12 Great DVDs for 12 Days of Christmas
By Gregg Leary

Many of you may be suffering from “Racing Withdrawal,” during the holidays. Perhaps you can’t wait for the Daytona 500 to kick off the NASCAR season in February, or for the snow to melt so your local short track can reopen. Here’s a partial solution during the interim. Go to SPEEDtv.com, keyword “BOOKS” and check out over a thousand motorsports related books and over 150 DVDs.

As a Columnist and Book/DVD Reviewer for SPEEDtv.com, I’ve reviewed over a hundred items and I hope I can save you time and hard-earned dollars as you take advantage of our “one stop shopping” for the motorsports fans on your gift list. It’s so easy- just PICK and CLICK- and save driving to the mall and standing in line for countless hours. Your selections will be sent right to your door. What could be easier?

The Dynamic Dozen DVDs for the Holiday season are-Little Drummer Boy drum roll, please-

1. 50 Years of Formula 1 On-Board

If you are “on the fence” about purchasing that big-screen plasma TV with home theatre surround sound, I’ve got just the ticket for you to convince yourself or your spouse to take the plunge. The DVD “50 Years of Formula 1 On-Board” puts you “in the driver’s seat” with half a century of Formula One legends…Fangio, Moss, Stewart, Senna, Schumacher and others…in surround sound! Purchase the DVD and take it to your local electronics store…give their inventory a “test drive” and see what equipment best suits your needs. I guarantee when you crank up the volume you’ll draw a crowd.
The one hour Ardennes Production (the name of the forest surrounding Spa-Francorchamps) DVD by Robert Nevison is narrated by Sir Stirling Moss, Sir Jackie Stewart, Mario Andretti and Bob Constanduros. Rare, archival car mounted camera footage zooms you through eleven spectacular chapters.

1.  Juan Manuel Fangio at the Modena Aero-Autodrome. The “maestro” won 24 of the 51 grands prix he entered. His 250 F Maserati ran 180 mph down the backstretch at Rheims in the 50’s…and rare slow motion footage shows Fangio four wheel drifting at 150 mph.

2.  Stirling Moss at Goodwood and the Nurburgring. Goodwood was the scene of
Moss’s career ending accident. The Nurburgring was 14.2 miles long with 178
corners and one thousand feet of elevation change. Catch the footage of
Stirling explaining cornering using a die cast car…it’s priceless.

3.  1967 German Grand Prix….where 375,000 people watch
the “difficult, demanding, dangerous…fantastic driver’s circuit,” where Jackie
Stewart claims, he “never ran to the limits of the motor car.”

4.  Jackie Stewart at Brands Hatch. Jackie drives AND narrates his laps. Impressive to one who has trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time.

5.  Patrick Depailler 1977 Monaco. Patrick drives the six wheeled Tyrrell through the Monte Carlo circuit. Superb aerials set the scene and English subtitles ride with Patrick. It is amazing how dark the tunnel appears to the camera. The circuit seems extremely narrow for even a single car…how does the entire grid fit through? We see in a later chapter that they often don’t.

6.  Jacques Laffite 1978 Monza. Mario Andretti’s narration calls it “The magic track…the tifosi, the Ferrari fanatical fans…the fabulous engine sounds…that’s Monza.”

7.  Patrick Depailler at Long Beach 1978. Andretti says the cars reach 190 mph on closed public roads.

8.  Ayrton Senna at Suzuka 1989. Watching the onboard speaks volumes as to why he may be the greatest of all time.

9.  Damon Hill and Michael Schumacher at Monaco 1995. Watch for the pile up at Ste Devote…from the rear camera on Hill’s car.

10.  Mika Hakkinen at Spa-Francorchamps 2000. For any of your friends who claim that Formula One is boring…advance to 35:25 on the DVD…and watch Mika “thread the needle” at an obscene rate of speed…then get passed by a pair of F1 fighter jets…breathtaking.

11.  Michael Schumacher at Monza 2003. Watch as 7 Time Champion Schumacher negotiates the world’s fastest grand prix circuit…230 mph down the pit straight!

The final section of “50 Years of Formula 1 On-Board” takes you on a memory lane tour of “The FIA’s F1 World Championship Drivers Hall of Fame” from Giuseppe Farina in 1950 through Michael Schumacher in 2004.
Tidbits of trivia abound in the narration. For example, Farina’s 1950 Alfa Romeo 158 delivered an uncanny 400 horsepower…but the stallions were extremely thirsty. The Alfa got only 1.7 miles per gallon and often had to stop 2 or 3 times for fuel in a three hour race.
Graham Hill is still the only driver to win the Formula One Championship, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Indianapolis 500.

