it a profession
in which he would meet the most girls.
- I hitchhiked to New York and I studied there
and got a scholarship to a dramatic school.
Then I did a couple very small parts on television,
and then my first Broadway show, which is a legitimate play,
and I did two of those.
Then I came West, I hitchhiked to California,
I was broke again.
Then when I got to California,
I guess they were hunting for a cowboy
because they wanted me for a series and I did it
and it lasted for 3 years in the United States
and fortunately for me it was very popular.
(hopeful music)
- I think McQueen starts to get good notices with
"The Magnificent Seven" and he does everything he can,
he pulls out all the stops to get the audience's attention
in this ensemble piece,
where Yul Brynner is really the big star.
And stories abound about their relationship on set
and how much he was kind of fiddling around
in the background, and messing with his hat.
Always doing something to draw the audience's eye
to himself.
John Sturges was a good bit older than Steve McQueen.
He'd come up in Hollywood
in the 1930s as a jobbing Director.
Really found his niche in the '50s with westerns,
with action-oriented westerns.
So, in 1955 he makes "Bad Day At Black Rock" which
is sort of a contemporary western starring "Spencer Tracy".
McQueen really was lucky
in that Sturges was equally interested
in cars as he was, he was kind of a man's man.
And he had McQueen's respect
because even at that point in his career,
McQueen was known for being stubborn
and sort of temperamental.
- I think what John Sturges and Steve McQueen had in common
was just an attitude of; "Let's get on with it!"
There was a sort of workman-like charm about both of them.
And that's not to say that they didn't create amazing,
artistic and poetic moments on film together.
And I think they both really appreciated
that trait in one another.
- Well, Sturges also grew up without a father
so maybe there was a link there between them in that way.
- [Narrator] So the street-kid had made it.
By the age of 30, he was earning big money
and was now a family man with a wife, Neile,
and two children, Chad and Terry.
- A lot of actors nowadays, you know, are making it,
they are successful see?
And they're very angry.
Now what have they got to be angry about?
If they were really broke and they had a hassle,
But if they are successful, they should be very happy.
I'm happy, I've got a beautiful wife, two kids,
two houses, a couple of cars and my own film company.
I'm not buggin' nothing!
(laughs)
- Steve, why are you here?
To make a picture?
- We are doing "The War Lover", John Hersey's novel.
It's the story of daylight bombing in World War Two
and the American flyers who fought here in London.
There's only two things that mean anything to me,
flying and women.
- In that order?
- In any order, or both together.
(engine plane revving)
- [Narrator] With his newfound fame
and wealth came the opportunity to indulge his passion
for motorcycles and cars.
So, as well as starring opposite Robert Wagner
and Shirley Anne Field,
McQueen's main motivation
for spending three months in rural Norfolk
in 1962 was the film unit's proximity to Snetterton Circuit,
at that time, the world's foremost school
for people who wanted to learn to how to race cars.
(trumpet music)
- Yeah, when McQueen first came over here
to film "The War Lover",
he was really keen to drive racing cars
and learn to drive racing cars, well,
I think Jim Russell was an American driver
who was actually pretty good
and he started this new concept
of a race driver school based at Snetterton
and because it was the only one of its type at the time,
it was like, "Wow what a great thing!
You know, we can go and sit in a racing car
and learn how to be race drivers."
And that hadn't happened before
and I think it's quite interesting
that Steve McQueen knew about that
and was attracted by that, it says a lot.
It speaks a lot to the purity of Steve's love of racing,
I think that he thought, "Wow, Snetterton.
Bleak, cold, rainy,
but it's the Jim Russell School I wanna be there!"
- Steve, talking about cars.
You race them and you race them very fast.
Now I don't know any other actor who does this
sort of activity the way you do.
Why do you do it?
Why are you in such a hurry?
- I think perhaps a lot of it has to do with fear.
I think that race driving is an art,
and I don't put myself in the class
of Stirling Moss or Dan Gurney or Phil Hill
or some of the people who are driving here
in your Formula 1 or your international races,
but I remember the first time I raced I was very frightened,
it scared me and I didn't like the idea of being frightened
and I wanted to overcome it.
That was one element.
The other elements is it's a very pure thing.
It's one of the few things in life you can't fix.
You can't fix this.
You can go to somebody and say;
"I'm going to buy my way out of this."
When you are out there by yourself you are very much
by yourself.
I think it's a very pure thing,
I'd like to learn more and I plan on doing a little racing
while I'm in your county, I like to learn.
Yes, I would.
I think your courses are very fast
and I could learn quite a bit from your drivers
so I'd like to learn as much as I can.
- The United States really
only became aware of European-style racing,
sports car racing,
Formula 1 single-seater racing through the rich young men
in California just after the war
who started off racing hot-rod type cars on circuits
but then found that if you had the money to buy a Ferrari
or a Maserati from Europe, they could then win races.
Steve McQueen, certainly,
was much more interested in European-style racing
and he picked up on the glamor
and romanticism of Formula 1 racing.
- [Narrator] One driver seemingly fitted the bill
as McQueen's "UK racing mentor".
A tall, slim aristocrat by the name of John Whitmore.
His background and lifestyle could not have been
more different from rural Indiana or indeed Hollywood.
- We grew up knowing each other very well.
And he had a lovely house that he had in Balfour Place
just one back from Park Lane.
He was one of Jimmy Clark's best friends
and one of my best friends.
But John, he wasn't a gentleman racing driver.
He was a racing driver er no gentlemanly manners
or anything like that.
Of course, he was well-mannered,
of course he was so well, educated,
but he just wanted to be one of the boys.
- Steve was over here making a black
and white film actually.
And he and I just happened to meet and we got talking
and we talked for about two hours
and found that we had a lot of common interests.
Steve was riding motorcycles,
he was a very good motorcyclist
and also was interested in cars.
- And y then, Steve had done his Jim Russell course
and John Whitmore was a massive hot shot in Minis
and it was a perfect thing.
It says a lot about Steve that he wanted to race Minis.
I think that shows that he'd thought it through
and it was exactly the right sort of category
of racing for him.
- McQueen was very competitive at that level
and there was that great race at Brands Hatch
when Whitmore and Carlisle
and McQueen were backing together
and McQueen very nearly beat Carlisle to the flag.
- John Whitmore, I knew from early days
because in fact we both raced at Sebring together
in the same car.
But he was a great friend of Steve McQueen's
and he was keen to race in England
and John Whitmore had already won a saloon car championship.
So he lent Steve McQueen his Mini
to race at the beginning of October at Brands Hatch.
The race was amazing.
There were five of us Minis who were continually passing
and re-passing each other.
(guitar music)
I was told we were the three
of us together going round a corner.
Anyhow the race ended with Vic Alford winning, me behind,
just in front of Steve McQueen.
And the commentator had gone absolutely mad
and demanded that we, us three,
should go up onto the podium.
It was very exciting.
Oh, you can't ask him now but I don't know what he thought
about that!
But he was a good sport.
He did drive me back to London on one occasion
and he was charming.
Chatty, talkative, wonderful blue eyes.
He behaved extremely well!
(laughs)
- There was a Mini, a small car,
on the side of the M1 and I was going down
in my bigger car going a bit faster
and as we went passed the Mini,
there were two girls and Steve said, "Stop."
And I said, "You can't stop on the M1,
you know, you're not allowed to do that."
And he said "Oh yes,
you know, you ran out of petrol or something like that,
you can stop."
