Documentary charting the making of Steve McQueen's infamous 1971 flop Le Mans. Rare audio recordings, behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with McQueen's family provide fascinating insight into the actor's often volatile personality, which threatened to derail the project, and made for one of the most fraught movie productions in Hollywood history.
When "King of Cool" Steve McQueen decided to star in a drama about the Le Mans 24-hour motor race, Hollywood bigwigs must have licked their lips in anticipation of the box-office returns. After all, how could a high-speed spectacle with a car-racing superstar go wrong? However, when Le Mans was released in 1971, it ended up a financial and critical failure. With access to audio recordings and behind-the-scenes footage, directors Gabriel Clarke and John McKenna diligently reveal how McQueen's obsession with authenticity resulted in reels of actual race footage but no script, which reduced original director John Sturges - the man who moulded the McQueen persona in The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape - to little more than a frustrated bystander. Production staff, the drivers (including eventual Le Mans winner Derek Bell) and McQueen's ex-wife Neile Adams and son Chad provide fascinating insight into the maverick actor's volatile personality ("I'm not a compromiser") and his off-screen antics. Petrolheads will revel in the state-of-the-art race sequences but like Le Mans itself, this watchable documentary detailing how one man's labour of love turns to utter folly could have done with some judicious editing to create a tighter, more substantial affair.
| role | name |
|---|---|
| Steve McQueen | Steve McQueen (1) |
| Chad McQueen | Chad McQueen |
| Neile Adams | Neile Adams |
| Derek Bell | Derek Bell |
| Alan R Trustman | Alan R Trustman |
| David Piper | David Piper |
| Siegfried Rauch | Siegfried Rauch |
| Louise Edlind | Louise Edlind |
| role | name |
|---|---|
| Director | Gabriel Clarke |
| Director | John McKenna |
