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neil-egan
Reviews
Michel Vaillant (2003)
Disappointing
First of all to gerhard24's comments - the cars at LeMans use normal petrol however, they have a special refueling system with two hoses, one on each side of the car: fuel in one side, air out the other so you're right, they couldn't have refueled at a regular filling station. As for the smoke coming out the front of the Leader: this is perfectly accurate as the Panoz LPM1 (aka "Leader") has it's engine in the front - one of the only racing prototypes at LeMans that does.
Anyway, I found the movie really disappointing. I was at LeMans 2002 when the two extra cars ran to film the sequences for this movie. We were all really looking forward to seeing the final result and frankly I was gutted when I did. Lame story with far too many inaccuracies to make it it any way believable: no way anyone could run out onto the track (Odessa) and and and....They missed out completely on building up the atmosphere before the race and from the way it was filmed it looked like only the Vaillants and Leaders were racing.
However, in Germany the DVD s well worth buying just for the additional material: making of and a series of complete laps of LeMans filmed from inside the Vaillant (Courage) and the Leader (Panoz). Great stuff! Dump the movie though.
Battle of Britain (1969)
Music during opening titles
During the opening titles we hear a rousing piece of music which continues during the entire sequence as the German officers inspect the assembled fleets of Heinkels on the ground in France. Unortunately, this is not the music that is usually listed as being the theme music from the movie. Does anyone reading know if this piece was written for the film or if it was an existing piece which was borrowed? I'd love to get my hands on it if possible. All in all an excellent movie which I first saw when it came out in 1969. Apart from the famous front door gaff, and the rather unleveling model Heinkel crashing into the railway station in London there is little if anything to fault. A ripping adventure which would also serve well as a classroom tutorial for teaching the history of the battle.