He jumped out of my car, took a bag with him,
and jumped into the Mini.
And he stayed in the car with these two girls
and nobody saw him for two days.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] The result of racing Minis
and his Jim Russell course was the addition of a
so-called Asphalt Rider in his future contracts.
Nothing was to get in the way
of his love for cars and bikes.
So, in 1963, with "The War Lover"
and many laps of English racetracks behind him,
Steve McQueen once again teamed up
with director John Sturges for what was
to become one of the most iconic movies of the 20th Century.
And with the character of Captain Hilts
in "The Great Escape",
he cemented his status as a bonafide "Hollywood Superstar".
- He looked at James Garner, who was "The Scrounger",
he looked at Charles Bronson with his pick
and he knew I'm the star of this movie
and I've got nothing here.
Sturges was big enough to give Steve
that opportunity to go away and come back
with his own ideas and that was
where the motorcycling across the Alps
and all that kind of thing,
really took off and made Steve the huge star after that.
- We spent half our time keeping him out of jail.
Every time he'd show up at work there'd be this collection
of police who would come in and they'd all come over to me
and we'd have a consultation with Steve over,
"You cannot drive through flocks of chickens
and you cannot go off into the woods
and back onto the road to pass somebody," and so on.
- Wasn't it a while ago
that the studios prohibited you doing any racing
while you were actually in production?
- Ssssh!
- I mean I see all
kinds of executive-looking people standing around
with their fingers crossed!
- Well, they're being real nice to me on this film.
- Steve drove faster than made sense
and Steve's emotional outlet
when he was troubled was drive a car.
- So one of the amazing things about McQueen was really
for the first time since silent cinema and the "Daredevils"
of silent cinema like Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton,
he was someone who made it very clear that he did a lot
of his own stunt work, and was celebrated because of that.
People loved to see him do actions scenes
because they knew it was for real.
But Steve McQueen really started that in the modern era.
- You've got to remember about Steve,
he not only loved cars
and loved everything to do with mechanical things,
but he was also very good at it.
Steve was very good at handling automobiles,
that's why he could race competitively.
There's another issue,
too, that people have mentioned and it's absolutely true.
There is the, I don't like the term "macho",
but he had that thing about,
I don't want people doubling me
and then I have to face my peers saying, "Here comes candy."
- [Narrator] The cavalier leading man
might seem like a director's worst nightmare.
Let alone the studio's insurance company.
But it showed Sturges that McQueen was the real deal
and his love of blurring the lines between acting,
action and reality brought them even closer together.
With McQueen's insistence on doing most
of his own motorbike stunts in "The Great Escape",
only an insurance clause kept him from doing that jump,
which whetted his appetite for more onscreen action.
And what better subject than the machinery with which he was
so in love.
- [Steve] I don't like acting when it's "Playing house"?
You know, I believe that I try to extract out
of my life the same reality
that I am existing in if I'm working.
- Anyone watching films in 2020 probably doesn't appreciate
the difference between an actor and a movie star.
But in the 1960s and 1970s, there was a huge difference.
It was a choice of getting a script and turning up
and doing your job, which an actor did.
A movie star had control; they could change scenes.
- [James] Well there were lots of actors.
Movie stars are much rarer.
- As a movie star, he's impossible to take your eyes off of.
Completely magnetic, I think attractive to men and women
because he has a salt of the earth energy.
He doesn't put on airs and graces.
He feels like he has the hands of a mechanic,
he has the face of somebody who has lived.
- After "The Great Escape",
it took his movie star capabilities to another level.
So for him it was very important to make a film
that he was passionate about.
- So we move into Warner Bros, we have a six-picture deal.
When we had our moving in party
with all the William Morris people there,
trying to make a joke I said,
"We're going to make a picture about racing.
That'll be the end of this company and our relationship!"
And we all had a big laugh.
Turned out not to be that funny.
- What McQueen and Sturges wanted to do
was to exploit highly charged writing,
intelligent writing about sport.
It hadn't really happened before
and a lot of it came consciously or subconsciously
from the style of writing that one had seen
with Hemingway's "Death in the Afternoon".
It was dramatizing death.
It was acknowledging that it was a central part
of what was going on.
- Well, it was Hemingway's great statement about
there are only three sports; bullfighting,
mountaineering and motor racing.
All the others are just games.
- [Narrator] So motor racing was maybe the next logical step
and in 1963 a book by American photojournalist Robert Daley,
shed new light onto Grand Prix racing,
exposing the sometimes,
uncomfortable truth about the less glamorous
and often deadly nature of the sport.
- "The Cruel Sport" came out with a lot of fanfare
and being a nerd of motor racing,
I was very nervous about "The Cruel Sport",
but we all had to be because we knew
it was gonna have things in there that you aren't supposed
to be talking about or showing.
- [Nigel] Well, the more I read the book,
the more I realized how different it was from most writing
about the sport at that time.
It was unflinching.
- The sport at that time was poorly managed
and in those days, the drivers were sitting in a fuel tank.
It was all wrapping around you.
And when you had an impact,
they usually caught fire in a big way
and they never got it out.
They never got it out.
So it was a colorful, glamorous and exciting window,
but a terrible window of death.
- Daley was facing the fact that motor racing was
so dangerous in those days.
OK he was making that the theme of his books;
maybe he was glorifying it.
But he was writing about it intelligently and openly.
- Helen and I counted 57 people
who died who were our friends.
We traveled with them, we holidayed with them,
we raced with them, we dined with them,
it was just one big happy family.
- "The Cruel Sport" highlighted the number of accidents
and the number of deaths and various serious injuries
that were taking place in motor sport to the shock,
I think, of the people involved in motor sport.
But the Americans got hold of that in a way
that you could touch and feel and you could smell the blood.
And I think this was the role of "The Cruel Sport",
it opened the doors to a Steve McQueen
to be able to go to a Warner Bros and say;
"This is Formula 1,
and this is what I want to make a movie about."
(dramatic music)
- [Craig] "John secured the rights to 'The Cruel Sport'
and we started developing a script.
In Sturges' mind, there was only one actor
who had the skills to play the lead
in a realistic film about car racing."
- [Narrator] The ingredients were all there.
Dangerous and dramatic source material
would give the film legitimacy.
The glamor and excitement of the swinging '60s
would provide the perfect backdrop.
Surely this would be a guaranteed Hollywood hit?
It was to be called, "Day of The Champion".
- Somehow or other there was a magic about the '60s.
Carnaby Street was there, sex was safe,
motor racing was dangerous, it was glamorous,
it was colorful, it was exciting,
and everybody would come to Monaco every year.
It was a special time because Princess Grace was
like a magnet to Hollywood
so all the big stars would come as well.
It's just a different culture altogether
and I just feel so fortunate
that I was living in that window.
- [Richard] Well, Steve always had this concept
that he wanted his racing movie
that he would eventually make to be authentic.
It had to be a film that his racing buddies
would appreciate.
- So, the script of "Day of the Champion"
certainly has more of a traditional narrative to it.
There is a romance
with a posh British girl called Kyla Bonham.
(laughs)
I think she crashes her Jaguar in a field.
And that's how the romance starts.
But even when you look at the script now,
it's certainly more about the racing than it is
about the characters.
- [Narrator] The mark of the film was
to be absolute authenticity.
No compromise when it came to accuracy
and attention to detail.
Stirling Moss, who had retired from full-time racing
after his crash at Goodwood in 1962,
was hired by McQueen and Sturges as a technical consultant
for the "Day of the Champion" team.
