CHECK OUT THIS MOVIE
If you happen to have Showtime channels on cable, check Showtime Extreme, which is showing “Downhill Racer” tonight. It is well worth recording and watching.
To me, this is the best sports movie ever made. Made in 1969, when there was no US Olympic skiing champion, it is prescient about the kind of “sports hero” that exists today. The scenes of how “professional sports” were back then are almost quaint in the way they operate and the idealistic view of the world the participants hold. Except for Dave Chappelet.
This is the movie Robert Redford chose to make after “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” when Hollywood was asking “what do you want to do that we can say yes to?” He plays Chappelet.
The skiing photography is amazing when you consider that they had to put a 16mm camera on top of the skier’s helmet to get the POV shots.
I’m not going to tell you more, because I don’t want to spoil it. I will tell you that the screenplay is by James Salter, a name those into “serious literature” will be familiar with. It’s the only screenplay he wrote that was ever made into a movie.
This is one of my top ten. I watch it every time it shows. It never disappoints.
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Written by Jim Salter. I met him in Aspen once and we talked for a couple of hours at a bar before he told me he was a classmate of my father's and my father was one of the few cadets he knew who were not anti-Semitic. I told him I had been a Jew at West Point because I hated the protestant chaplain so much -- these were in the days when going to church was mandatory. You were supposed to be able to choose which church you went to, but the Deputy Commandant made me write to my parents and get permission to attend Jewish services. This became a major issue in federal court when the lawsuit was filed that overturned what we called mandatory chapel. Jim was a great guy. I knew him when he lived in Sagaponack, and I lived in Sag Harbor. Used to have him over for dinner. One of the smartest people I ever met, and I've met quite a few smart people.
I was on our high school ski team when that movie came out and our coach had the entire boys and girls alpine ski teams bussed to the theater where it was showing. Fabulous movie. I'd love to see it again--I'll check our cable menu!