Themes: Haunted By the Past, Fathers and Sons, Class Differences
Main Cast: Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, Camilla Sparv, Karl Michael Vogler, Jim McMullan
Release Year: 1969
Country: US
Run Time: 102 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Director Michael Ritchie's ongoing satirical spin on the American Dream is dressed up in quasi-documentary fashion in Downhill Racer. Robert Redford stars as an Olympic-grade skier, whose talent is matched only by his aloof self-involvement. As the cocksure Redford rises to the top of his class, he discards any emotional attachments that might impede his progress, ranging from girlfriends to his own father. When Redford finally attains his goal in life, the thrill of victory is an empty one indeed. The cold-bloodedness of Redford's character may have worked against Downhill Racer at the box office; on the other hand, Ritchie's similarly structured political satire The Candidate offered a "warmer" Redford -- but it, too, was a box-office disappointment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
If any film could be described as "exhilaratingly dispassionate," Michael Ritchie's icy take on the world of professional athletics would be it. One of a pair of image-skewering films the director made with mega-star Robert Redford at the height of his popularity -- 1972's The Candidate being the other -- Downhill Racer never goes for the easy satirical punchline in its analysis of Redford's arrogant Olympic skier, David Chappellet. Instead, the movie has documentary-style snippets of his life on and off the slopes, and the ski scenes and supporting characters are conveyed with so much scruffy, propulsive realism that David -- the hub that holds them all together -- seems all the more shallow and undeserving. In the end, Ritchie and Redford expose the time-honored fallacy that a talented performer is as passionate and charismatic outside of the spotlight as he or she is in it. Although very much a piece with the late-'60s, early-'70s New Hollywood trend towards unsavory protagonists and social exposés, Downhill Racer's unflinching portrait of hollowness almost bears more in common with the empty anti-heroes of such literary works as John Updike's Rabbit novels, John Cheever's Falconer, or Jerzy Kosinski's Being There (the latter of which Hal Ashby would potently adapt for the screen in 1979). ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Christian Doermer - Brumm; Kathleen Crowley - American Newspaperwoman; Dabney Coleman - Mayo; Kenneth Kirk - D.K. Bryan; Oren Stevens - Kipsmith; Carole Carle - Lena; Rip McManus - Bruce Devore; Joe Jay Jalbert - Tommy Erb; Tom J. Kirk - Stiles; Robin Hutton-Potts - Gabriel; Heini Schuler - Meier; Eddie Waldburger - Haas; Marco Walli - Istel; Jenny Dexter - Ron Engel; Michael Gempart - Hotel Receptionist; Noam Pitlik - TV Announcer; Walter Stroud - Mr. Chappellet; Jack Ballard - Candy Vendor; Harald Dietl - Journalist
Credit
Ian Whittaker - Art Director, Nick Archer - Art Director, Cynthia May - Costume Designer, Walter Coblenz - First Assistant Director, Kip Gowans - First Assistant Director, Michael Ritchie - Director, Nick Archer - Editor, Richard A. Harris - Editor, Kenyon Hopkins - Composer (Music Score), Harold Arlen - Songwriter, Henry Mancini - Songwriter, Johnny Mercer - Songwriter, Spiro Samara - Songwriter, Kostia Palarmas - Songwriter, Brian Probyn - Cinematographer, Richard Gregson - Producer, Kevin Sutton - Sound/Sound Designer, James Salter - Screenwriter, Oakley Hall - Book Author
The off-season scenes were filmed at various locations in Colorado; the track scene was filmed at a relatively new Potts Field, on the east campus of CU in Boulder.
Inspiration
The suspected inspiration for the lead character in the film was a composite of Spider Sabich and Billy Kidd. Sabich, a young and attractive Californian, finished fifth in the slalom at the 1968 Olympics, at age 22. Kidd was a U.S. Ski Team veteran from Vermont who won the silver medal in the slalom at the 1964 Olympics at age 20. Those close to Sabich remember him as much more positive and easy-going than Redford's character, Dave Chappellet. While Kidd was more aloof than Sabich, he too was more light-hearted (and had a much better sense of humor) than Chappellet.
A decade later, a humbler Tommy Moe won on a considerably more challenging course in Lillehammer, Norway, taking Olympic gold for the USA in 1994 by a mere 0.04 seconds over the home country favorite, Kjetil André Aamodt.
