Pulp International - The+Great+Escape

Jul 17 2016

McQueen behind the scenes.

At first we thought this was a promo poster for Steve McQueen's 1971 racing thriller Le Mans, which in Japan was called The 24 Hours of Le Mans, the distributors Towa Co. having opted for an English title, perhaps to make the film sound more exotic. But there's a smaller Japanese title at bottom—栄光のル •マン—which means “Glory of Le Mans.” It was while staring at this bit that we saw John Sturges and Lee Katzin credited as directors. But Sturges had nothing to do with Le Mans—Lee Katzin directed it alone.

It finally dawned on us that this poster is for a documentary about the making of Le Mans, using footage from the movie and, we're guessing, the two Sturges films that starred McQueen—The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven. So this poster represents a bit of a mystery. It promotes a documentary that was seemingly released only in Japan. Note that it isn't for the 2015 doc Steve McQueen: The Man and Le Mans. That worthy effort was directed by Gabriel Clark and John McKenna.

No this is a different film. And we're pretty sure it's from the period just after Le Mans played in cinemas, for no other reason than the poster has a retro aesthetic, both in layout and font, that you don't find in Japanese promos after about 1980. But we searched everywhere and found no reference anywhere to a Le Mans doc from that time. Or in fact any Le Mans documentary by Sturges and Katzin. So we throw it to the readership. Got any ideas? Let us know.

Alternate theory: Sturges ended up on this totally by accident. It's a typo, and the poster is in fact for the feature film Le Mans.

Japan Towa Co.Le Mans The 24 Hours of Le Mans Steve McQueen: The Man and Le Mans The Great Escape The Magnificent Seven Steve McQueen Lee Katzin John Sturges Gabriel Clark John McKenna cinema

Hollywoodland

Jun 20 2014

Steve McQueen enjoys a moment of reflection.

Above, a rare photo of American actor Steve McQueen lounging poolside at his home in Palm Springs, California, 1963. That would have been around the time his movie The Great Escape was released, making him the top box office draw in the world. But in Palm Springs he spent a lot of time escaping Hollywood by riding motorcycles and shooting pistols in the desert, two favorite pursuits.

Palm Springs The Great Escape Steve McQueen cinema

Intl. Notebook

Sep 23 2010

Everybody’s gonna know, you can’t catch a motorcycle when it wants to go.

Here’s something we’ve never seen before. It’s Steve’s McQueen’s international motorcycle driver’s license, issued out of Geneva, Switzerland in 1964. We think it probably first appeared online here. Is it pulp? Perhaps not, but it is significant because McQueen made every guy in America want a motorcycle thanks to his bravura turn as the rough and tumble Captain Virgil Hilts, aka The Cooler King, in 1963’s The Great Escape. Haven’t seen it? Click the little linky here.

Switzerland Geneva The Great Escape Steve McQueen