When the movies want great stories, they go to the Olympics. There's always an "event" ready-made for the climax, with the possibility of winning big or losing it all in one instant. And there are obstacles — disease, prejudice, bunions, total paralysis, bad food, jealous coaches. It's all a metaphor for life, isn't it? Life is like fencing — you gotta smack somebody with a sharp metal thing to get ahead. Or life is like the 100-meter butterfly — you gotta race through a thick, wet, chlorinated pool of adversity using a stylized and utterly awkward stroke invented during the Hoover administration. Life is like diving backwards off a 30-foot platform — well, you get it.
So (tossing out documentaries and anything to do with Munich, 1972 — let's not be serious here, okay) what are the most important Olympics movies of all time?
9. Chariots of Fire (1981)
"This is a story of two men who run. Not to run, but to prove something to the world. They will sacrifice anything to achieve their goals, except their honor." With a lot of racing down the beach and a song that sticks in your head like a sharp ax, this was made during that "Hey kid, got anything like Rocky?" period of the late 70s, early 80s. It's based on a true story from the 1924 Paris Olympics in which Scottish runner and devout Christian Eric Liddell refused to run on the Sabbath and Jewish sprinter Harold Abrahams proved that Jews could run just as fast as anybody else.
Why is this film important?
The true events of this film are the reason both Christians and Jews are universally respected to this day.
8. The Jericho Mile (1979)
A TV movie written and directed by Michael Mann, this one won 3 Primetime Emmys for its depiction of Rain Murphy, a prison lifer who just might be an Olympic-caliber distance runner. "You can lock me up, but you can't stop me from running around in a big circle." The best thing about this is Peter Strauss's "don't cry for me" portrayal of the hapless Rain, who must overcome both his incarceration and his unfortunate first name.
Why is this film important?
From the moment this film aired on March 18, 1979, men and women in prison gained a new respect and admiration from their peers, guards, parole boards and the general public. And this goodwill has continued unabated to this day.
7. Million Dollar Legs (1932)
Released several weeks before the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, if this hits your funny bone it could really hurt, like the first time you saw The Producers, but for most of us, not so much. It's W.C. Fields as the President of Klopstokia, "a far-away country" which hopes to raise money by getting involved in the Olympics (like Coca-Cola). That's the plot, which serves fine as a moose-antler hat-rack on which to hang a bunch of comedy routines. It's absurdist humor à la The Marx Brothers, sometimes wildly off the rails. Too much of co-star Jack Oakie and not enough W.C. Fields was a big mistake. Don't confuse this one with the 1939 film of the same name starring Betty Grable and a horse, which pulls up lame in comparison.
Why is this film important?
Jack Oakie's satire of a Fuller Brush man pretty much destroyed that company and Lyda Roberti's devastating impression of femme fatale Marlene Dietrich (or was it Greta Garbo?) signaled the end of all three of their careers.
6. Miracle (2004)
"What America needed was a miracle. What it got was a hockey game." This movie tells the story of coach Herb Brooks, who took a ragtag bunch of college kids to the 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid to face the entire Soviet Empire. (They're always ragtag, aren't they? Why don't we see stories of well-groomed, highly disciplined young men and women overcoming the odds, for crying out loud?)
Why is this film important?
The reason the Soviet Union broke up into tiny little pieces was this hockey game. After that, those red-faced reds could barely get out of bed in the morning, so humiliated were they. Of course some say it's because Ronald Reagan outspent the Soviets on weapons (sort of like when you borrowed that beamer to blow Mary-Lois Seltzman out of the water with Brad when she was driving her cousin's beat-up Fiesta and so she went out and bought a new Dodge Durango on time which got repossessed and ruined her life) but the truth is that one single hockey game in the Winter Games of 1980 pretty much did the USSR in. To understand the impact of this, imagine if the US basketball team didn't win gold at the summer Olympics … wait …
(Incidentally, this is the only Winter Olympics I'll include. Ice-dancing and freestyle snowboarding are not sports, okay? It's like sex — if it doesn't involve a tape measure or a stop-watch, it ain't the real thing. Style points don't count.)
5. Cool Runnings (1993)
Okay, so this is another Winter Olympics film, but it has to be included. Based on a true story, this film turned out to be honestly inspirational. We miss John Candy.
Why important?
The release of this film initiated a decade of Caribbean tolerance, especially for black athletes with funny accents guided by overweight white guys. Gone are the bad old The Harder They Come days when Jamaicans were stereotyped as pot-smoking, Haile Selassie-worshipping raggae-heads. Now all people, in the true Olympic spirit, are treated with respect and dignity, thanks to this movie.
4. Personal Best (1982)
This one's about two women training for the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, the one where the US won absolutely zero medals! So we're talking fantasy here, and what a fantasy! People will say the film exploits the strong, nicely toned bodies of young, athletic women, and I say, "Let the games begin!" Don't be a slave to the underarm deodorant congloms — who says sweat's not sexy? This one was directed by Robert Towne, who also made a bio-pic of another runner, Steve Prefontaine, titled Without Limits. (A second bio-pic of Prefontaine, surprisingly titled Prefontaine, is also pretty good.)
Why important?
This film proved to the world that you could be a lesbian and attractive at the same time. And it started a generation of young men on the road to a complex and befuddling fascination which continues to this day and feeds a multitude of web-sites too numerous to mention here (use your favorite search-engine). Personal Best was also the first film to publicly admit to a link between sex, athletics, and voyeurism. Beach volleyball, anyone?
3. Walk, Don't Run (1966)
Two words — 60s cool. This romantic comedy features Cary Grant and Jim Hutton forced to share an apartment with Samantha Eggar while the Tokyo Olympics are in town the summer of 1964. A must-see. Don't argue.
Why important?
Don't underestimate the power of this movie. Within two years of its release, the troop levels in Vietnam went from 400,000 to over 500,000, Lyndon Johnson stepped down as President, and a brash young man named George W. Bush enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard. Could it be that the simplistic portrayal of the Asian hosts of the '64 Olympics in Walk, Don't Run contributed to the overconfident war-fever inside the Pentagon? Only history will tell.
2. Jim Thorpe: All American (1951)
Jim Thorpe — a Native American who won both the pentathlon and decathlon in the 1912 games in Stockholm — deserves a movie this good. Directed by the great Michael Curtiz, photographed dramatically by Ernest Haller, this is an honest and moving portrayal, if wildly incomplete. (For instance, Thorpe went on to appear in over 60 films in bit parts.) Burt Lancaster gives a terrific performance, but he's not exactly Native American. On the other hand, Jim Thorpe got Burt Lancaster to play him while Oglala Sioux distance runner Billy Mills had to settle for Robby Benson in Running Brave. And war hero Ira Hayes, a Pima tribesman, had to play himself in Sands of Iwo Jima! (Clint Eastwood corrected this by casting Adam Beach as Hayes in Flags of our Fathers. Thanks, Clint!) And don't forget, all Jesse Owens got was a lousy TV movie.
Why important?
If an Irishman like Burt Lancaster could play a Native American in a motion picture, an Irishman could do just about anything, paving the way for the election of John Kennedy in 1960. The rest, as they say, is history.
1. International Velvet (1978)
Just a reminder that the Olympics is not all about running and jumping, it's also about horses running and jumping.
Why important?
Don't know — it just is — trust me on this.