- You know, there was a time when Grand Prix drivers
were household names in America.
In the days of when there were two races,
one at Long Beach at the start
of the year and one at Watkins Glen at the end of the year.
Used to have huge crowds at those races
and knowledgeable crowds who really knew who Jim Clark was
and what he had done.
And Stirling Moss, periodically,
raced in America in the late '50s
on so he was the kind of pioneer if you like,
in that respect.
And that was where the drivers began to know,
the James Garner's and so on,
who were American US film stars who liked racing.
- Stirling Moss was way ahead of his time
as an ambassador of the sport
and as an ambassador of his own brand.
He had a great name.
He always said, "If I'd have been christened Hamish,
I wouldn't be as well-known as I was."
But he worked really hard I mean he'd win a race
and that night he would always make a point
of going out into the town and meeting people
and going to the movies, wherever he was.
And then he'd go to Hong Kong and order a new suit.
But it was all in the newspapers.
The press loved him.
Stirling was a big,
big name and it was interesting that Stirling was involved
with "The Day of the Champion"
because he was a team owner by the time
that happened and one of his drivers was Sir John Whitmore.
And Whitmore would have said to Steve McQueen;
"You've got to get Stirling Moss involved,
I know Stirling very well, I drive for him."
And that's how that would've all come together.
- [Craig] There was a benefit dinner in Hollywood the Night
before our film was to be announced to the trade newspapers
and by chance John Sturges was seated next
to fellow director,
John Frankenheimer who had just directed "The Train"
with Burt Lancaster
and "The Manchurian Candidate" prior to that.
Frankenheimer was a long-time admirer of Sturges
and he gushed to his idol about this film he was preparing.
"It's about car racing!"
Frankenheimer claimed.
Sturges just kept picking at his meal.
"Car racing, really?"
"We're calling it, 'Grand Prix,'" Frankenheimer added.
"I'm basing it on this fantastic booked
I've discovered called 'The Cruel Sport'."
Sturges just kept picking at his food.
As it turned out, while Sturges was making a deal
for the book with the author's agent,
Frankenheimer was making the same deal with
the author himself, Robert Daley.
Apparently, Daley
and his agent didn't communicate very well, or very often.
So, the day after that dinner,
both movies based on the same book were announced
to the trade papers, and the real race was on.
Both sides were determined to do whatever
and spend whatever it took to win.
- Frankenheimer was really from a generation of directors
that had cut their teeth on literally hundreds
of television dramas.
He had a string of really popular films
that borrowed from the realism
and the low budget black and white of television,
with some more highbrow influences
and progressive politics often were involved.
So Frankenheimer belonged more to the late '60s than
the early '60s in terms of his subject matter.
- It seemed to me at the time
that we could do two kinds of movies.
We could either do "Test Pilot" ?
Which is one driver with his mechanic going
through the whole thing and finally getting up to Formula 1.
Or we could do "Grand Hotel",
which is to take a group of people
and put them in one situation and see what happens.
Which is basically what "Grand Hotel" was.
So we chose to do "Grand Hotel".
- Steve was originally slated to do that movie
but he couldn't get along with Frankenheimer
and so that lasted about 30 minutes and Steve was out
and I was in.
- Well, it's never really been totally clear
to me what happened.
He had this disastrous meeting
with my partner, Edward Lewis.
It's a meeting that I should've been at
and for professional reasons I was doing something else,
so I said to my partner; "You take the meeting with Steve."
Well, it just was a disaster and what happened
was Steve walked out of the movie
and we were without Steve McQueen.
I still think if we'd had Steve McQueen in that movie,
it would have been bigger than "Jaws".
- [Interviewer] Really?
I mean, yeah.
I mean that's my contention.
- He was definitely number one choice for "Grand Prix".
I think in hindsight, MGM got off lightly there
because Steve would not have been an actor
that would have just executed a script as they wanted.
He was so passionate about racing that he would have wanted
to have brought his own ideas to that movie.
What they got with James Garner would have been an actor
who was a lot easier to handle let's say,
in terms of executing a proper movie script,
as opposed to wanting to create the definitive racing movie.
- So, when I got the part in "Grand Prix",
I called him and I said, "Steve I want to tell you
before you hear it from somebody else,
that I'm gonna do 'Grand Prix'."
Well, there was about a twenty-dollar silence
there on the telephone!
(laughs)
He didn't know what to say and finally he said,
"Oh that's great, great, I'm glad to hear it."
He didn't talk to me for about a year
and a half and we were next-door neighbors!
(laughs)
- One of the things that really disappointed McQueen
was Garner didn't have the love for cars that he had.
It wasn't a personal obsession with cars or racing
to Garner, it was another job.
- So when you look at the script,
it does seem like McQueen wanted to show off
a little bit some of his racing skills with Formula 1 cars,
Formula 2 cars, sports cars, a Mini-Cooper,
which could be a little nod back to his years racing
with John Whitmore in a Mini.
It's definitely all about McQueen's prowess
behind the wheel.
- With the arguments and egos seemingly smoothed
and top billing for each movie established,
Warner Bros released this memo proudly declaring
that "Day of the Champion" was up
and running with an all-star crew and technical line up.
- [Announcer] "From Warner Bros Studios, Burbank,
California, Jack L. Warner announced today
that photography on a multi-million-dollar picture
"Day of the Champion" will commence in Europe this summer.
Filming will include the "Grand Prix" of Germany
at the famed Nurburgring Circuit on August 1st.
John Sturges will produce
and direct and Steve McQueen will star in the Technicolor
and Panavision production which is being financed
and distributed worldwide by Warner Bros.
Stirling Moss, one of the legendary figures
in the world of motor racing,
is serving as production consultant and Sir John Whitmore,
noted English sports car racer,
is acting as technical advisor.
Sturges and cinematographer John Wilcox
will utilize four Panavision cameras to capture
the exciting action.
- [Geoff] I'd been working with
the Director of Photography John Wilcox
for a number of years as his First Assistant Cameraman.
John Sturges was a great name and it sounds a great film
and Steve McQueen and motor racing.
Yes, why not?
- [Simon] We all expected that a motor racing film directed
by Sturges and starring Steve McQueen was going
to be wonderful.
We didn't really have very much view about Frankenheimer
and "Grand Prix" and James Garner.
- The McQueen movie looked like the serious one,
if you like.
- [Narrator] So the warring films were literally off
to the races as both Warner
and MGM sent recce crews to the 1965 Monaco Grand Prix.
The first race in that year's Formula 1 World Championship.
(racing car revving)
- So '65 Monaco was an interesting race altogether
because well for a number of reasons.
One, Jim Clark wasn't there
'cause he was away winning the Indy 500.
Two, Graham Hill won the race having spun early on,
climbed out of his car,
got back into his car and then continued
and went on to win the race.
And three, you had the crews from MGM
and Warner Bros there in Monaco in this tiny principality,
both receiving for the movies they we're gonna make.
And you can only imagine what that would have been like,
in terms of a vying for position,
there aren't many great positions at Monaco
because the marshals had to be standing somewhere
and there isn't a lot of space anyway.
There definitely would have been some serious discussions
between the two groups.
You can imagine, I guess,
the impact it would have made to have had Jim Clark winning
the Indy 500 the same weekend and for the movie crews
at Monaco this was like "Wow!
What a world this is."
