[GV27]

Trailer is out for the much anticipated "Ford vs Ferrari" based on the excellent book "Go Like Hell" that spawned the excellent documentary "The 24 Hour War".

Unfortunately this trailer doesn't give me a good feeling that this movie will be any good. Looks like a typical Hollywood ruination of a good story. What say you?

 

[SpiderSlam5]

@GV27-

"...typical Hollywood ruination...", what was your opinion of Ron Howard's "Rush"?

Regards

 

[GV27]

Rush was great but that's an exception.

"Typical" and "always" are not synonyms.

 

[PSk]

A review I read made it sound like Ford started the campaign 90 days before their historic 66' Le Mans win. That is BS, they first raced at Le Mans in 64' where all Ford GT40s failed.

Why F with the truth, nothing wrong with the real story.

If they are talking about Shelby's involvement then they need to say they had an already running and designed car to work with ... otherwise is the movie trying to belittle Ferrari?
Pete

 

[101/105guy]

I like, but Mat Damon as Carol Shelby???
Not even close...

 

[ossodiseppia]

Oh come on. It looks fun and funny.

 

[velocewhippet]

Trailer is out for the much anticipated "Ford vs Ferrari" based on the excellent book "Go Like Hell" that spawned the excellent documentary "The 24 Hour War".

Unfortunately this trailer doesn't give me a good feeling that this movie will be any good. Looks like a typical Hollywood ruination of a good story. What say you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3asRWZaGCQk

Yea, Hollywood can ruin just about any race movie (think of Stallone in "Driven"). I'm not convinced after watching the trailer for this one, that this one will be horrible. Could be wrong though.

At one point someone was going to make "The art of racing in the rain" into a movie. That was several years ago and it never happened. Good book, but not totally a racing story.

 

[PSk]

• Driven was utter rubbish
• Grand Prix poor. Like so many made out that men race to get the girl. Do directors make movies to get the girl? Surely they don't and therefore they absolutely should understand the deeper drive a racing driver has
• Le Mans was okay, but they spent too much time with the question "why do people race"
• Rush was good. I think it got the respect and friendship between Hunt and Lauda right. I could whinge about minor details, but at least they did not go on about men racing to get a girl ... sigh. But Hemsworth with his shirt off helped many find this film worth watching ...
• Worlds Fastest Indian, IMO still the best. Finally a director was able to transfer to the screen that this guy just wanted to see what his bike would do. There honestly is nothing more to it, and there doesn't need to be anything more. Wonderfully honest and I left the theater planning an assault on the Salt Lakes, before common sense cooled me down
• Saddens me that rubbish like "Need for Speed", etc. are considered racing movies ... and so many were made, as I've already said, as some sort of romance with a woman being the motivation ... :001_9898:

This movie has to get "why Ford went to Le Mans" right. If they cannot get this across then the film should never have been made. And if they make out Carroll Shelby designed and built the GT40 from scratch in 90 days, I will throw my drink at the screen and leave in disgust :surprise: >
Pete

 

[jantar]

A review I read made it sound like Ford started the campaign 90 days before their historic 66' Le Mans win. That is BS, they first raced at Le Mans in 64' where all Ford GT40s failed.

Pete

Does the 1963 Lola Mk 6 and Eric Broadley's role get a mention?

 

[PSk]

Don't know

Pete

 

[Metalart]

Worst racing movie of all time with the Alfa Romeo Formula One Team in it, BOBBY DEERFEILD 1977

 

[shakingthrough]

Adam Carolla's documentary on a similar subject, 24 Hour War, came out in 2016 I believe. I highly enjoyed it.
Bill

 

[Alfajay]

I like, but Mat Damon as Carol Shelby??? Not even close...

Oh come on. It looks fun and funny.

I'm not sure if you two are debating or agreeing. I think you're both saying the same thing. To paraphrase what I'm hearing:

101/105: "If the director was trying to make a realistic film, casting Matt Damon as Carol Shelby was a mistake. Matt might be a great actor, but he bears no resemblance to Shelby either physically or or in his screen presence"

Osso: "Yea, but the director's goal was simply to make a fun and funny film that will appeal to millennials - not a realistic one that would appeal to the handful of people who actually know who Carol Shelby was. Oh, and to get the ladies to buy tickets."

 

[Canadian Spider]

101/105: "If the director was trying to make a realistic film, casting Matt Damon as Carol Shelby was a mistake. Matt might be a great actor, but he bears no resemblance to Shelby either physically or or in his screen presence"

Resemblance doesn’t matter. Bill Bradlee has been played by both Jason Robards and Tom Hanks (All the President’s Men and The Post). Both films were huge artistic and commercial successes.

Robert Redford as Bob Woodward? Come on.

George C. Scott doesn’t resemble Patton, but can you imagine someone else doing a better job in that role?

For eff’s sake, the best G.W. Bush comes from Will Ferrell!

If the goal was to have someone who looks and behaves like Shelby without trying, it wouldn’t be called “acting.”

