"Le Mans" is on TCM Tonite
 

Visual viagra for me, looking at the classic racing Ferraris and Porsches. After seeing it originally in the theater, I remember everyone doing a burnout pulling out of the parking lot. Classic McQueen.

I begged my parents to take me to see this at the drive-in when I was about 10 yrs old and car crazy. I loved every minute of it. I think my mom fell asleep.
I think that the camera work on the racing scenes was excellent and I could listen to those engines scream all night long.
I wanted to be McQueen when I grew up...coolest guy in the world!

I've got it on DVD...maybe I'll watch it tonight...

Isn't that the one where they developed the air cannons to literally blow the cars off the track for the crashes?

Bob

I saw parts of it in the middle of the night last night. Kept waking up to it.
Cool flik! :up:

The movie that used air cannons to launch race cars was Grand Prix. This link should take you to the cover of Popular Mechanics March 67. The cover shot is below and the link will get the full magazine. On page 77 the article starts with lots of photos of the race cars set up with camers etc.


http://books.google.com/books?id=RdQ...20Prix&f=false

http://bks1.books.google.com/books?i...wGa6jT_e2xkM6T

Back to back good movie nights. Watching "Raising Arizona" while my rolls bake. Classic line in all motion picture history...."Son, You got a panty on your head"

Saw "LeMans" in the theater when it first came out right after I got back from Vietnam...or tried to. Went with my then-wife and she claimed she got sick half way through and wanted to go home.

Anyway, I have it on dvd and watch it whenever I need a good racing movie fix.

Exploding warthog is a classic scene :D

I almost feel obligated to give you some guff about all the carnage, agression, revenge, and the bloodlust of racing fans, but that's probably only
true of NASCAR , right ? ;) . F-1 is so much more genteel :D

Cheers !

One word.

Speed.

Ron Howard is about to release his movie about F1. He makes good movies and it should be interesting to see what he can do with all the cinema technology available today.

Ooh, good spin ! ;)

LeMans and Grand Prix likely the two great auto-racing films.

I watched it on TCM too.... And it brought back memories. I was a big Grand Prix Legends player for years. That's the F1 racing game that's been around forever and has been continually updated and modified by it's many fans.

Still one of the best physics engines ever developed for a racing game. Over the years, fans have made dozens of improvements and mods and extra tracks and cars and even total conversions.

Among the many tracks available is the "old" Circuit de la Sarthe, the old Le Mans circuit as shown in the film, with the miles-long Mulsanne straight, total darkness at night, and a remarkable lack of safety features.

I spent a lot of time piloting a Ferrari around that course...Going down the Mulsanne at 200 mph + in a Ferrari (with actual Ferrari sound files...) is pretty heady, even in virtual mode.....

Wow! Grat article! Thanks a bunch!

Bob