(upbeat trumpet music)
(racing car revving)
♪ I said can't explain it ♪
♪ Yeah, down in my soul ♪
♪ I feel hot and cold ♪
♪ I said can't explain it ♪
(congregation applauds)
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] As well as the thrill of being in Monaco
and hanging around with his new racing driver chums,
McQueen, along with Sturges,
Bob Relyea and their racing consultant Stirling Moss,
had used the trip to pay a visit
to an unassuming garage in Woking, Surrey.
The Alan Mann Racing Company not
only modified and raced Ford road cars
in the British Touring Car Championship
but they had also developed a handy sideline
in adapting cars for the Silver Screen.
Bond's DB5 Aston Martin and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" being
the most iconic.
So, it was no surprise when they were instructed
to acquire and develop cars to use in "Day of the Champion".
- My father's background in motor racing
was really it was all tied up with Ford
from the very beginning.
He met Steve McQueen through John Whitmore who I think
was a friend of Steve's early on in the '60s
and they'd shared Mini driving together
and been motorcycle racing in California
and all part of that group of friends I think
that they met each other
and Steve was obviously a big fan of racing
and so they had a bit in common.
He was asked to prepare the cars for the film
and manage the racing scenes of he film and also build one
of the camera cars, which was a modified Lola T70.
The cars had been prepared to a certain extent
and they came to review some of the pictures
that they needed to shoot and the angles
and how they were practically going to make the film.
And presumably make some requests about engineering
on the cars to allow them to do so.
My dad said McQueen was quite absorbed
by all the racing detail and the car preparation,
and all the mechanics of the operation
and yeah was very friendly
with all the team members and everything.
But he also was obviously quite a colorful character
and after hours was quite good company.
But I think he was kicked out of The Dorchester Hotel
when he decided in his suite to cook up some chili
or beans or something and fell asleep,
naked on the bed and it dried out and caught fire.
Ran down the corridor to try and find a fire extinguisher
and the next morning at breakfast,
he saw all his bags in the lobby area,
all having been packed up
and asked Sturges where they were going that day
and he said, "Well we're not going anywhere,
I think that's just a polite way of kicking you out."
(suspenseful music)
♪ It's so too beautiful ♪
- [Narrator] The claims of the Warner Bros memo were,
so far, proving true.
McQueen and "Day of the Champion" seemed
to be several steps ahead of Frankenheimer
and MGM in the battle to the silver screen
and had everything in place to capture
the 1965 German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring
in true technicolor glory.
What they captured that day has never been publicly seen.
(helicopter engine revving)
(congregations applauds)
(slow dramatic music)
(racing car revving)
- [Peter] I mean the thing about
this is we never saw any footage.
We saw a little bit of black
and white Movietone News perhaps.
It was in color.
It actually happened in color!
(racing car revving)
- It's amazing, very relaxed.
Great footage though.
(dramatic music)
(racing car revving)
- [Windsor] And there's Stirl in the camera car.
- [Samuelson] You had a 400-foot roll of film,
so you had about our minutes in each go
and then you had to reload because this
was obviously decades before there was digital,
so we were on 35 millimeter Eastman Color.
Samuelson Film Service was run by four brothers,
three of whom were my uncles,
and one was my dad and David was the technical partner
and he was responsible for all manner
of extraordinary bits of brand new,
never-been-thought-of-before technology
and a number of his things are still used.
He built some of it for "Day of the Champion".
(upbeat music)
(racing car revving)
- There is a racing car flat out
and all you can see around it is green.
Nothing else.
- The Carousel.
I mean it was a wonderful racetrack,
it was a terrific racetrack, but crazy.
You know, 14.7 miles, 187 corners per lap.
- You know, it was a great race in so many ways.
This is the race
in which Jim Clark clinched the '65 World Championship.
It's just amazing footage to have seen it
after all this time.
There's Jimmy after the race and the mechanics running,
that's real film.
It's just amazing.
And what a trio on the podium.
Jim Clark in the middle, Dan Guerney, Graham Hill,
doesn't get much better than that in terms of
the drivers you had to beat.
And then for Jim Clark at that moment he's driving off
in the Merc and he's just won his second World Championship,
in the same year he's won the Indy 500.
No driver will ever do that.
- One of the guy's around us I knew, and he was a driver,
he used to drive camera cars and he said,
"Well, I brought some American guys up."
"Oh, yeah?
Where are they?"
"In the Ferrari pit."
I said, "Oh that's interesting."
So, I said to John Sturges,
"You've got some Americans in the Ferrari pit.
It probably might be the director."
And I remember Sturges being very, very upset about it.
There was obviously a bit of animosity going on
between the two.
- [Samuelson] We very explicitly used Panavision,
not just any old Panavision,
but we shot it in a 2.35 ratio meaning the screen,
the shape of the frame is 2.35 times as wide as it is tall.
It's called Panavision Anamorphic
and that gives you the shape you want
for a motor racing film
because you are certainly wider than
a regular 1.85 television kind of shape of frame.
- It's interesting to remember
that they then stayed at the Nurburgring
and filmed the week after that race,
ostensibly to test the camera mounts they were gonna put
on the cars and that's where Alan Mann came
in as obviously camera mounts were gonna be
part of his brief.
And this has to be seen against the '62 accident
at the Nurburgring.
In practice, Graham Hill had a camera on the BRM
and it came off and he had a big shunt, very big shunt.
Very lucky to get away with his life in that accident.
So here we are,
long before on board cameras even became a phrase,
we have Warner Bros with Alan Mann,
with John Whitmore and Stirling Moss hiring the Nurburgring,
the 14-mile circuit.
Some of the footage we see is an indication of
how good that was and how good it would have been.
- [Robert] When you start to deal with cameras
on cars at very high speed,
you have a number of built-in problems.
If the track is wet,
there is water flying around the lenses.
There has to be design the cameras so they become
as aerodynamic as the car is
to avoid getting water all over them.
It requires mounts that do not disturb the aerodynamics
of the car too much and can be balanced in
some other way so the car can
still handle at competitive speeds.
This requires some trial and error,
it requires the drivers to take the cars out and see
when camera's in certain position,
how the car stills handles so they can adjust accordingly.
It requires the cars that are around them to sense
what problems that driver has
and about 10 or 12 of our drivers
have been in this same situation,
including Steve, to deal with a car
that has a new set up aerodynamically because of camera
or cameras placed on it.
- [Samuelson] So we had to build mounts that were able
to cope with that, not fall off.
So not only did the mount have to not fall off,
but the consequences of it falling off would have been dire
for whoever was in the car behind and got a 40-pound piece
of filming equipment into their head.
That wouldn't have been good.
So it was all done very very carefully.
- [John] You have to have the skill
to create something people think is real.
Now we were in a good area to do that.
Steve is a race driver and he looks like a race driver
and he understands race drivers, he knows them all.
He can drive a car.
We had the real cars, we had the real circuit.
So that part was alright.
- [Geoff] MGM claimed they had the shooting rights
with all the "Grand Prix" circuits.
The Nurburgring was under question
because Warner Bros claim they had it
and there was going to be a court case
and they'd be looking for evidence to sue each other.
I was also told that there
was a 16 millimeter crew filming us filming.
We never saw anybody, it may have been true,
it may not have been true, but we also slipped into
some film cans with the dummy labels and put sand
in them.
If somebody's going to steal our rushes,
they might steal the wrong rushes
and they'd find they'd got a can full of sand.
- Stirling always remembered that day
and made the point of saying
that when he drove at the Nurburgring,
doing some filming for "Day of the Champion",
he just said, "That day boy I just felt like I had
when I won there in '61."