How good is “50 Years of Formula 1 On-Board?” I’ll bet you’ll watch it in its entirety… all one hour… in ONE sitting…and probably go back as I did and watch it again. I give it five out of five lug nuts. 

2. CAN-AM: The Speed Odyssey
3. The History of Motor Racing: 1950’s
4. The History of Motor Racing: 1960’s
5. The History of the TRANS AM Series: 1966-1995
6. Carroll Shelby: The Man and His Car
7. “Bullitt,” starring Steve McQueen
8. “Easy Rider”

When was the last time you saw “Easy Rider?” If the answer is never --or that you caught parts of it years ago on television—or that you tried to see it at the drive-in but partied in your car right along with Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda on the silver screen and don’t remember much of it—you MUST purchase “Easy Rider: The 35th Anniversary Deluxe Edition.”

It’s a triple bonus that includes the DVD of the film with lots of special features including interviews with Fonda and Hopper, the CD soundtrack that is superbly remastered and has an amazing mix that will utilize all your surround-sound speakers AND a meticulously researched book, “Easy Rider” by Lee Hill that contains 80 pages of facts about the film that debunk much of the folklore and fakelore about the movie.

The “Easy Riders” were probably doomed from the start. Instead of following Horace Greeley’s advice of “Go West, young man,” the protagonists leave Los Angeles, go South to Mexico to transact a lucrative cocaine deal, then proceed East towards Mardi Gras in New Orleans with the ultimate goal of retiring in the South of Florida. Many call it a modern western with Hopper and Fonda riding bikes instead of horses. The ‘western’ theme holds as the main characters ARE named for western icons. Dennis Hopper is named “Billy” for Billy the Kid and Hopper’s hometown of Dodge City, Kansas was the town where his partner’s character, Wyatt (Earp) was a lawman. Wyatt’s name is only mentioned ONCE in the film—he goes by the alias “Captain America.” The “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” at the end of the film is extremely one-sided.

Why is “Easy Rider” the perfect title? An “Easy Rider” is a guy who lives off the earnings of a prostitute—the girls at Madame Tinkertoy’s in New Orleans would have known the term well. The film begins at La Contenta bar in Mexico where a band of Hispanic three stooges watch Billy and Wyatt test a line of coke on a motorcycle mirror. (Scoring junk in a junkyard.) The duo approves the quality and carry the drugs across the border in two motorcycle batteries. They meet their “connection,” Phil Spector (who is again in the headlines in 2007) at LAX and are well paid for their efforts. Watch for a continuity error as Wyatt loads the money into a plastic tube that he hides in his chopper’s gas tank. He is wearing a Rolex watch. You’ll see it transform itself into a Timex that he intentionally leaves behind at a Stonehenge-like ruin when they begin their eastward journey.

The soundtrack is fabulous! Hopper originally intended Crosby, Stills and Nash to write the soundtrack, but decided to use a “found music” soundtrack of contemporary hits from various artists instead. Thank goodness. I’d suggest running the subtitles during the film to pick up the real lyrics of songs we may have THOUGHT we knew The soundtrack includes:

“Born to be Wild,” Steppenwolf.
“The Weight,” Smith.
“Wasn’t Born to Follow,” The Byrds.
“San Francisco Nights,” Eric Burdon & The Animals.
“The Pusher,” Steppenwolf.
“It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding,)” Roger McGuinn.
“Nights In White Satin,” The Moody Blues.
“Get Together,” The Youngbloods.

Dennis Hopper should receive kudos, not only as actor and director, but for his uncanny knack for casting just the right person for the role. Jack Nicholson is superb as George Hanson. His Venusian speech delivered by the campfire is one of the highlights of the film. Hopper’s genius for “finding” actors among the local townspeople is legendary. Hayward Roubillard as the “Cat Man” in the Morganza, Louisiana café who predicts, “I don’t think they’ll make the parish line,” is perfect. The Pick-Up truck occupants at the end of the film are also locals, one of which gave literal meaning to the western term, “riding shotgun.” (The dual assassinations at the end of the film may be symbolic of the deaths of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King which actually happened during the filming of “Easy Rider.” Hopper had marched to Montgomery, Alabama with King.)

The shotgun killings of Billy and Wyatt at the end of “Easy Rider” are depressing to be sure, but even more so after the exchange between the two “outlaws” in their final campfire scene.