 

[GV27]

Adam Carolla's documentary on a similar subject, 24 Hour War, came out in 2016 I believe. I highly enjoyed it.
Bill

Yeah, this movie and the 24 Hour War are both based on the same book - Go Like Hell by AJ Baime. The Carolla documentary was great and the book is REALLY great.

https://www.amazon.com/Go-Like-Hell-Ferrari-Battle/dp/0547336055

They just get so much wrong in this trailer. Perhaps it'll turn out that's all they got wrong but I doubt it. Here are a few particular points that bothered me:

1) "What you need is a pure racer behind the wheel of your car - that's Ken Miles". No - they had plenty of "pure racers" who were on the team before Shelby took over. A star-studded crew of some of the absolute fastest drivers in the world. In 1964 at Le Mans they had Phil Hill, Bruce McLaren, Chris Amon and Richie Ginther on the team. What they needed was a development driver with a keen engineering mind and that was where Ken Miles turned out to be absolutely brilliant.

2) Ford painted as the underdog and Ken Miles thinking the mere idea of Ford beating Ferrari to be absurd. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The vast resources of the largest automobile company in the world vs the tiny little Ferrari team? Please - obviously Ferrari had built a big rep for himself, but how could his team possible compete agains the might of Ford? It was expected Ford would wipe the floor with them.

3) I may have this wrong, but is the screaming man at the end of the trailer supposed to be Henry Ford II? The mere idea that The Deuce had never ridden in a race car - or that he would scream like a girl for any reason - is totally absurd.

 

[SpiderSlam5]

Didn't H. Ford2 try to buy Ferrari, & that's what started the "rivalry"?

Regards

 

[GV27]

Didn't H. Ford2 try to buy Ferrari, & that's what started the "rivalry"?

Regards

Yeah and it was worse than that - Enzo Ferrari apparently never had any intention of selling to Ford but instead was using Ford for leverage to get more money out of Fiat. So he strung Ford along. Finally Ford thought he had a done deal and they went over to Italy to close the deal. Upon which Ferrari said the deal was off on some minor pretense and threw the Ford guys out of his office. Obviously The Deuce wasn't going to take such an insult lying down and ordered his racing division to go beat Ferrari on the track.

 

[PSk]

Yeah and it was worse than that - Enzo Ferrari apparently never had any intention of selling to Ford but instead was using Ford for leverage to get more money out of Fiat. So he strung Ford along. Finally Ford thought he had a done deal and they went over to Italy to close the deal. Upon which Ferrari said the deal was off on some minor pretense and threw the Ford guys out of his office. Obviously The Deuce wasn't going to take such an insult lying down and ordered his racing division to go beat Ferrari on the track.

I thought it was because Ford wanted control of the whole of Ferrari, i.e. the racing too. Enzo spat the dummy about that. FIAT agreed to let Enzo keep control of the racing ...

Pete

 

[PSk]

They just get so much wrong in this trailer. Perhaps it'll turn out that's all they got wrong but I doubt it. Here are a few particular points that bothered me:

1) "What you need is a pure racer behind the wheel of your car - that's Ken Miles". No - they had plenty of "pure racers" who were on the team before Shelby took over. A star-studded crew of some of the absolute fastest drivers in the world. In 1964 at Le Mans they had Phil Hill, Bruce McLaren, Chris Amon and Richie Ginther on the team. What they needed was a development driver with a keen engineering mind and that was where Ken Miles turned out to be absolutely brilliant.

Agree, but Bruce and Chris were great development drivers too. IMO it just took time and after a couple of failures (gearboxes) they finally got things right.

Based on the trailer I don't think I'll go and see it, as it may end up annoying me more than entertaining me. Twisting history is okay, but blatant BS is another. All it does is make me realise that all "based on a true story" movies are probably miles away from the truth ... sad.
Pete

 

[GV27]

I thought it was because Ford wanted control of the whole of Ferrari, i.e. the racing too. Enzo spat the dummy about that. FIAT agreed to let Enzo keep control of the racing ...

Pete

So I'm using "Go Like Hell" as my reference here. It's the kind of academic history book I like - it's an exciting and enjoyable book to read but very well researched and very well sourced - my copy has 24 PAGES of footnotes at the end.

You're somewhat right there. Enzo's flimsy excuse did involve racing but not any race Ferrari had ever participated in. He asked them about racing the Indy 500 and they said "no, we already race at Indy and would rather not cannibalize the brand". They agreed to let him continue European racing (i.e. F1 and Le Mans). But he used that as an excuse to throw them out of the office.

Agree, but Bruce and Chris were great development drivers too. IMO it just took time and after a couple of failures (gearboxes) they finally got things right.

You could be right - yes they had guys that were good development drivers. But the book credits Ken Miles with doing the "heavy lifting" of development. Yes, McLaren and Amon were established European (well, don't tell Boris Johnson!) stars and good development drivers. But they were hired for their pure speed and experience. Ken Miles was an obscure Brit doing small-time racing in the USA. He had no international credentials and few national credentials before he was drafted in to Shelby's program. Ken Miles was brought in purely for development and ended up succeeding on the international scene in the car he developed. The other guys were brought in as stars to be "pure racers". Miles ABSOLUTELY deserves to be a star of the story, but he should be properly represented. He's the star because of his key engineering contributions; there were PLENTY of fast guys Ford could have hired. (full disclosure: I'm an engineer, so....)