(car racing revving)
- [Narrator] "Day of the Champion" was off
to a flying start.
This truly breathtaking footage
was just what McQueen and Sturges had hoped for
and put them substantially ahead
of Frankenheimer and MGM.
Warner Bros even cheekily released
this poster to further rub salt into the wounds,
knowing full well that Frankenheimer
and Garner would not be up
and running with principal photography
for another nine months at the start of the '66 F1 season.
- And I think it's also interesting to think about
why Jim Clark and Jackie Stewart originally signed
with Steve McQueen and not with Frankenheimer
and "Grand Prix".
In my opinion it's because it was Steve McQueen driving
this movie and he was a racer,
as well as he was an actor and a star.
Whereas "Grand Prix" was driven by a movie director
like Frankenheimer, and in the minds of Jimmy and Jackie,
probably more Jimmy than Jackie,
"Grand Prix" was going to be all about crashes
and spectacular this and lots of things
that weren't true to life.
Whereas Steve McQueen, with this closely knit group,
could produce a film that was gonna be more
about racing drivers and who racing drivers are
and the craft that they create.
- I think Jimmy and I thought
that everybody was going with Frankenheimer,
why don't we go with McQueen?
And Steve McQueen,
in those days was bigger than Frankenheimer.
- Well, who wants to get married?
- And I think that was one of the things.
And he was making great movies.
- [Man] Steve McQueen works by instinct, reflex,
unconsciously concealed know-how.
Above all is his reverence to authenticity.
- And Jimmy and I didn't talk an awful lot about it.
We just decided it was a good idea.
Everybody else was going to "Grand Prix"
and we decided to go with Steve.
- [Narrator] In a memo from September 1965 John Sturges,
states that principal filming with McQueen
will start the following spring
after he has finished directing "Ice Station Zebra",
ironically for MGM, and McQueen has completed his next film,
"The Sand Pebbles".
- He took on "The Sand Pebbles" knowing
that the book had been a hit.
The book was about the Chinese Civil War in the 1920s.
- [Richard] He of course respected Robert Wise greatly,
who'd directed "West Side Story",
"The Sound of Music",
so I think he saw a lot of potential in that movie.
- [Narrator] Back in Europe, John Frankenheimer,
realizing he would have a big task on his hands
to get his racing epic released ahead of Warner's,
had stayed with the traveling F1 circus throughout 1965.
Embedding himself in the lifestyle
and the culture of "The Cruel Sport".
- In the meantime,
I had been going to all the races and they all knew me
as somebody who was going to make a movie.
And they knew nothing about movies,
I mean they knew nothing about the movies I'd ever made,
I don't think they'd ever seen most of them.
Those cameras, turn them on as soon as you get up
to speed here.
But they did know that I was really very very interested
in cars and they did know that I raced on an amateur basis,
so at least I knew something about what they did.
Come on!
Get somebody to push here!
Push!
And I became friendly with some of them,
like Graham Hill and Phil Hill and Richie Ginther.
Everyone was very,
very sceptical of another film being made about racing.
In fact to the point where Ferrari said
they didn't want anything to do with it.
He just said "You go make your movie,
it has nothing to do with what we do
and you can't use the word Ferrari in this picture
or have any of my cars or anything like that."
- [Announcer] They get you like-
- Oh my God get out!
Oh Jesus look, give his guy hell this driver.
He's coming out.
Get out of here!
Come on get out!
So, we were lucky enough, not lucky enough,
if you'll forgive me, smart enough to go to Carrol Shelby
who had great credentials.
And Carrol Shelby kind of embraced us
and he kind of opened up a lot of doors,
including arranging to have the replicas
of all the cars made.
And he took charge of that.
And through Carrol Shelby,
I got to Dan Gurney who was a great friend
of Shelby's and also to Phil Hill.
Yeah, but this doesn't work.
And I signed these guys up.
And I actually I paid them money,
which also helped,
convince them that maybe
this was a good idea!
And for 2 years exclusivity to movies, to me.
(congregation chatting)
Cut!
Get everybody in here again.
- For John Frankenheimer,
Phil Hill was manor from heaven because he still was very,
very quick but he was kind of available,
and he was American, and he was intelligent,
and he loved photography.
This was the perfect man to drive that side
of things for "Grand Prix".
- [Alan] I've just seen the most terrible skid there.
What happened to Yves Montand?
- Well, that's what he was supposed to do!
- [Alan] He wasn't supposed to go all over the pavement?
- Oh yeah!
Up all over the kerb and swing around backwards!
Wasn't that a beautiful job though?
He's like a stunt driver!
- Are you serious? - Ha!
No. (laughs)
- Well, he was a wonderful guy.
He was a great driver, but also the most delightful guy,
the most delightful bloke.
Very, very dry sense of humor,
one of the funniest people I've ever met.
And also, probably as intelligent as anybody
who ever drove a racing car.
He must have been enormously helpful to Frankenheimer.
Just because he was such a bright man.
Daley had written extensively, of course,
about Phil Hill because he
was America's first World Champion.
- [Narrator] With Frankenheimer buying friends up
and down the grid, he was now starting
to close the gap to "Day of the Champion".
Garner and the other stars were learning
what Grand Prix racing was all about,
but McQueen was still in Taiwan and "The Sand Pebbles"
was starting to spiral out of control.
(upbeat music)
- The plan was to go and shoot "The Sand Pebbles"
and ideally they'd be back to shoot "Day of the Champion"
in '66 at the end of "The Sand Pebbles".
- The shoot in some ways is as memorable
as the film because it was supposed to be a nine-week shoot
and it ended up taking something like seven months.
- [Richard] The conditions over there
in Taiwan were horrendous.
Everyone got ill, Steve included.
(upbeat music)
- [Craig] We knew that the first team
to get their picture shot,
edited, scored and into theaters before the other guy
would be the winner.
Neither side wanted
to be the second racing picture out that year.
(racing car revving)
- [Narrator] Sturges and his crew could still continue
to capture stunning race footage
while they waited for McQueen to return from the Far East.
They regrouped and in late April '66 headed to Oulton Park
in Cheshire to shoot a round of the British GT Championship,
which would double for a sports car race described
in the loose "Day of the Champion" script.
- There was The Steering Wheel Club
in the south of Park Lane
where all the motor racing enthusiasts used to go.
And Stirling had started
The Stirling Moss Automobile Racing Team
and so I drove his Elan which was his car
and then I entered my own cars under his name.
(racing car revving)
There was agreement that this car should be repainted
in the colors that Steve McQueen planned to have
in his film, so it was repainted to a green
and I drove the car in this race and was filmed.
Well, we had the name "PEARCE" on the car
because that was the name that Steve McQueen
was being given in the film.
- Of course, what you have to remember is that in the '50s
and '60s, a top driver wouldn't just drive Formula 1
as happens today, they would drive sports cars,
he would do the Le Mans 24 hours,
he would probably race in touring cars as well
and that's why it was completely appropriate
that McQueen's character in the film drives single-seaters,
but also drives sports cars.
That's how it was in those days.
- Bloody hell was I in the front row?
Six, well, I just fucked up the start.
(racing car revving)
Part of the deal was that I should wear a helmet
which was approved by Steve McQueen
and then the production team sent me the photograph
with the words which said;
"If this is what Dunlop overalls achieve,
then I think we'll go with Firestone."
So, I was in fact Steve McQueen's double.