Billy: We’re rich, Wyatt. We’re rich, man. We’re retired in Florida now, Mister!

Wyatt: No, Billy. We blew it

“Easy Rider” earns five out of five lug nuts—or spokes as the case may be.

9. “The French Connection,” starring Gene Hackman
10. “Le Mans,” starring Steve McQueen

The month of May means “Indianapolis” to motorsports purists. June means “Le Mans.” Why June? Because June 21st has the most minutes of daylight of any day of the year…the perfect time to run a twice around the clock event. Back in 1923 when the Le Mans 24 Hour event began, racing headlamps were not the best…so by racing with maximum daylight the dangers were somewhat diminished.

As far as motorsports movies go…why “Le Mans?” “Grand Prix,” which documented Formula One was released in 1966. “Winning,” which covered the Indianapolis 500, came out in 1969. That left “Le Mans” unchronicled, and Steve McQueen felt 1970 was the year to rectify that oversight.

When ‘Le Mans’ was released in 1971, it was not treated kindly by many critics. “Too much racing, and not enough story to appeal to a general audience,” they said. Steve McQueen, the racer, made “Le Mans” for racers like himself, not for critics. In this critic’s mind, there can never be “too much racing” in a film. I saw “Le Mans” at a drive-in during my senior year in high school. It was so good, I actually watched the movie. I vividly remember McQueen’s hands twitching involuntarily as he “came to” after being knocked out in his accident. Now THAT was acting. Four years later when I was in college in England, I thumbed across the Channel to experience the 1975 version of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in person. McQueen’s film had done its job. I was hooked on racing. Thirty five years after watching the movie at an Ohio drive-in, I’m reviewing THAT film.

To say “Le Mans” was an unconventional film is an understatement. It takes 36 minutes and 34 seconds before Steve McQueen, as racer Michael Delaney utters his first line, “Watch out for the red Lola.” It is 38 and a half minutes before he says, “Hello” to Lisa Belgetti…the other main character in the film. Now THAT takes guts! However, those first 36 minutes are far from boring!

The film begins with a 911 Porsche gliding through a gentle “S” curve, then traversing a tunnel of trees…pausing by the magnificent cathedral at Le Mans, where a beautiful woman is buying flowers. (We find out later it is Lisa Belgetti, whose husband was killed at Le Mans a year earlier in a shunt with Michael Delaney.) The car stops at Maison Blanche on the race course where a new piece of guard rail has been installed. The first close up of Steve as Michael Delaney happens at 3:30. He flashes back to the previous year’s accident at that exact spot…hence the new guard rail.

It is 7 minutes into the film when “Steve McQueen” and “Le Mans” credits appear on the screen. Michel Legrand’s fantastic musical score and brilliant cinematography by Rene Guissart Jr. and Robert B. Hauser hold the audience’s attention. We are presented with a buffet of visual hors d’oeuvres. We progress from an empty grandstand, pit and paddock to a vignette of sleeping fans…in cars, tents, under tarps, in sleeping bags and beside motorcycles…even on the ground without a blanket. It is the calm before the storm…the onslaught of a quarter million fans!

At 10:00 police officers fire up their motorcycles in a ballet of precision…but one cop’s bike doesn’t start. The mega traffic jam…near gridlock on the arteries as cars inch along the capillary roads like multicolored corpuscles… aerial footage shows vehicles quickly filling the parking lots like a population explosion of Matchbox, Dinky, Hot Wheels and other die cast

14:50 In a brilliant piece of moviemaking, McQueen uses the track public address announcer to tell the story of the history of the 24 Hours of Le Mans as footage of preparation of cars in the pits holds our attention.

19:00 Michael Delaney enters the pits in his driving uniform.

26:00 Michael’s heart is beating faintly.

27:50 Hearbeat increases to drop of flag…three seconds of agonizing silence… clock clicks to 4 p.m….engines fire…all hell breaks lose…the race begins.

28:14 Check out the pained expression of the female fan in the blue blouse.

29:33 Enjoy the “road kill” camera angle of the cars at speed.

36:34 Steve McQueen says his first line in the film, “Watch out for the red Lola.”

38:04 The “so called” press photographers in the film must have REALLY FAST film in their cameras. They are photographing Michael in very low-light conditions with no flash.

38:29 Michael says “Hello,” to Lisa Belgetti…the first time the main characters speak to each other.

45:45 Two hours into the race and it’s dark. Seems like a continuity error. It must have been “The Mother of all Thunderstorms.”

