Original subtitles

# STEVIE WONDER: Uptight

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 One,

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.

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 and said, "You can have anything."

He's 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.

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.

NEWLAND: He was determined to make the definitive film about Formula One.

It would have been bigger than Jaws.

This is the story of 'Day of the Champion'.

# 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 #

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 with 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 part of the studio system

is happening slowly across that period.

And by the early '60s, 1963-ish,

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 realised 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.

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 characterised 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 Jr

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. Josh!

I think everybody 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 will take care of itself,

but cast that gut." Intuitively, a very good actor.

And exuberant about his work. He enjoyed it.

A warrior. 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, talking about...

going 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, er...

brethren, if you will, actors coaching when he needed it.

Certainly not an intellectual. Steve 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.

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.

After several arrests for shoplifting and stealing hubcaps,

in his mid-teens, McQueen ended up in a reform school

for delinquent children just outside of Los Angeles.

Steve ended up in Boys 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, um, 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...of the place.

And Steve was getting into all sorts of trouble at that time.

And finally he took him aside after he tried to run away,

and, of course, they caught him.

And he said, "You'd 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 OK. (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 are talking about him now so many years later -

is actually what he did. 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 fuelled his obsession

for anything with an engine.

Although there were occasional rebellions,

he eventually embraced the rigour and discipline of military life

and was honourably discharged in 1950.

He was on duty with the Navy in the Aleutian Islands,

above the Arctic Circle. 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

at attention and the general is saying, "What's going on, soldier?"

The beans exploded and wiped out the general.

So... But Steve McQueen could be court-martialled

for firing beans on a general.

You know, these things just happen to him.

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 standings weren't very good -

I went as far as eighth grade. But as far as reality is concerned,

my education was very good. I'm perhaps a man

that kicks around quite a bit. Er...

And is a little stronger in quarters as he needs to be stronger

and as far as dignity is concerned.

And a little lenient in quarters about sensitivity and so forth.

Mm-mm.If you've been kicked around, you don't wanna be kicked again.

With the GI 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 studied there.

I got a scholarship in a dramatic school.

And then I did a couple of very small parts on television.

And then my first Broadway show, which is a legitimate play.Mm.

I did two of those.

And then I came West. I hitchhiked to California.

I was broke again. And when I got to California, er...

I guess they were hung up for a cowboy,

because they wanted me for a series, and I did it.

And it lasted for...

three years in the United States.

And fortunately for me, it was very popular.

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 the story's abound about their relationship onset

and how much he was kind of fiddling around in the background

or messing around with his hat, always doing something

to draw the audience's eyes 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 kind of 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 sort of a workmanlike charm

about both of them. And that's not to say

that they didn't create some amazing, artistic

and poetic moments on film together. And I think they both

really appreciated that trait in one another.

Sturges also grew up without a father,

so maybe there was a link there between them in that way.

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.

I thought a lot of actors nowadays, you know, are making it.

They're successful, see? Mm-hm.

And they're very angry.

What the hell have they got to be angry about?

You know, if they were really broke, and they had a hassle.

And they're successful, they should be very happy.

I'm happy.Mm.I've got a beautiful wife, two kids, two houses,

a couple of cars and my own film company.

I'm not buggin' nothing. (CHUCKLES)

Steve, why are you here? To make a picture?

We're doing 'The War Lover', John Hersey's novel.

It's a story of daylight bombing in World War II,

when the American flags fly 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.

With his new-found 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 how to race cars.

When McQueen first came over here to film 'The War Lover',

he was... 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 time at the time,

it was like, "Wow, what a great thing!

We can go and sit in a racing car and learn how to be race drivers."

That didn't happen 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 Steve's...

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 raced them and you raced them very fast.

Now, I don't know any 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 a class

with Stirling Moss or Dan Gurney or Phil Hill or some of the people

who are driving here in your Formula One or international races.

But I remember the first time I raced. I was very frightened. It scared me.

I didn't like the idea of being frightened and I wanted to overcome it. That was one element.

The other element - and this is a very pure thing.

It's one of the few things in life you can't fix.

You can't fix this. You can't go to somebody and say, "I'm gonna buy my way out of this."Mm-hm.

Yeah. When you're out there by yourself, you're very much by yourself.Mm.