- [Narrator] The pieces of the puzzle were falling
into place for "Day of the Champion".
But with the start of the 1966 Formula 1 season
in Monaco just a month away they needed their Hollywood icon
back from Taiwan and ready to race.
Frankenheimer and MGM were about to descend
on the principality to get their movie underway with a bang!
(racing car bangs)
(trumpet music)
Late May 1966.
Steve McQueen is in Taiwan,
behind schedule on "The Sand Pebbles"
and desperate to get back
to Europe to star in his dream Formula 1 movie project
"Day of the Champion".
In Monaco, MGM and John Frankenheimer are underway
with their rival picture, "Grand Prix".
Nine months behind "Day of the Champion"
but now shooting real race scenes, with real actors,
in real race cars.
(racing cars revving)
- [Announcer] These are the Cinerama cameras
of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
about to attempt one of the most challenging feats
in motion picture history with these exciting,
international stars from America,
James Garner; the celebrated French star,
Yves Montand; Italy's sensational young talent,
Antonio Sabato; and England's Brian Bedford.
For Frankenheimer, for any film maker,
this is a monumental challenge.
Less than an hour before the actual race,
he is staging his own start.
- [Frankenheimer] Well, what we hope to be able to do is
to show them what a real race
is really like from the driver's viewpoint
- [Announcer] The crowds are real, so is the excitement.
And for Frankenheimer, the suspense is very real.
This is not a studio; these are not stuntmen.
In just seconds,
Phil Hill in the camera car will lead Garner,
Montand and the others around the Monaco circuit
at actual speeds of over 125 miles an hour.
(racing car engine revs)
- [Frankenheimer] In Monte Carlo,
they began to see we knew what we were doing.
We were very well organized,
we went out there and we were doing real stuff.
And that began to get their attention.
(racing cars engines revs)
(crowd chatting)
- [Windsor] 1966 Monaco, I mean you can't
even get your head around it
in terms of today's standards of operation.
Princess Grace was just the beginning of it.
She was there obviously.
It was Jackie Stewart's second Grand Prix win but
while all this was going on,
Frankenheimer in his mind
was creating another Monaco Grand Prix,
which was the "Grand Prix", "Grand Prix".
And to think about that happening today
and to have the camera cars there in the way they did,
and the changing liveries of the cars
and of the driver's helmet.
- You know, one of the few people who wasn't involved
in either movie was John Surtees.
He got absolutely fed up to the teeth with it,
he had it up to here.
"Bloody film people I wish they'd push off!"
But of course typical John,
he just said, "But well, you know, there's always a way
around these things and the Hollywood people stuff
their mouths with money and stop them talking."
- It didn't worry me at all.
It didn't, Francoise Hardy occasionally would upset me.
She was a very pretty looking girl walking down the pits.
It really didn't matter.
I can't say at any time was it an intrusion
into my preparation for a race or in the race at all.
It didn't bother me at all.
- But, generally, the chaos would have been incredible
and whilst Jackie was accepting
the trophy from Princess Grace,
just a little bit further down the road,
there was Sarti, Yves Montand,
accepting the trophy for the "Grand Prix" Grand Prix.
- [Alan] Their own winner will need a victor's cup
but they plan to use the excitement at the end of
the race to slip a cuckoo into the nest to film the man
who won the celluloid race,
wearing an open wreath and looking modest, as well he might.
The actual winner today is Jackie Stewart.
As his car comes home,
Yves Montand, face glistening with instant sweat,
prepares for his moment of hollow victory.
- I was not aware of it, I was perfectly naive.
(laughs)
And you know, when you win a Grand Prix,
in Monaco in those days,
the Grand Prix was 100 laps.
Something like 8,600 gear changes, all by hand,
and you were fairly tired when it was finished.
(crowd applauds)
- When you're in a car, particularly a Formula car,
but any car, you cannot think of anything else.
I mean if you don't think of going
from one point to another,
from your braking point to your gearing down
to make your turn into a corner, if you stray from that,
and you worry about where that camera
is or anything like that, then you're off the course.
So, we strictly do not worry about it,
we'll do our acting in the pits.
- [Narrator] Another member of the
"Day of the Champion" team was also in Monaco that weekend.
Stirling Moss was keeping a close eye
on Frankenheimer's team and sent a telegram back
to the Alan Mann garage after seeing how the cars
on "Grand Prix" were slowing down the filming.
- [Announcer] "Dear Alan, Having just returned
from Monte Carlo and seeing how the other lot are operating,
I feel we need to make some adjustments
to our cars so we don't have to stop and start
with such regularity.
Please can you start to adjust the compression rates,
dampers and engine idle before we get to Germany.
Kind regards, Stirling Moss."
- [Narrator] Panic was also setting
in amongst the Warners' management.
Panic about McQueen's physical condition
but also about the unrealistic schedule
of 'Day of the Champion',
given their A-list star was still in Taiwan,
where 'The Sand Pebbles' was seriously over-running.
By June 1966,
John Sturges was already in London to work on pre-production
for the remaining 'Day of the Champion' shoots,
when he received an extraordinary telegram.
- [Announcer] "Dear John, It is needless to tell you
that I am very worried because of the possibility
of "Grand Prix" coming out in Cinerama
or any other format ahead of our picture.
I would not put it by these boys to release their picture
on 35 millimeter at the same time
that it's released in Cinerama.
Isn't there some way you can start your pre-production
sooner and also have McQueen get over to England sooner,
or something of this order?
I would hate like hell to be given the bird and huge laugh
by all concerned with GRAND PRIX.
I don't want to say I would not have gone into this
if I had known of the unfortunate delay that has been caused
by "The Sand Pebbles".
What about phoning Bob Wise to see
if he can release McQueen earlier?
Again, in closing, see if you can't beat GRAND PRIX
after you leave the starting gate.
Jack Warner."
(chuckles)
(racing bangs)
- (chuckles) just blown out.
- That's your job.
No wait a minute, that's your job to make it really look
like, where's Beady Eyes?
- [Narrator] With production moving at a frantic pace
for "Grand Prix" in Monaco,
an unscripted halt is brought to proceedings
when local shop keepers protest
about street closures harming their trade.
Tempers flare, proving that even Hollywood's
most consummate leading men can still lose their cool.
- I am freezing my ass off,
now get your butt out of here or I'm gonna throw you
in the fucking water!
Just get out or I'm gonna bust you,
I'm gonna put in there
and I'm gonna hold you under now get out!
What is your problem?
I am freezing to death out here for a half hour
while you talk!
If you want to talk, I'll talk to you later.
How much money do you want?
- I speak English, Mr Garner.
- Well then you get the hell out of that shot
or I'm gonna put you out!
- [French Male] Yes sir.
- [James] I tell you!
You better count to 60 and get your ass out of here!
(racing car bangs)
- After Monte Carlo was over,
I put together a quick 30 minutes of stuff I shot
at Monte Carlo,
called Ferrari and asked him if he would look at it.
He said 'well I don't have any projection equipment,
I don't have anything like that.
I said, "Just tell me you'll look at it."
So he said "Yes I will."
So I shut the movie down, chartered a plane,
brought the film, a projectionist,
projectors and everything else to Maranello,
to his office, set it up and ran him the 30 minutes.
When it was over the lights came up,
he embraced me, he said, "You can have anything."
And he said, "I don't even want to talk to you about money
because I don't want any money from you,
because when Ferrari gives you something,
he gives it to you."
So he never charged us a penny.
He gave us the Ferrari team, he gave us the factory,
he gave us everything!