55:36 You won’t believe your eyes. A female John the Baptist…on a platter.

56:10 Short vignette of cotton candy eating couple.

56:37 Another no-flash night shot by a “photographer” in a “Michigan” sweatshirt.

59:08 Finally! A photographer who uses flash to take a properly exposed picture. He’s probably about 8 years old. Bravo!

59:33 Michael walks by his own photograph in the buffet line.

1:02:55 “Birdman?” Or is it his index finger?

1:03:30 Dawn on the Mulsanne at Le Mans. I always wanted to write that.

1:05:08 How about this to build up your driver’s confidence before he heads out to do 200 plus MPH in the rain? “Watch the handling, Michael. Just a slight concern about the rear uprights.”

1:07:30 Huge Ferrari crash… the car launches through a billboard into the woods…gigantic pyrotechnic display.

1:09:08 Explosion distracts Michael, who nearly runs over slower car…huge shunt.

1:09:16 Look for the yellow bodywork underneath the Porsche skin. (A sheep in wolf’s clothing?)

1:09:35 Michael comes to from the crash…twitches…this is the scene I recall from 35 years ago. He replays the accident over and over. Watch for the yellow bodywork.

1:19:20. How refreshing…a driver who admits his error instead of blaming something or someone else. “My fault…I made a mistake. I wrote the car off.”

1:21:37 THE BIG SCENE. Michael Delaney and Lisa Belgetti.
MD: “This isn’t just a thousand to one shot. This is a professional blood sport…and it can happen to you. And then it can happen to you again.”

LB: “When people risk their lives…shouldn’t it be for something very important?”

MD: “Well…it better be.”

LB: “What is so important about driving faster than anyone else?”

MD: “A lot of people go through life doing things badly. Racing is important to men who do it well. When you’re racing…it’s life. Anything that happens before or after…is just waiting.”

1:24:09 The smoking woman.

1:24:24 The man with the mini-Sombrero.

1:27:50 David to Michael: “I want you to replace Ritter (in Car #21). He’s not quick enough. I want you to drive flat out. I want Porsche to win Le Mans.”

1:31:10 Porsche #21 goes from filthy to clean in two seconds

I won’t spoil the film by divulging the finish.

1:43:10 Michael flips the “two fingered British Bird” to his Ferrari rival It is significant that Michael did not just use the American one-fingered version…especially since the film takes place in France. Centuries before, during the wars between the French and English…if English archers were captured by the French…their index and middle “bow fingers” with which they pulled back the arrow…were amputated so they could never again pull back an arrow in anger against France. The British have used the “two fingered salute” ever since…to show the French that they still have the necessary digits to do damage if provoked. It seems like a great way to end an excellent racing film. I give it four out of five lug nuts.

11. “Rendezvous”

How long can you hold your breath? “Rendezvous” may make you set a personal best. It is less than NINE minutes long, yet it will give you more thrills and chills than Hollywood blockbusters many times as long. Jeremy Clarkson says, “It makes ‘Bullitt’ look like a cartoon.” “Car and Driver” says, “Better than any chase scene ever filmed, because it’s real.”

The DVD jacket claims, “Lelouch’s electrifying drive has to be seen to be believed. No car chase on film has, or ever will, come close. The reality of no special effects, edits, or blocking off streets is terrifying. A once in a lifetime experience, it can never be repeated-no one is that insane.”

From the opening flutter of a rapidly beating heart…to the finale…the phantom driver’s rendezvous with his heartthrob, a mysterious blonde bombshell…and the bonging heartbeat of Sacre Coeur’s bells (Doesn’t Sacre Coeur mean “sacred heart” in French?)…the only other sounds the viewer hears are the throbbing engine and squealing tires of the mysterious sportscar weaving its way through the weblike maze of pre-dawn Paris. It is more than enough. You do not need a soundtrack…some sappy song or silly score…it would only dilute the visceral impact of this motoring masterpiece.

In “The Greatest Movie Car Chases of All Time” Jesse Crosse tells the full story of “Rendezvous” after interviewing the producer of the remastered DVD of the film, Richard Symons and the man himself, Claude Lelouch. I will give the “Cliff Notes” version. Leloch had just completed a feature film and had a gyro mounted camera and one thousand feet of film left…enough for about ten minutes. He tried to get permission from Parisian authorities to make his “Rendezvous” but was denied. He decided to mount the camera low on his still unnamed sportscar and drive the film himself. Ten minutes was not enough time to drive at legal speeds so he got the advice of racers and stunt drivers who told him he could run red lights…”as long as he was traveling fast enough, it was unlikely he would collide with another car arriving at an intersection at the same time.” Unlikely?