I think it's a very pure thing. I'd like to learn more.

And, er, I plan on doing a little racing while I'm in your country.

Mm-hm?I'd 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 One 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 they 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 glamour and the romanticism

of Formula One racing.

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, um...

that he had in Balfour Place,

just one back from Park Lane.

He was one of Jimmy Clark's best friends.

One of my best friends. But John, he wasn't a gentleman racing driver.

He was a racing driver.

Gentlemanly manners or anything like...

Of course he was well mannered, of course he was well educated,

but he just wanted to be one of the boys.

Steve was over here

making a black and white

wartime film, actually.

And, um...

and I just happened to meet him

and we got talking, and we talked for about two hours

and found we had a lot of common interests.

And Steve was riding motorcycles.

He was a very good motorcyclist

and also was interested in cars.

And by then, Steve had done his Jim Russell course.

And John Whitmore was a massive hotshot

in Minis, and so it was a perfect thing.

I think it says a lot about Steve again

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 battling together.

And McQueen very nearly beat Carlisle to the flag.

John Whitmore, I knew from early days,

cos in fact we'd 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

the saloon car championship.

So he lent Steve McQueen his Mini

to race in at the beginning of October at Brands Hatch.

The race was amazing.

There were five of us Minis

that were continually passing

and re-passing each other.

I was... There were three of us together going around a corner.

Anyhow, the race ended with Vic Elford winning.

Me behind, just, just in front of Steve McQueen.

And the commentator had gone absolutely mad,

and demanded that us three should go up onto the podium,

and it was very exciting.

Oh, you can't ask him now. 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, you know, 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 past this 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 fuel 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.

# MARTHA AND THE VANDELLAS: Dancing in the Streets

NARRATOR: The result of racing Minis and his Jim Russell course

was the addition of a so-called asphalt writer

in his future contracts. Nothing was going to get in the way

of his love for cars and bikes.

So in 1963, with 'The War Lovers'

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 bona fide Hollywood superstar.

He looked at James Garner.

He was the scrounger.

He looked at Charles Bronson

with his pick

and he knew, "I'm-I'm the...

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, er, all that kind of thing really took off

and made Steve the huge star after that movie.

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."

You know, and, "You cannot go off into the woods

and come 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 are actually in production?

(CHUCKLES) Shh.

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 to drive a car.

So, one of the amazing things about Steve 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.

Um, and was celebrated because of that.

People love to see him do action 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-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. (TYRES SCREECH)

There is the -

I don't like the term macho, but he had a thing about...

"I don't want people doubling me

and then I have to face my peers...

..saying, 'Here comes candy.'"

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 on-screen action,

and what better subject than the machinery

with which he was so in love.

MCQUEEN: I don't like acting when it's playing house, you know?

I believe that, er...

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.

Well, there are lots of actors.

Movie stars are much rarer.

As a movie star,

he is 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... You know, 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 Brothers, 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 gonna make a picture about racing.

That'll be the end of this company and our relationship."

We all had a big laugh. It 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.

What was Hemingway's great statement

about there only being 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'.

We all had to be because we knew

it was going to have things in there that

you aren't supposed to be talking about or showing.

Of course, the more I read the book, the more I realised

how different it was from

most writing about the sport at that time.

It was... You know, 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 around, wrapping around you.

And when you had an impact,

the thing usually caught fire in a big way and they never got it out.

They never got it out, so it was a...

colourful, 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 travelled with them,

we holidayed them, we raced with them,

we dined with them, we...

It was just one big happy family.

'The Cruel Sport' highlighted

the number of accidents,

the number of deaths and very serious injuries

that were taking place in motorsport,

to the shock, I think,

of the people involved in motorsport.

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 Steve McQueen,

to be able to go to a Warner Brothers and say,

"This is Formula One, and this is what I want to make a movie about."

THE SPENCER DAVIS GROUP: Gimme Some Lovin'

"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."

The ingredients were all there.

Dangerous and dramatic source material

would give the film legitimacy.

Glamour 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 colourful,

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.

I just feel so fortunate

that I was living in that window.

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 had

more of a traditional narrative to it.

There is a romance

with a posh British girl called Kyla Bonham.

(LAUGHS) Who he, um...

I think she crashes her Jaguar in a field,

and that's how the romance starts.

