DOWNHILL RACER (1969) C 101m dir: Michael Ritchie

w/Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, Carmilla Sparv, Karl Michael Vogler, James McMullan, Christian Doermer, Kathleen Crowley, Dabney Coleman, Kenneth Kirk, Oren Stevens

Superb, understated drama about a ski champion, played with understated passion by Redford, who finds himself part of an American team competing for the honor of going to the Olympics.

From The Movie Guide: "An influential and extremely well-done sports film, worth watching even if you don't normally enjoy films of this type. Documentarian in style, DOWNHILL RACER is a strangely dispassionate but captivating look behind the glamorous facade of international ski racing. ...

"Redford, who was determined to make a skiing film, went to great lengths to sell the project: soliciting a screenplay from James Salter, enlisting a team of photographers and ski bums to shoot 20,000 feet of action on the sly at the 1968 Grenoble Olympics, and giving Michael Ritchie, who provides a sure directorial hand, his first feature film assignment. As with a number of later Ritchie films, the focus here is on the price paid in pursuit of what seems to be victory. The acting is fine all around, with kudos to Redford for being unafraid to make his character dislikable at the core. Many of the downhill scenes were filmed by skier Joe Jay Jalbert, who raced behind Redford with a camera, adding to the film's realism and excitement. DOWNHILL RACER is fascinating viewing, even if the closest you've gotten to a ski slope is 'Wide World of Sports.'"