"color me gone" finale at trylon friday: Grand Prix

The closing weekend of Trylon's "Color Me Gone: The Racing Picture" brings you Grand Prix, the 1966 John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate, The Birdman of Alcatraz) film seriously upped the game that is race car film:

Color Me Gone: The Racing Picture

Grand Prix

The Trylon

Fri Jan 28 7:00 Sat Jan 29 7:00 Sun Jan 30 3:45 7:00 
(1966, John Frankenheimer, HD-DVD, 176m) Younger audiences may know John Frankenheimer as the director of the late 90s white-knuckled heist flick Ronin. Here, he commands a huge international cast (including Toshiro Mifune, Yves Montand, James Garner, and Eva Marie Saint), and cutting-edge stuntwork to bring to life the high-stakes world of Formula One racing.

I don't think this will presented in 70mm cinerama, sadly.  But there are other aspects of the film worth celebrating, I assure you.  Why, look at what Anne Friedberg has to say about it in her book The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft:

Frankenheimer and cinematographer Lionel Lindon mounted specially constructed cameras on racing cars, combined dynamic point-of-view racing footage with helicopter footage from above.

and later:

its tripartite split of the screen's wide-aspect ratio was a notably new narrative technique.

If that still doesn't convince you, Wikipedia tells me there's other interesting tidbits to keep you entertained, like:

•The level of driving ability of the actors varied wildly - Bedford couldn't drive at all, Sabato was very slow and nervous, Montand himself scared very easily early in filming and was often towed rather than driving the car, but Garner was highly competent and took up racing and entering cars as a result of his involvement in the film.


•Sub-plots revolve around the women who try to live with or love men with dangerous lifestyles.

Not sure why that last bit was necessary in the original article, but here I am passing it on to you.