Um... But even when you look at the script now,

it's certainly more about the racing

than it is about the characters.

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. And the days of 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,

you know, who Jim Clark was and what he'd done.

And Stirling Moss periodically raced in America

in the late '50s on. So he was a kind of pioneer,

if you like, in that respect.

And that was where the drivers began to know,

you know, the James Garners 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 been christened Hamish,

I probably wouldn't be as well-known as I was."

But he worked really hard. 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, whatever it 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 it would have all come together.

There was a benefit dinner in Hollywood the night before

our film was to be announced to the trade papers.

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 explained.

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 book 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 one.

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 a test pilot. All right.

You know, which is one driver with his mechanic

going through the whole thing and finally getting up to Formula One.

Or we could do 'Grand Hotel',

which was to take a group of people

and put them in one situation and see what happened,

which is what, basically, '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 have 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 on the movie.

And we were without Steve McQueen.

I still think if we had Steve McQueen in the movie,

it would have been bigger than 'Jaws'.

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

into 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, er...

the part in 'Grand Prix', I called him.

And I said, "Steve, I want to tell you before you hear it from somebody else."

I said, "I'm gonna do 'Grand Prix'."

Well, there's about a $20 silence there on the telephone.

(CHUCKLES) He didn't know what to say.

And finally he said, "Well, 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 neighbours. (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, um...

with Formula One cars, Formula Two cars,

sports cars, a Mini Cooper,

which could be a little nod back

to his years racing with John Whitmore in a Mini.

But 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 Brothers released this memo,

proudly declaring that 'Day of the Champion'

was up and running with an all-star crew and technical line-up.

(READS)

"John Sturges will produce and direct,

and Steve McQueen will star in the technicolour

and Panavision production, which is being financed

and distributed worldwide by Warner Brothers.

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 adviser.

Sturges and cinematographer John Wilcox

will utilise four Panavision cameras

to capture the exciting action."

I've been working with the director of photography, John Wilcox,

for a number of years as he's a first assistant cameraman.

John Sturges was a great name

and it sounds a great film.

Steve McQueen and motor racing? Yes, why not?

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.

So, the warring films were literally off to the races

as both Warner and MGM

sent reccy crews to the 1965 Monaco Grand Prix -

the first race in that year's Formula One world championship.

So, '65 Monaco

was an interesting race altogether because -

well, for a number of reasons. One, Jim Clark wasn't there,

cos he was away winning the Indy 500.

Two, Graham Hill won the race.

Having spun early on, he 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 Brothers there

at Monaco, in this tiny principality,

both reccing for the movies they were gonna make.

And you can only imagine what that would have been like

in terms of vying for position. There aren't that many

great positions at Monaco, because the marshals have to be standing

somewhere and there's not 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.

For the movie crews at Monaco, this was like,

"Wow, what a world this is."

# THE WHO: I Can't Explain

# I said I can't explain it

# You drive me out of my mind

# Yeah, I'm the worrying kind, babe

# I said I can't explain # (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

# MARVIN GAYE: Ain't That Peculiar

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 side-line

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, er, all part of a group of friends.

I think they...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, um, to prepare the cars for the film

and manage the racing scenes of the 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 that McQueen was quite, um...

absorbed by all the racing detail

and the car preparation

and all the mechanics of the operation.

And, year, was very friendly

with all the team members and everything,

but, um, he also was quite, obviously, a colourful character,

and after-after hours was...

quite a good, er, quite good company.

I think he was kicked out of the Dorchester Hotel

when he decided in his suite

to cook up some chilli 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.

The next morning at breakfast, 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 are not going anywhere. I think that's just a polite way of kicking you out."

# It's all too beautiful

# It's all too beautiful... #

NARRATOR: The claims of the Warner Brothers 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 technicolour glory.

What they captured that day

has never been publicly seen.

# It's all too beautiful #

(HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING)

(APPLAUSE)

(ENGINES REVVING)

(ENGINES REVVING)

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

(HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING)

I mean, the thing about this is we never saw any footage.

We saw a little bit of black and white movie tone used, perhaps.

It was in colour. It actually happened in colour.

(CAR RACING PAST)

(ENGINES REVVING)

It was amazing. Very relaxed.

Great footage, though.

