Bobby Deerfield

Plot

Formula One auto racer Bobby Deerfield is a calculating, control-obsessed loner who has become used to winning the checkered flag on the track. But after he witnesses a fiery crash that kills a teammate and seriously wounds a competitor, Deerfield becomes unsettled by the spectre of death.

During a visit to the survivor, Deerfield's world is further set askew when he meets Lillian Morelli (Marthe Keller), a quirky, impulsive woman racing against time.

Critical response

Critics panned Bobby Deerfield as an over-the-top melodrama with a plodding story line; audiences reportedly laughed at scenes intended to be dramatic. Race-film fans, expecting another Grand Prix or Le Mans, were disappointed that the story did not play out on the race track; however, the action footage was filmed by racing cinematographers over the course of the 1976 Formula One season and features actual drivers, including Carlos Pace, Tom Pryce, James Hunt, Patrick Depailler and Mario Andretti. Vincent Canby of The New York Times said that it "may turn out to be the year's most cynical movie made by people who know better, including Sydney Pollack, the director, and Alvin Sargent, who wrote the screenplay."

Critics continue to give the film negative reviews and the film has 22% on Rotten Tomatoes. Time Out stated that the film is a "classic example of a Hollywood director being struck down by a lethal 'art' attack as soon as he sets foot in Europe."

Bobby Deerfield was released on DVD for the first time on March 11, 2008. The soundtrack, recorded on the benighted Casablanca Records label, has been unavailable for years.

Box office

Bobby Deerfield grossed $9,300,000 in the United States.

Awards and nominations

Differences from the novel

Remarque's novel on which the screenplay is based is far different from the movie, taking place just after World War II. The Swiss town of Leukerbad makes no mention of the on-location filming that took place there.

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