Still from Michael Ritchie's Downhill Racer (1969) starring Robert RedfordCinephiles might know what connects (albeit tenuously) the actors Robert Redford and Charlotte Rampling. It is, of course, that they have both starred in movies about skiing. Redford came off better, it has to be said, and his film - Downhill Racer (1969) - has just been released by the Criterion Collection on DVD. "With its thrilling cinematography, kinetic editing, and charismatic star performance from Robert Redford, Michael Ritchie’s Downhill Racer is one of cinema's most critically acclaimed examinations of the life of an athlete," say Criterion.
Though Downhill Racer didn't fare too well at the box office, Rampling's outing on the slopes in the truly awful exploitation movie The Ski Bum (1971) assured her a place off-piste for the rest of her career (at least to date, anyway). That's not to say that The Ski Bum doesn't have a certain charm, if only the comic charm of seeing Rampling (still a relative newcomer to movie stardom) trying to work out precisely how one might provocatively pout one's lips and deliver one's lines at the same time without falling over.
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