(APPLAUSE)

And that's Stirl in the camera car.

You had a 400-foot roll of films.

So you had about four minutes, er, in each go.

And then you had to reload.

There's obviously, you know, decades

before there was digital.

So we were on 35 millimetre, eastern colour.

Samuelson Film Service was run

by four brothers,

three of whom were my uncles and one was my dad.

And, er, 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'.

That 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... (CLICKS TONGUE)

..crazy.

You know, 14.7 miles,

187 corners per lap.

Yeah, 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 is 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 Gurney, 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 is 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.

When the guy's around us, I knew.

And he was a driver. He used to drive camera cars.

And he said, "I've brought some American guys up."

"Well, yeah, where are they?" "In the Ferrari pit."

I said, "That's interesting."

So I said to John Sturges, um...

"You've got some Americans in the Ferrari pit.

It probably better be the director."

And I remember Sturges was very upset about it.

There was... Obviously, there was a bit of animosity

going on between the two.

We very explicitly used Panavision,

not just any old Panavision.

But we shot it in a 235 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, you know, wider

than a regular 185

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 going to put on the cars.

And that's where Alan Mann came in. Obviously, with design

of the camera mounts was going to 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 Brothers 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.

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 of the cameras in such a way

that they become 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 ways

so the car still will handle at competitive speed.

This requires some trial and error,

requires the drivers to take the cars out

and see when a camera is in a certain position,

how the car handles so that they can adjust accordingly.

It requires the cars that are around them

to sense what problems that driver has.

And about ten or 12 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.

So, we had to build mounts

that, um...

were able to cope with that and 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.

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.

He understands race driving, he knows them all.

He can drive a car.

We had the real cars, we had the real circuits,

so that part was all right.

MGM claimed they had, er...

the shooting rights for all the Grand Prix circuits.

Nurburgring was under question,

cos Warner Brothers claimed they had it.

And there's going to be a court case, and they are looking

for evidence to sue each other.

It was also told

there was probably a 16mm crew

filming us filming.

We never saw anybody. It may have been true, it may not be true.

But we also slipped in

some film cans up

with dummy labels and put sand in them.

If somebody is going to steal our rushes,

they might steal the wrong rushes

and find they've got a can full of sand.

Stirling always remembered that day,

and he made the point of saying that when he drove, er...

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."

'Day of the Champion' was off to a flying start.

This truly breath-taking footage

was just what McQueen and Sturges had hoped for

and put them substantially ahead of Frankenheimer and MGM.

Warner Brothers 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 John Frankenheimer.

And in the minds of Jimmy and Jackie -

probably more Jimmy than Jackie -

'Grand Prix' was gonna 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, um...

..thought that everybody was going with Frankenheimer.

"Why don't we go with McQueen?"

And Steve McQueen,

in those days, was bigger than Frankenheimer.

Who wants to get married?

And I think that was one of the things,

and he was making great movies, you know?

(ENGINES REVVING) Steve McQueen works by instinct,

reflex, unconsciously concealed know-how.

Above all is his reverence to authenticity.

And Jimmy and I didn't talk a lot about it.

We just...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.

And he, of course, respected Robert Wise greatly.

He had directed 'West Side Story', 'The Sound of Music',

so I think he saw a lot of potential in that movie.

Back in Europe, John Frankenheimer,

realising he would have a big task on his hands

to get his racing epic released ahead of Warner's,

had stayed with the travelling 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 them, most of them.

Those cameras, turn them on

as soon as you get up to speed here.

But they did know I was really, very, very interested in cars.

And they did know I raced on an amateur basis,

so at least I knew something about what they did.

Come on! Push here! Push!

And I became friendly with some of them,

like Graham Hill and Phil Hill, and Richie Ginther.

Everybody was very, very sceptical of another movie

being made about racing. And as a matter of fact,

to the point where Ferrari didn't want anything to do with it.

And, er, he just said,

"You...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."

(MAN SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE) My God, get it out!

Oh, Jesus. Look, give this guy hell, who's driving.

(INDISTINCT)Yeah, coming out. Get out of here!Come on, get out!

So, we were lucky enough - not lucky enough.

We were, if you'll forgive me, smart enough...Right.

..to go to Carroll Shelby, who had great credentials.

