Club Arnage

Thanks to my mate for the tip off.
The Steve McQueen movie "Le Mans" is due to be released on Region 2 DVD on 7th July 2003.
Play.com have it for £11.99 delivered.
Amazon.co.uk have it for £14.39.
I'll finally be able to replace my old NTSC video version.

The region 1 version is £10.99 at play.com.

Stu

Excuse my stupidity, but what is the difference between regions????? ??? :-[

Region 1 is US and Region 2 is most of Europe (I think - something like that anyway!).

 ;D

Region 1 is US, Region 2 is Europe.   Basically means that unless you have an "all regions" DVD player or have re-chipped/re-programmed a Region 2 DVD player, a Region 1 player won't play Region 2 DVDs and vice versa.   I think there are a total of 5 regions worldwide.  

Just got the dvd from deepdiscountdvd.com in the states for $13.56 including shipping. Yes, it is a great movie. Always brings back fond memories. Reminds one of how much things have changed at the circuit over the years, especially from the spectator's viewpoint. I have two favorite racing flics, Le Mans and Grand Prix. I am old enough to remember seeing Grand Prix in its original release in Cinerama. (Remember the very wide screen Cinerama, 3 cameras & 3 projectors, great sound system.) The opening scenes were breathtaking. Likewise the driving scenes with the driver's view of the track ahead in the center section, gear shifting in the right section, and footwork in the right section. I don't believe that it is available in DVD. Don't make'em like that anymore. Computer graphics is great, but.
Joe

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Mine is coming from amazon.co.uk ...

I should receive it tomorrow or Thursday at last.

Does it exists at minima a french subtitle and better a french version on the  region 2 DVD ??

Gilles, I wouldn't have thought you would have worried whether there's a french subtitle.
The dialogue is pretty minimal and there's a very thin plot line, just loads of great cars running around our favourite circuit.
 ;D

Mine arrived yesterday from Play.com. Digitally remastered, it is awsome! The crash where David Piper lost his leg in a stunt gone wrong is mind numbing. It was good to see Piper at Le Mans hoofing his 917 around in the Legends race.

And Gilles, you can set the menu to put up French subtitles. Sorry we won't be seeing you at Goodwood BTW.

Sorry not to go to goodwood...

... gonna be replaced by the French GT races here in le Mans this week end.

I still wait for you in september for the LM historic and of course in November for ELMS.

I gonna broadcast the Mac Queen Trilogy, "le Mans", "The great escape" and "Bullitt"... any other movies I forgot ??

Andy,
 Has your DVD got something that mine hasn't.
David lost his leg in a 917 accident, but its not in the film. Are you mistaking it for the Steve McQueen 917 crash, which was done with a radio controlled Lola T70 with 917 bodywork ?

The actual Piper crash was real nasty when you see the picture of what was left of the car, which is printed in the excellent book "A French Kiss With Death".

BTW , Your fiver arrived. Thank you very much.

Regards
Chris

Incredible movie...

... absolutely a must-have !!!!

For me the game is to recognize all the places, and I still investigate for the exact location of the village with the church and the bridge in the first sequence...

... ok it's not really a film, otherwise Mc Queen would have shag Bertelli's wife in his caravan  :P ...

... but it's a wonderful documentary !

And I really didn't need the translation because it's nearly a non-speaking movie !!!

Not a documentary or you'd actually SEE the cars that came in first, second and third for more than a fraction of a second!  The best racing film by a country mile, though, and I was there, soaking wet, nearly run over by Steve in the sawn off GT40 camera car.  (Continuing a tradition I'd begun at Zandvoort in '66 where they were filming "Grand Prix").

Sad there's no extras on the DVD.  There was a good "Making of...." (including Derek Bell's fire, etc) at the time which has not been seen for years.  You can get the video of Chad McQueen's Speedvision documentary on the film (NTSC format) which is quite good but doesn't give you the warts and all view you get from the excellent Keyser/Williams book.

I must admit that I've always thought the McQueen crash is the weakest part of the film as the 917 body is too wide for the Lola's track, you can see the bottom of the yellow bodywork with number 11 on it, and it doesn't move right, somehow.  (That and the fact that the last two laps are run in the wrong order in terms of the sequence of corners with the 22 car getting clean, then dirty, then clean again - tragic after all the obsessive trouble McQueen had taken over the rest of the film).

But what the hell, the start sequence and the racing sequences are just awesome.

Please excuse my total and inexcusable ignorance but can anyone shed some more light on how the film was made? (don't have time to read the books)

I assume most of the footage was actually filmed during the race in 1969 / 70? Did Steve McQueen actually drive the car in the race? Did they have to 'borrow' a lot of the cars for filming 'in car' scenes and 'close up on-track' scenes and 'crash scenes' at a later date? Are all the drivers at the start when the camera pans up the front of each car actual drivers or actors? etc, etc, etc.

Any info would be appreciated as I've got a gathering of Le Mans regulars in September and the plan is to watch the DVD in the back garden at night just before we set off our fireworks. (I bought the film in July but have only allowed myself to watch the first 5-10 mins so the first time I see it properly will be in Sept.)

The evening needs to be authentic so I'm actually going to France next week to stock up on Merguez Sausages, Croky Crisps, Stubbies of dodgy beer and brown kegs of cheap red! I'll also have to p**s all over the floor in the toilet and install pink bog roll at a euro a sheet.

Any good website links with info would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Rich - Team Gulp Racing

Steve McQueen intended to drive in the 1970 race (rumoured with Jackie Stewart) having come second at Sebring in a 908 with Peter Revson.  Opinions differ as to how much McQueen actually drove there: Andretti (who won having swapped Ferraris after his broke) claimed Revson did >90% of the driving but he has no time for McQueen as a driver so would not like to be thought to have had a close finish with him.

Anyhow, Solar Productions insurers and investors banned McQueen from driving at Le Mans as he was their only asset (no other big name stars in the film).  So his Sebring 908 was converted to carry cameras front and rear and entered in the race.  Where it outperformed most of the field in the hands of Jonathan Williams.

After the race was over, Solar Productions took over the circuit, borrowed and bought representative cars (Jo Siffert made a fortune out of this) and played racing for months.  So much so that the leaves started to turn brown and the story goes that the film crew had to paint them green to fix continuity.  As is always the way when a film-maker gets carried away, the studio took the film away from him and it was finished by others.  So some of it is perfect (they say McQueen personally supervised the placement of bugs on the windshields) and some of it is rushed (the last couple of laps).

The definitive study of the film is Michael Keyser and Jonathan Williams' wonderful book "A French Kiss With Death" (details on Keyser's "Autosportltd" website).  There's a 30minute NTSC video that you can get from the States for about $15 with interviews with some of the survivors including McQueen's son's description of being taken by his father to the crash site where David Piper lost his leg.

It's one of my alltime favourite films, but it's probably not art or on Barry Norman's top 100 million films list.