The Grand Olympics

The Grand Olympics is the official documentary about the 1960 Summer Olympics held in Rome. I have only seen two other Olympic documentaries, Olympiad and Tokyo Olympiad, which I believe are considered to be the gold standard when it comes to this very narrow sub-genre. And while The Grand Olympics may not quite reach the heights of those two movies, it is still very much worth watching. The color cinematography is absolutely gorgeous, and the music, which ranges from vaguely avant-garde to outright cheesy, is mostly pretty effective. The movie covers a wide range of events, and as a result, very few of them are covered in depth. The final rounds events are usually what is shown, with very brief backgrounds given of the top contenders. (The notable exception to this is the marathon race which occurs near the end of the movie and goes on for a good 15 minutes.) And there is a slight preference given to the Italian athletes. The events are all photographed beautifully and the shots of the settings and the surrounding parts of Rome are fascinating. The only part that has dated is the sometimes sexist narration when it comes to the female athletes.