Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell are both fast on their feet and running is everything to them. However, Eric is a bit faster than Harold and he trains hard to be faster.
Blaine: In 1978, producer David Puttnam was ill and he had to stay home. To keep himself from getting bored, he found a book about the history of the Olympic Games. He read through the whole thing, but what interested him the most was the story about Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell in the 1924 Olympics. He thought their story should be made into a movie. He got these scrapbooks that had information from 1922 to 1924. David knew right away that he was going to need a team of people to make this movie like a screenwriter, a director and an ensemble of actors. The first person he got was screenwriter Colin Welland. David showed Colin the scrapbooks and then Colin did some of his own research by going to a National Film Archives. He asked the people who worked there if they had anything on Abrahams and Liddel. They showed him a silent film that had footage of Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell. Looking at that footage showed that Abrahams and Liddell put themselves through a lot and that made Colin want to make sure that he wrote a terrific screenplay to honor them. Colin really committed himself to this project. Colin tracked down anyone who was still alive so he could interview them. Harold Abrahams died two weeks before Colin started developing the script. Colin participated in Abrahams memorial service and that gave him the idea to start the film off with Harold Abrahams memorial and then flash back to the 20s.
Hugh Hudson had directed a lot of documentaries and commercials, but he had never done a feature film before. He was reading the script while driving his car, which he knew was dangerous, but he couldn’t take his eyes off what was written on each page. It was so powerful to him and by the time he was finished reading it he was so moved that he cried. A lot of actors in London wanted to play the parts in the film. It was tricky to find two actors who could play the main characters, Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell. They needed two guys who could really do a fantastic job in playing these parts. David Puttnam and Hugh Hudson went to go see a play and there was one actor in that play that they had their eyes on, Ian Charleson. After it was over, David and Hugh asked Ian if he would audition for “Chariots of Fire” and they were nervous to ask him because if he turned it down they didn’t know what they were going to do. Ian said yes, but he was afraid that he wouldn’t be good enough. But things worked out for everyone in the end. Ian passed his audition and the search for an actor to play Eric Liddell was over. However they still had to find an actor to play Harold Abrahams. Someone suggested to Hugh Hudson that they try out Ben Cross. Thing was Ben was older than the character by eight years, but he was able to nail his audition. Ben thought that Harold Abrahams was a great character as he read through the script and he really wanted to play him. Ben understood what type of person Harold was judging by the way he was written in the script. He is someone who wants to succeed in what he loves.
A lot of the young actors that were in “Chariots of Fire” were stage actors. Being in a film was something new for them. The reason they were hired was because Hugh wanted a lot of unknown faces. Older actors like John Gielgud, Lindsay Anderson and Ian Holm were very experienced. They were the supporting actors. They also needed two American actors to play the American competition, so they hired Brad Davis and Dennis Christopher. The actors had to do a lot of physical training for four months and build up their speed. Lucky thing for Hugh Hudson and David Puttnam, the actors they hired devoted themselves to this project. It was intense stuff for the actors of what they had to go through for the past four months. Tim McNab was the Athletic Consultant and he treated the actors like they were athletes. He would push them to do their best. It was painful stuff they had to go through, but the running was fun. It also made a great difference for them. Eric Liddell is supposed to be faster than Harold Abrahams and in real life, Ian Charleson was faster than Ben Cross and that bothered Ben just like his character.
When production started on “Chariots of Fire”, Hugh Hudson was nervous because it was the first movie he had directed. The first scene they shot was with John Gielgud and Lindsay Anderson and they are talking about Harold Abrahams. Lindsay was a director himself and he was very helpful to Hugh. He told him a few things about how to direct and how to handle actors. The schedule was hard for Hugh as well because he wasn’t use to moving around from one place to another. Hugh had big feelings for “Chariots of Fire” and that’s what kept him going. Hugh Hudson and David Puttman showed the younger actors “Lawrence of Arabia” at a little cinema in Soho to show them that they wanted “Chariots of Fire” to be as big as this. Ben Cross realized that he was apart of something bigger than he was expecting and that made him nervous. He spent two days working with big actors like Sir John Gielgud and Lindsay Anderson and then another two with Ian Holm. So much work had to be done and it was a lot for Ben to take in. Alice Krige played Harold Abrahams love interest, Sybil Gordon. Sybil is someone who sticks by Harold’s side because she knows what he is feeling. And he doesn’t push her away because I believe he needs someone like her. Not to mention he is in love with her. She is a great supporter to him.