And Carroll 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 Carroll Shelby, I got to Dan Gurney,

who was a great friend of Shelby's,

and also to Phil Hill.

Hill, this isn't working.

And I signed these guys up, kind of...

And I actually paid the money, which also helped...

(CHUCKLES)..convince them that maybe this was a good idea.

And, er...

for two years, exclusivity to movies, to me.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

(INDISTINCT)

Hey, hey. Hey, hey.

Hey, get everybody again in here again. Get in here again.

For John Frankenheimer, Phil Hill was manna from heaven

because he was still 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'.

MAN: I've just seen the most terrible skid there.

What happened to Yves Montand? That's what he was supposed to do.

He wasn't supposed to go all over the pavement.

Oh, yeah, up over the curb and fling it round backwards.

Oh, yeah. Wasn't that a beautiful job, though?

He's like a skid driver. Are you serious?

(CHUCKLES) No. (BOTH LAUGH)

Well, he was a wonderful guy.

I mean, he was a great driver, but also, you know,

the most delightful guy, the most delightful bloke.

Very, very, very dry sense of humour.

One of the funniest people I've ever met.

Er, 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.

The plan was to go and shoot 'The Sand Pebbles',

and ideally they would 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 ended up taking something like seven months.

The conditions over there in Taiwan were horrendous.

Everyone got ill. Steve included.

"We knew that the first team to get their picture shot,

edited, scored and in the theatres

before the other guy would be the winner.

Neither side wanted to be the second racing picture

out that year."

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 go.

And Stirling had started the Stirling Moss

Automobile Racing Team. So I drove his Elan, which was his car,

and then I entered my own cars under his name.

There was agreement that this car

should be repainted in the colours

that Steve McQueen was going to plan to have in his film.

So it was repainted to a green.

I drove the car in this race and it was filmed.

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 in the '50s and '60s,

a top driver wouldn't just drive Formula One, as happens today.

He 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's completely appropriate

that Steve McQueen's character in the film

drives single-seaters, but also drives sports cars.

That's how it was in those days.

(ENGINES REVVING) Bloody hell, was I on the front row?

Six. Well, I've just... I've fucked up the start.

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.

The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place

for 'Day of the Champion'. But with the start

of the 1966 Formula One 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.

(BANG)

KULLY B AND GUSSY B: Sweet Success

NARRATOR: 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 One 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.

MALE VOICEOVER: 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,

England's Brian Bedford -

for Frankenheimer, for any filmmaker,

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 show them

what a race is really like from the driver's viewpoint.

(INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER) 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.

In Monte Carlo, they began to see

that we knew what we were doing.

We were very well organised.

We went out there and we were doing the real stuff,

and that began to get their attention.

(ENGINE REVVING) Everybody, get out of the way.

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 whilst 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 the driver's helmet.

You know, one of the few people that wasn't involved

was John Surtees.

He got absolutely...

fed up to the teeth with it. Had it up to here.

"Bloody film people. I wish they'd push off."

But, of course, typical John,

but he just said, "But, well, you know...

..there's always a way around these things and, er...

the Hollywood people stuff their mouths with money

which stop them talking."

It didn't worry me at all. It didn't involve...

Francoise nearly, 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,

a little bit further down the road there was...

Sarti, Yves Montand

accepting the trophy for the 'Grand Prix' Grand Prix.

All right, where is the cup? Here.The cup, give it to me.

Their own winner will need a victor's cup

for 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 oaken 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)

You know, when you win a Grand Prix,

you know, 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.

(APPLAUSE)

When you're in... 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, er...your brake...

your braking point to gearing down

to where you 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 to the Alan Mann garage

after seeing how the cars on 'Grand Prix'

were slowing down the filming.

(READS)

"Please can you start to adjust the compression rates,

dampers and engine idle before we get to Germany.

Kind regards, Stirling Moss."

Panic was also setting in amongst the Warner's 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 overrunning.

By June, 1966, John Sturges

was already in London to work on preproduction

for the remaining 'Day of the Champion' shoot

when he received an extraordinary telegram.

(READS)

"I would not put it by these boys to release their picture

on 35mm at the same time that it's released in Cinerama.

Isn't there some way you can start your preproduction 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 beat 'Grand Prix'

after you leave the starting gate. Jack Warner."

