Generally speaking, there are more bad racing movies than good ones. Many, MANY more bad ones than good ones. There are, near as we can tell, only three, out of the hundreds of racing movies made that are watchable as serious movies. Now if look at Sylvester Stallone’s “Driven” as a comedy, that’s different, but there are only three …

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1a – Grand Prix
This is very close to race car reality, circa mid-1960s. Yes, we know, there’s a horrid soap opera that breaks up the racing scenes, and some of the physics stretches credulity at times, but over all, it’s damn close. Also, the technology used in making the movie, like firing a rolling chassis out of an air cannon, was pretty trick.

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1b – Le Mans
Tied for first is Le Mans, starring the inimitable Steve McQueen. Probably the greatest thing about Le Mans the movie is that it does not give the audience any helping hands at all. It’s shot more like a documentary than a feature film. It’s very much like going to a race in 1970 for the first time. No one tells you what’s going on, and you have to figure it out for yourself. The first words of dialogue in the film don’t happen until twenty-plus minutes in, and even those are cryptic to uninitiated: “Watch out for the red Lola! The red Lola!!” The only thing it lacks is open wheels.

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3 The Racers
This is a movie you don;t hear much about any more. It was made in the late 50s and stars Kirk Douglas as an up and coming Italian racer who is mentored/rivaled by Caesar Romero. Yes, THAT Caesar Romero. That sounds like a recipe for disaster, and it is as far as the “plot” is concerned, but what this movie gives you is actual footage of the great European road races when they were at their technological peak. The Targa Florio, and especially the Mille Miglia, are writ very large at a time when the cars run on them, cars like big block Ferrari’s and Maseratis, were barely controllable alloy-bodied sportscars driven on every day roads for a thousand miles. Imagine racing in a car like that from Boston to Chicago on secondary roads, and you’ll begin to grasp the challenge

Apart from those three movies, you end up with things like The Lively Set or Burt Reynolds in a chicken suit.

Photo credits: Grand Prix poster, Le Mans Poster, Kirk Douglas.