After Harold Abrahams and Sybil Gordon meet, she takes him to a restaurant and while they were shooting that scene Alice Krige put her foot on Ben Cross’ crotch and was rubbing it around in circles. Before they shot it, Hugh Hudson had told Alice that he wanted some underlying sexual tension between the two characters and she didn’t know how he wanted her to do it so she just did whatever came to mind. Ian Holm spent one night with the athletic consultant Tom McNab to question him about coaching because that’s what his character, Sam Mussabini, does in the film. Ian wanted to know a lot and Tom showed him some techniques. Ian had an idea about putting a stick in front of Ben so that he could hit the stick with his knees and he asked Tom if that was a good idea and he said yes. The actors were at a training camp in Liverpool and Hugh decided to just shoot them as they were training. The main thing for “Chariots of Fire” was for things to look real. Every time the actors would run they wanted to cross the finish line and win. They forgot this was for a film.
The music was another important element. Vangelis, the composer, likes to put a lot of feeling into his music, he wants to make it sound like it has a soul. Vangelis music is electronic and it was hardly used in cinema before “Chariots of Fire”. Vangelis’ father was a runner and “Chariots of Fire” was something personal to him because of that. The opening shot showing the men running almost had a different theme to it because Hugh listened to a piece of Vangelis’ music that already existed and he thought it went great with the opening sequence. Vangelis was against that because he thought it would be better if it was something new, but Hugh really wanted it and he told Vangelis to just write music for the rest of the film. Vangelis disobeyed Hugh’s orders and wrote a new theme. At the last minute, Vangelis was able to convince Hugh and David to listen to this new theme he wrote, which became one of the best themes ever made.
They tested “Chariots of Fire” out with an audience at the dubbing theater and the reactions were positive. However “The Sunday Times” didn’t think much of it during the second screening. David Puttnam wanted “Chariots of Fire” to premiere in the U.S. and Warner Bros. loved it so much that they decided to buy the rights in order to have the movie premiere in America. Shorty after it’s American release it got nominated for seven Oscars, which was very unexpected. The goal wasn’t to make a movie that would be a contender at the Oscars, it was to honor a great historical moment. No one expected it to be a huge hit either. It was a real surprise that “Chariots of Fire” managed to walk away with four Oscars including Best Picture. Even though being called the Best Picture of the year was never something in mind, still David, Hugh and everyone else who was involved with “Chariots of Fire” were very happy and proud that a lot of people loved it.
My rating on “Chariots of Fire” is five out of five stars
Bruce Almighty
Blaine: The actor in the image above, Nigel Havers, who played Lord Andrew Lindsay in the film, is another actor my dad, Blaine Harrington III, has met. In 1985, my dad was working on a book for National Geographic called “Builders of the Ancient World” and he was photographing the Greek and Roman Empires. The first country he was working in was Greece and one of the Greek archeological sites that he was photographing was in Mycenae in the Peloponnese region in Greece. While he was there working, there was a film crew making a British TV movie called “Lord Elgin and Some Stones of No Value”, which came out the year later. Nigel Havers was in it and my dad already knew who he was because “Chariots of Fire” had been out for four years. My dad doesn’t remember how he got the privilege to meet Nigel, but he he does remember that they were shooting the movie at the same locations he was working in. He took some pictures of the crew making the movie just for fun. My dad even got in a picture with Nigel Havers and the lead actress of the film, Clare Byam-Shaw.
From left to right actor Nigel Havers, actress Clare Byam-Shaw and photographer Blaine Harrington III.