(INDISTINCT CHATTER) Allez! Come on! Allez!

(SPEAKS IN FRENCH)

(EXPLOSION, WHOOSH)

(MAN SPEAKING IN FRENCH)

FRANKENHEIMER: That's your job. Wait a minute. That's your job

to really make it look like... Where's...?

With production moving at a frantic pace for 'Grand Prix' in Monaco,

an unscripted halt has brought to proceedings

when local shopkeepers 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 right in the fucking water.

MAN: Let's go.Either get out or I'm gonna bust you!

I'm gonna put you in there and hold you under! Now, get out!

(MAN SPEAKING FRENCH) 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 him later.

Wha... How much money do you want?

I speaking with...Well, then, you get the hell out of that shot

or I'm gonna put you out! Yes, sir.

I'm... I'll tell you.

You better count to six and get your ass out of here.

MAN: Fire.

After Monte Carlo was over,

I cut together a quick

30 minutes of stuff I shot at Monte Carlo.

Called Ferrari...

and asked him if he would look at it.

And 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 movie, 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 penny.

He gave us the Ferrari team,

he gave us the factory, he gave us everything.

Of course, when we got that kind of acceptance from Ferrari,

I mean, that was it.

We were less than a week away from starting 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 Pilot 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," Jack said, "Bob Wise won't release McQueen.

That means 'Grand Prix' will be the first in theatres

and I'm not gonna be second, so shut it down."

"But we've already got loads of footage,

I've got an entire crew in Germany. We're 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 be that angry,

because you turned down, you know, you turned down this role," but...

that didn't really stop him. You know, he was determined

to make the definitive film about Formula One,

about motor racing and, um...

yeah, he'd been beaten to the punch.

I think the trucks were in Dover already,

about to depart for the Reims Grand Prix,

when a telegram came in from Warner Brothers

to say, "Stop all transport

and the whole thing is cancelled, and go back to base."

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 have 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'.

"Dear Alan, as you know, 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 would 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 it was...

You know, 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."

With Frankenheimer seemingly victorious,

his Cinerama circus moved on to 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 was -

that was what we were told - that the insurance company

wouldn't allow Steve to...

to do a full-blown motor racing series

that he was directly involved in.

So, um...

when that fell through,

Frankenheimer already had the programme going.

And, in fact, I don't know how long after

we were told that the movie wasn't going to happen,

er...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, the colours.

Um...so I got paid twice, really.

So did Jimmy. (CHUCKLES)

We got these guys to drive for us

at $200 a day.

So, you know, you put it in today's dollars,

that's $2,000 a day.

The picture in 1966,

all-in with accelerated postproduction,

it cost about 9.5 million.

Put that in the context of today's Formula One

and imagine what it would be like having a Hollywood crew

in the pit lane at a proper Formula One race.

It would just 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

aspect 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 One throughout that '66 season.

FRANKENHEIMER: Making a picture is a strange thing

because everybody hates you when you make it.

It's when the picture comes out

that, er, they say, "Oh, boy, you know, it's really pretty good."

You know? Or vice versa, everybody loves you when you're making it,

and the picture comes out and you'll never work again. You know what I mean?

You know what? That might do.

(ENGINE 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 One movie project in tatters.

Steve was exhausted after 'The Sand Pebbles'.

He probably did his best acting in his career,

possibly with the exception of 'Papillon'.

And he'd put so much of himself

at 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 was 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 coloured by the disappointment

of not being able to make this passion project.

McQueen must have been gutted to think

he got his first Oscar nomination

for a film that actually stopped him

making the film he'd always dreamt of making.

'Sand Pebbles' and 'Grand Prix' were released the same week

in December, '66.

'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 these grenades

down into the yard of Garner's house

and illicit a big police reaction and everything,

and wait for that to dissipate and then lob another one over

and generally wind him up.

Finally his son, Chad,

made him take him to go see 'Grand Prix'.

(CHUCKLES) 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 gonna pass him.

You know, I mean... Well...Jimmy Garner!

Jimmy Garner, where is the exact place you pass him?

(INDISTINCT) Before the overpass. You go in the clear...

Just before the overpass. You can tell by this.

All right, we've got to go. (MAN SPEAKS IN FRENCH)

Yes. (CONTINUES SPEAKING FRENCH)

Ah! Which side, which side?

