Downhill Racer
Director: Michael Ritchie (1969)
Cast: Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, Camilla Sparv
Downhill Racer is a guilty pleasure-type of Robert Redford film. It is realistic and shows some fantastic ski scenes in Europe. Gene Hackman is brilliant as the coach. This is one to watch if you want to be inspited to go skiing, or just watching the pros race.
David Chappellet (Robert Redford) is a talented skier, who slides into the last slot on the 1968 Olympic Ski team over the concern of team coach Eugene Claire (Gene Hackman) who sees his unique skill, but is not sure if he has what it takes to be a champion.
With an up-and-coming leading man in Redford and a very talented rookie director in Michael Ritchie, the crew had to stretch every dollar to make the miniscule budget of$1.6M work to finish this movie. To make everything look authentic, the crew would mimic the Olympic film crew in Grenobile, France as they were covering the actual event. Redford would jump in and ski the same track for closeups and wide shots. The crew would later use Redford's home (Sundance Ranch) in Utah to get extra shots.
The film was released after "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," which gained the film extra free publicity.
Fun Facts: In 1956 when he was a student at Van Nuys High School, Redford was a Hall monitor for a school assembly. As he was closing the door a beautiful girl asked if she get in. He was about to say "no" when a friend told him to let her in. "What's up with her?" His friend replied, "That's Natalie Wood." Redford replied "I've never seen her before." The friend told him that "she was a working actress."
A few years later Wood and Redford would co-star in "This Property is Condemned" and "Inside Daisy Clover.”
Natalie Wood's second husband was British film producer Richard Gregson, who was the producer of "Downhill Racer." Wood was playing the role of the new wife and she asked her husband "Is there anything I can do?" "We can use a production assistant." She jumped right into it and was a "Grunt" for the rest of the production.
