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02:22

1

Name: 1
Director: Paul Crowder
Genre: Documentary, Sport, Action, History
Released: 2013
Duration: 1 h 46 min

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Documentary
Sport

2013
Paul Crowder
106 mins
12A

Summary

Michael Fassbender narrates this documentary exploring the history of Formula One motor racing during the golden era of the 1960s and 70s.

IMDB

Review

A star rating of 3 out of 5.

David Parkinson

Paul Crowder's disconcerting motor-racing documentary revisits the technical shortcomings and bureaucratic intransigence exposed by Richard Heap in 2011 TV film Grand Prix: the Killer Years, and examines the gradual realisation that the gladiatorial ethos that made Formula 1 such a glamorous sport had to be tempered by a common-sense approach to safety. In all, 41 drivers perished in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, among them legends like Scottish double world champ Jim Clark and Austrian Jochen Rindt, who remains the only posthumous champion in F1 history. But, as narrator Michael Fassbender and a Who's Who of ex-drivers reveal, it was only when motor racing became a television staple that emerging players Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley decided the constant threat of death was no longer a selling point. Crowder might have done a slicker job of merging archive footage with talking-head testimony, while he lingers over the rivalry between Niki Lauda and James Hunt. But petrolheads won't care a jot.

imdb-square

7.9/10