Downhill Racer *** (1969, Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, Camilla Sparv) – Classic Movie Review 4,181

Robert Redford makes a good job of playing an unsympathetic role as a cocky loner picked for the American Olympic ski team at the Winter Olympics, in the 1969 film Downhill Racer.

Director Michael Ritchie’s attractive feature film début is a sharp and involving realist-style look at competitive sport and news-gathering. Downhill Racer is packed full of exciting shots of skiing action, thanks to cameras attached to the skiers’ helmets, and handsome Alpine scenery.

Alas the 1969 public didn’t take to the idea of golden boy Robert Redford playing David Chappellet, an arrogant, cocky loner picked for the American Olympic ski team as downhill racer at the Winter Olympics but he makes a good job of this unsympathetic part.

Also on the movie’s plus side is Gene Hackman’s strong performance as the team’s tough coach Eugene Claire, who clashes with Chappellet. With these two scene-stealing stars on this kind of form, who is going to notice Swedish lovely Camilla Sparv as the hero’s wan love interest, Carole Stahl, a glamorous but capricious European woman with whom Chappellet has a short-lived relationship ?

James Salter writes the polished screenplay based on the 1963 novel The Downhill Racers by Oakley Hall, managing plenty of drama, lots of action and even an exciting climax.

Also in the cast are Joe Jay Jalbert, Thomas Kirk, Dabney Coleman, Karl Michael Vogler, Jim McMullan, Christian Doermer, Kathleen Crowley, Kenneth Kirk, Oren Stevens, Jerry Dexter, Walter Stroud and Carole Carle.

Redford was in vogue at the 1970 British Academy Film Awards. He won Best Actor in a Leading Role for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here and Downhill Racer. He’s excellent in a remarkable trio of movies.

It was shot on location in Kitzbühel and St Anton, Austria; Wengen, Switzerland; Megève and Grenoble, France; and Boulder and Idaho Springs, Colorado.

Paramount Pictures got cold feet and cancelled the film three weeks before shooting, but warmed up again and gave the green light again when the budget was reduced from $3.5 million to $1.8 million. Just as well, apparently, as it took only $1.9 million at the box office, even though it was released only a month after Redford’s smash hit Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

It premiered at the Granada Theatre in Reno, Nevada, on October 28, 1969.

The British premiere was at the Screen on the Green, London, with Richard Attenborough, Laurence Olivier and Brian Forbes in the audience.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4,181

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