Lelouch confessed, “I didn’t feel like I was the director. I was driving the car and everything just happened. It was God’s work.” Mon Dieu! Lelouch was arrested once the film was released and that probably drove it underground. Today Lelouch, according to Crosse’s book, says he’s ashamed and the film was a selfish act and was totally immoral because of the danger he caused. Was it immoral…or immortal? You the viewer must watch it SEVERAL times and then decide.

I honestly tried watching “Rendezvous” so I could document for you readers how many red lights Lelouch ran, how many cars he passed, how many pedestrians he avoided and how many pigeons just missed becoming hood ornaments. I must admit I got a different number each time I watched the film. Something distracted me…I saw another pedestrian emerge from the shadows…or another bird just miss a fender…I THINK he ran 19 red lights, passed 29 moving vehicles, missed 10 pedestrians and avoided 19 flocks of pigeons…all in eight and a half minutes! I guarantee that each time you watch the film you will see something new. How can I justify you spend $29.95 for this 9 minute DVD? It’s rather like the old joke about the patient who complained to his dentist for charging $30 to extract his tooth…and it only took 30 seconds. The dentist replied, “I can take as long as you want to remove the tooth. How long do you want it to take?” Some things are best if they only last a short time. “Rendezvous” is one of them. It gets my highest rating…five out of five lug nuts. Magnifique!

12. “Vanishing Point”

“Vanishing Point’s” jacket gives a nice synopsis of “The Ultimate Car Chase Movie!”

Thrills, spills…and a handful of pills. It all adds up to one of the most spectacular car chases in motion picture history! Barry Newman stars as Kowalski, the last American hero, who sets out to prove that he can drive from Denver to San Francisco in just 15 hours. Along the way he meets an old prospector, a snake worshipper, a nude woman on a motorcycle, and a blind D.J. who “sees” danger ahead in this super-charged, action packed adventure.

The plot line seems simple. Kowalski works for Argo’s Car Delivery and is determined to drive the Challenger R/T to a client in San Francisco…1250 miles from Denver…in 15 hours. A “Challenging” run that would require an average speed of 83 MPH. Through flashbacks we find that Kowalski is far from your “average” driver. He is an ex-stock car, demolition derby and motorcycle racer. He is an ex-cop and Medal of Honor winner in Vietnam.

The enigmatic hero’s cause is taken up by blind radio DJ “Super Soul,”(played by Cleavon Little in his first movie role) who becomes the “eyes” that guide “K” as he tries to evade pursuing police and avoid roadblocks on his odyssey. Super Soul waxes poetic…

“And there goes the Challenger, being chased by the blue, blue meanies on wheels. The vicious traffic squad cars are after our lone driver, the last American hero, the electric centaur, the demi-god, the super driver of the golden west! Two nasty Nazi cars are close behind the beautiful lone driver. The police numbers are getting’ closer, closer, closer to our soul hero, in his soul mobile, yeah baby! They about to strike. They gonna get him. Smash him. Rape…the last beautiful free soul on the planet.”

Forgive Super Soul for being melodramatic…because he is also very accurate. His prophetic lines…” He’s the Last American Hero to whom speed means freedom of the soul. The question is not when he’s gonna stop, but who’s gonna stop him.” More accurately…WHAT’s gonna stop him. It turns out to be two Caterpillar bulldozers.

Things to watch for in the film include:

The driver of a Jaguar XKE that challenges Kowalski to a race. He questions what’s under K’s hood by asking, “Got any balls in that Mother?” WITHOUT moving his lips.

Kowalski crosses over a divided highway twice evading the police…then being a law-abiding citizen, uses his turn signal before he moves into the right lane.

Charlotte Rampling plays a gorgeous hitchhiker picked up by Kowalski on his way to San Francisco. She is the metaphor for his untimely demise when she utters the prophetic lines, “I’ve been waiting for you for a long time…everywhere and forever…patiently.” She gives him the “kiss of death” then disappears in the morning. Unfortunately her scenes are cut from the US release…but appear in the UK version that is offered on the “flip side” of the DVD.

The car that crashes into the bulldozers is a Challenger stunt double…look for the Camaro badge on the severed hood.

“Vanishing Point” is as good today as I remembered it from three and a half decades ago. I rate it four out of five lug nuts. Add it to your DVD collection. You won’t be disappointed.