I pass him on the left.All right, he's gonna pass you on that side.

All right. Ready?OK, OK. (MAN SPEAKS FRENCH)OK.

When I first saw 'Grand Prix', sitting in a cinema,

the impact was tremendous,

because you were seeing Formula One cars racing on a big screen,

in colour, 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 had never been to a motor race,

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 Two'.

And we are talking early '80s now.

But then, of course, like everybody at that time,

he was completely shocked at how much

Formula One, i.e. Bernie Ecclestone,

wanted in order to have the same sort of access

he'd had back in '66,

and at that point it became a nonstarter

like a lot of other movies that people have tried

to make about Formula One. I will always be grateful

that 'Grand Prix' exists, because apart from anything else,

it amounts to such a, in effect,

a record of how Formula One was

in the '60s.

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, 'Bullet' 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.

(TYRES SCREECHING)

Those mid-60s years

were the hottest years of his career.

He had five hits, one after the other.

Starting with 'The Cincinnati Kid',

then 'Nevada Smith', 'The Sand Pebbles,

'The Thomas Crown Affair' and 'Bullet'.

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 'Bullet'.

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.

With 'Bullet', '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 going to 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.

I think that at least from my standpoint,

an action film gives you an opportunity

to put people under pressure.

And when they are under pressure, their emotions,

good or bad, come out.

What you're really looking for is emotion.

A fight is no more meaningful

than how much you care somebody wins.

Two unknown people could beat each other to death,

balanced on a girder, 40 storeys in the air - you wouldn't care

unless you were pulling for one or the other.

MAN: I think the thing that fascinated most people

about 'Bullet' was that sensational car chase

in San Francisco.

Are you going to try for anything like that in this film?

Well, we hope to do as well, of course.

It won't be a chase in any sense,

and there will be cars driven under control

if they are here at the circuit, as opposed to

the kind of flat-out stuff.

It's similar in that they are cars and they are at speed,

but totally different otherwise.

When something is a passion project,

logic goes out of the window.

For McQueen, it stopped being about

creating amazing pieces of cinema,

and it became about fulfilling a dream.

And those two were never going to marry, even more so

when Sturges left the project.

Steve, whose production company was making the film,

um, 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, you know,

very, very famous.

And also, I think,

in many ways out of control.

NEWLAND: I think 'Le Mans' is a cult classic because it...

Yes, it largely appeals to people

that are, you know, 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 kind of completely self-contained,

which didn't need, um...

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.

Maybe 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, don't know.

SAMUELSON: I don't think Steve really cared about the story,

um, and the love interest.

He just wanted to film the definitive...

um, really documentary of cars going fast.

And the fiction side of it

was, I think, a big front.

I don't know if anybody's ever discovered the beginnings of a plot.

(CHUCKLES) I don't think I ever detected one.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

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 speeds.

Not trick photography, not rear projection,

not at a location that looks like Le Mans or a certain kind,

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.

But there are limits that were retained for 'Le Mans'.

Um...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'.

McQueen says in 'Le Mans' that...

Racing is important to men who do it well.

Racing, it - it's life.

Anything that happens before or after - it's just waiting.

That's actually originally from 'Day of the Champion'.

Do you remember a man called Karl Wallenda,

the greatest of the high wire walkers?

After he fell, he was broken.

When he went back he said,

"To be on the wire is life.

The rest is waiting.

This was a wise man.

You know that."

"I hope so."

"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."

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

remain strained for the next decade.

I think the best movie stars

work on variations on a...

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.

RELYEA: Steve McQueen, away from the camera,

was a very complex...

person with, er...

lots of moods, lots of swings of those moods.

One of the most loyal people I've ever known.

Very street-smart.

EDDIE COCHRAN: Summertime Blues

# Well I'm a gonna raise a fuss, I'm gonna raise a holler

# About workin' all summer just to try to earn a dollar

# Every time I call my baby to try to get a date

# My boss says, "No dice, son, you gotta work late"

# Sometimes I wonder what I'm gonna do

# Cos there ain't no cure for the summertime blues #

I think 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 gonna do

# Cos there ain't no cure for the summertime blues #

MCQUEEN: See, the problem here, man, is you've got to be happy.

If you're not happy, you might as well chuck the whole business.