Well, of course, once we got that kind of acceptance
from Ferrari, I mean that was that.
- "We were less than a week away
from filming principal photography in Germany
in July of 1966 and Steve McQueen
was still busy filming "The Sand Pebbles".
At midnight one evening,
Jack Warner called my office at Pinewood Studios.
"How are ya, Bob?"
"Well, I'm cramming to get everything in order
before I leave for Germany, how are you, Jack?"
"I'm great, great thanks.
Right Bob, listen, about that racing picture:
close it down."
"Excuse me?"
"Listen," Bob said, "Bob Wise won't release McQueen."
That means "Grand Prix" will be first to the theaters,
and am not gonna to be second so shut it down."
"But, we've already got loads of footage,
I've got an entire crew in Germany ready to go,
you've already committed a ton of money.
Bob, listen to me.
Send everybody home and shut it down now, it's over."
- McQueen went mad on the set of "The Sand Pebbles".
Sturges tried to get him to leave as soon as possible,
but Robert Wise wouldn't let McQueen go.
He needed him.
His wife said to him at the time
"You can't get that angry because you turned down
this role," but that didn't really stop him.
He was determined to make the definitive film
about Formula 1, about motor racing and yeah,
he'd been beaten to the punch.
- I think the trucks were
in Dover already about to depart for the Rheims Grand Prix
when a telegram came in from Warner Bros
to say stop all transport and the whole thing's canceled
and go back to base.
- [Craig] The next morning,
I called Sturges to give him the news.
He was completely void of any emotion.
"Well that's that", he said.
I said, "Sorry John, we would've made a great film,
I'm sure of it.
Well, I think I'll take a few weeks vacation," John mused.
"Maybe I'll go to Europe."
- Before departing for the continent, Sturges,
ever the gentleman,
sent a telegram to Alan Mann conveying his deep regret
over the collapse of "Day of the Champion."
- [Announcer] "Dear Alan, As all of us are depressed
and unhappy over the collapse of the project.
I think we would have achieved some marvellous results
and it's a shame to miss the fun
and excitement we'd have had getting them.
You must know I'm very grateful for the enthusiasm
and efficient help you gave us
and I'm truly sorry for any disruption
there has been to your plans.
I look forward to when we meet again and once more,
my thanks for Le Mans.
With all the best, John."
- He had quite a good relationship with Sturges
and they were obviously both disappointed
that it didn't come to any fruition but they obviously had
some mutual respect for each other.
- I had a letter from Brookwood Productions,
Pinewood Studios, 'Regret,
here's a cheque for two weeks money.
Steve McQueen is ill and he cannot make this shoot.
- [Narrator] With Frankenheimer seemingly victorious,
his Cinerama circus moved
onto other locations around Europe.
Filming in Clermont Ferrand, Spa-Francorchamps,
Brands Hatch and Monza.
Not content with the drivers he had already signed
to exclusive deals,
he also wanted the two remaining big F1 stars
who had signed to Warner.
- My understanding is that the insurance company,
that was what we were told,
that the insurance company wouldn't allow Steve
to do a full-blown motor racing series
that we was directly involved in.
So, when that fell through,
Frankenheimer already had the program going and in fact,
I don't know how long after we were told
that the movie wasn't going to happen,
Frankenheimer offered me another amount
of money to do some stuff with him
because one of the featured drivers in his movie
was wearing my helmet colors.
And so I got paid twice really!
And so did Jimmy.
(laughs)
- We got these guys to drive for us at $200 dollars a day.
So you put it in today's dollars that's $2000 dollars a day.
The picture in 1966 all-in
with accelerated post-production cost about nine
and a half million.
- Put that in the context of today's Formula 1 and imagine
what it would be like having a Hollywood crew
in the pit lane at a proper Formula 1 race,
it would never happen in a million years.
But Frankenheimer was able to do that and to his credit,
and I think to the credit of the actors involved,
it all worked.
Probably it was the Francoise Hardy accept of it all!
The drivers found her very friendly to the eye,
I think, but no in general I think they did a very good job
of understanding what it was all about
and they became part of the fabric
of Formula 1 throughout that '66 season.
- "Making a picture is a strange thing
because everybody hates you when you are making it.
It's when the picture comes out that they say, "Oh boy,
you know, it's really pretty good."
Or visa versa, everybody loves you when you are making it
and the picture comes out and you never work again you know.
It can work that way too!"
(racing car revving)
- [Narrator] August 1966 and Steve McQueen
is finally back in California after wrapping
on "The Sand Pebbles".
Six months behind schedule
and his dream Formula 1 movie project in tatters.
- Steve was exhausted after "The Sand Pebbles",
probably he did his best acting of his career possibly
with the exception of "Papillon" and he'd put so much
of himself and his energy into "The Sand Pebbles"
that he needed a rest.
There was no way he could go
and make "Day of the Champion" after that.
He and Bob Relyea, his great producer friend,
they felt they'd got their butts kicked
when "Day of the Champion" didn't get made.
- But by early '67, McQueen was back riding
the crest of a wave.
"The Sand Pebbles" was a critical and box office hit.
- The only thing that McQueen seemed
to really focus on when he got back
to America was the Oscars campaign for "The Sand Pebbles".
He was determined that he deserved a Best Actor nominee
and he did in fact get it.
A little bit of brokenness, I think, comes to that role,
aided and abetted by the fact
that he actually quite ill through a lot of the filming
so he does actually look kind of dissipated or off-kilter
in some of the scenes and that was a way to throw himself
into something which,
was not colored by the disappointment
of not being able to make this passion project.
- McQueen must have been gutted
to think that he got his first Oscar nomination
for a film that actually stopped him making the film he had
always dreamt of making.
- [Richard] "Sand Pebbles" and "Grand Prix" were released
the same week in December '66.
- [Christina] "Grand Prix" was a huge success.
It was up against "The Sand Pebbles" at the Oscars
in several categories and it won three Oscars
so that really added probably insult to injury,
in some ways, for McQueen.
- At that time, there was,
you could get little hand grenade-looking things made
of compressed paper with a small French banger inside.
James Garner's and Steve McQueen's houses were adjacent
to each other in Hollywood
and Steve's was a little uphill from Garner's and so he used
to throw his grenades down into the yard
of Garner's house and illicit a big police reaction
and everything and wait for all that
to dissipate and lob another one over
and generally wind him up.
- Finally his son, Chad,
made him go and take him to see "Grand Prix"
and from that time on we were talking again.
But Steve was a wild kid, he was a wild kid.
He didn't know where he wanted to be
or what he wanted to do.
- Tell him exactly where Garner's going to pass him.
Jimmy Garner!
Where is the exact place you pass him?
- Just before the overpass, he's gone that way.
Just before the overpass, alright we gotta go.
(chuckles)
Which side?
- I pass him on the left!
- Okay!
Okay!
- When I first saw "Grand Prix", sitting at a cinema,
the impact was tremendous
because you were seeing Formula 1 cars racing
on a big screen, in color, close-ups on the drivers.
There was a whole depth there
which we never had on television.
Television coverage in the 1960s was extremely primitive
and for people who'd never been to a motor race,
which is where a lot of the audience would have come from,
they would have seen this on television,
but the impact of seeing it on a proper cinema screen.
Enormous.
- Frankenheimer did hire me
as a consultant when he was thinking
about doing a "Grand Prix 2".
I'm talking early '80s now.
But then of course like everybody at that time,
he was completely shocked at how much Formula 1 i.e.
Bernie Ecclestone wanted in order to have the same
sort of access that he'd back in '66
and at that point it became a non-starter,
like a lot of other movies that people have tried
to make about Formula 1.
- [Nigel] I will always be grateful
that "Grand Prix" exists because apart from anything else,
it amounts to such, in effect,
a record of how Formula 1 was in the '60s.
- [Narrator] During the second half of the 1960s,
Steve McQueen's Hollywood career went stratospheric.
The outsider had made it inside,
becoming the highest paid actor in the world.
His disappointment over the failure of
"Day of the Champion" only served to fuel his obsession
with cars in the movies.
In 1968, "Bullit"' was the result of his efforts.
Again, he insisted on doing the majority
of the stunt work involved
and this is widely considered
to be the greatest car chase of all time.
(brakes screeching) (racing car revving)
- Those mid '60s years were the hottest years
of his career.
He had five hits one after the other,
starting with "The Cincinnati Kid",
and "Nevada Smith", "The Sand Pebbles",
"The Thomas Crown Affair", and "Bullitt".
Now if we'd have seen "Day of the Champion"
in the middle of that,
we might never have seen "The Thomas Crown Affair"
and "Bullitt".
- [Narrator] But he was still obsessed with his dream
of a motor racing film and now had a great deal
of star power, the juice as he called it.
He did, of course, finally make that movie.
"Le Mans" was released in 1971.
- [James] With "Bullitt",
"Thomas Crown" being such massive hits, essentially,
he's allowed to do whatever he wants to do.
That's when "Le Mans" comes back into the mix
and he thinks I am gonna make the ultimate racing car movie.
- By the time he got to "Le Mans",
he was feeling so much pressure that
this film had to succeed
that it definitely affected his personal relationships,
with his wife, with his friend Robert Relyea,
with his director friend from over a decade, John Sturges.
I think he was dead set that this movie had to be a success.
- [John] I think, at least from my standpoint,
in an action film,
it gives you an opportunity to put people under pressure.
And when they're under pressure, they're emotions,
good or bad, come out.
What you're really looking for is emotion.
A fight is no more meaningful than
how much care somebody wins.
Two unknown people could beat each other to death,
balanced on a girder, 40 stories in the air,
you wouldn't care unless you were pulling for one
or the other.
- [Interviewer] I think the thing
that fascinated most people
about "Bullitt" was that sensational car chase
in San Francisco.
Are you going to try for anything like that in this film?
- [John] Well, we hope to do as well of course.
It won't be a chase in any sense
and they will be cars driven under control as they
are here in the circuit,
as opposed to a kind of flat-out stunt.
It's similar in that there are cars and there is speed,
but totally different otherwise.
(racing car revving)
- [Natasha] When something is a passion project,
logic goes out of the window.
For McQueen, it stopped being about creating
an amazing piece of cinema and it became
about fulfilling a dream
and those two are never going to marry,
even more so when Sturges left the project.
- [Samuelson] Steve, who's production company
was making the film,
really didn't know how you make a film,
how you string a script together, how you block a scene,
and I think it must have been awful for John Sturges.
Steve was very, very famous
and also I think in many ways, out of control.
- [Christina] I think "Le Mans" is a cult classic
because it,
yes, largely appeals to people that are really interested
and passionate about cars and racing,
but that film kind of speaks
to a particular style of filmmaking
which is unique to its moment
and had this kind of existentialism to it,
this kind of minimalism,
this story which was completely self-contained
which didn't need the various complications of traditional,
classical Hollywood cinema.
- I felt very strongly
that racing would be a great background to a story.
I believe that Steve felt racing would be a great film
with some story around it.
It may be oversimplifying but even if it is that simple,
that's a big difference.
- Well, I'll go with you that we concentrate on the race,
yes, whether anything else is kept to a minimum or not,
I don't know.
- [Samuelson] I don't think Steve really cared
about the story and the love interest and so forth.
He just wanted to film the definitive,
really documentary of cars going fast
and the fiction side of it was I think a bit shrug.
- I don't know if anybody's ever discovered
the beginnings of a plot.
(laughs)
I don't think I ever detected one!
(chuckles)
- [Robert] Steve has from the beginning,
pushed and insisted upon a reality approach to the picture.
The real cars that were really in the race,
driving at real speed.
Not trick photography, not rear projection,
not on a location that looks like "Le Mans"
for a certain time,
but racing conditions with the actual machinery.
- If you look at the script for "Day of the Champion",
it's actually quite similar to "Grand Prix" in certain ways.
Much more of a traditional narrative
than "Le Mans" ended up being.
And like "Grand Prix",
it follows several drivers over a whole season.
There are elements that were retained for "Le Man".
He's called Mike Pearce in the original script,
Mike Delaney, of course, in "Le Mans".
But there are still a couple of lines
in the "Day of the Champion" script
that end up in the finished version of "Le Mans".
- [Christina] McQueen says in "Le Mans" that...
- Racing's important to men who do it well.
Racing, it's life.
Anything that happens before or after, it's just waiting.
- [Christina] That's actually originally
from "Day of the Champion".
- [Martullo] Do you remember a man called Karl Wallenda,
the greatest of the high wire walkers?
After he fell and was broken, when he went back, he said,
"To be on the wire is life.
The rest is waiting".
This was a wise man, do you know that?
(hopeful music)
- [Mike] I hope so...
- [Martullo] Only those of us who have been on the wire,
who have held the wheel, only us.
No one else, the others, they cannot know
and it is foolish to try and tell them.
Never try and tell anybody.
They know or they can never know.
(hopeful music)
- [Narrator] "Day of the Champion" remains one
of Hollywood's great "What Ifs" Fragments of rushes
and an impoverished script are all that remain
of the dream project of one of the great movie stars
of the 20th century.
A contemporary F1 movie has not been achieved since 1966,
while the sport grew exponentially over the next 50 years.
After "Le Mans",
McQueen never did hit the highs of the 60s again.
He divorced and remarried.
Then, divorced and remarried.
His relationships with Sturges
and Relyea remained strained for the next decade.
- I think the best movie stars work
on variations on a theme,
in a way, or variations on a persona
that's always existed.
And so McQueen feels like Americana,
I think, to us now and, you know,
a slightly more old-fashioned,
traditionalism that I think people kind of yearn for.
- Steve McQueen, away from the camera,
was a very complex
person with lots of moods,
lots of swings of those moods,
one of the most loyal people I've ever known.
Very street smart.
(dramatic music)
(racing car revving)
♪ I'm gonna raise a fuss, I'm gonna raise a holler ♪
♪ About a-workin' all summer just to try to earn a dollar ♪
♪ Every time I call my baby, try to get a date ♪
♪ My boss says, "no dice son, you gotta work late" ♪
♪ Sometimes I wonder what I'm a-gonna do ♪
♪ But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues ♪
- But more important to Steve
than anything in the world would be to be remembered
as being a good human being, not a good actor,
and most of all was respected by his peers.
That the other race drivers,
whether they thought he was an actor or not,
thought he could cut it on an even field
and I think the idea of getting respect from other people,
which probably goes all the way back to Boys Republic,
was probably what he would want more than anything else.
♪ Sometimes I wonder what I'm a-gonna do ♪
♪ But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues ♪
(racing car revving) (dramatic music)
- You see the problem here, man, is you gotta be happy.
If you're not happy,
you might as well chuck the whole business.
(dramatic music)
(hopeful music)