The Green Helmet

Race car driver Greg Rafferty (Bill Travers) crashes during a race which sends him to the hospital. After recovering, he becomes more reluctant. His younger brother wants the action, but their mother refuses to let them both race at the same time. His mechanic Richie Launder (Sidney James) has made a new car. Tire manufacturer Bartell (Ed Begley) is trying to hire him to a couple of dangerous races. Diane (Nancy Walters) is Bartell's daughter.

This is a British action drama. The story isn't much of anything. Sidney James is probably doing the best work with Ed Begley as the other veteran. The lead couple isn't that good. The best aspect may be the little bits of racing action. It is not much to hang their hats on.

This movie still crops up on British TV from time to time. Watched it just yesterday in fact. A goof not mentioned before is when the twin headlamp racing car crashes. As it rolls over and off the track, it suddenly becomes a single headlamp model! A passable film, but obviously very dated now. It is useful of course to those who are interested in motor racing history. Some good shots of the famous marques close up, and a rare appearance by the legendary Jack Brabham. Nostalgic memories stirred by names like Hillman, Singer, Humber, Sunbeam advertised around the Siverstone track. Never quite understood how Bill Travers did so well in his career. Always seemed a bit wooden to me. Script calls for Sid James to use the Aussie word 'Sport' in almost every sentence, which gets a bit boring.

Nancy Walters is one strange actress, huh? She's American playing an American but employs a quite good Brit accent throughout. If this were a halfway decent film I'd either ignore it or maybe make a note of it in passing. But in dreck like this such eccentricities tend to assume undue importance.

Bill Travers has an interesting car as his personal wheels. It is the prototype Gordon GT, built by Bertone in 1960. The car's appearance must have been product placement as its promoter, John Gordon, was searching for partners to get the vehicle into production. That didn't happen until 1964, when the car was born as the Gordon-Keeble GK1. Remarkably, the prototype still survives!

I don't think the other reviewers do justice to this movie. The racing scenes are excellent, plenty good enough to give you a feel for how terrifying it is to drive at high speed. It's second only to 1966's "Grand Prix" which had the luxury of color, a bigger budget and newer technology.

Plot-wise, you can only do so much with a racing story. No one avoids the cliches. This plot is at least as good as "Grand Prix". The real attraction here is the cast and the cars.

Bill Travers is excellent as the older racing driver, Syd James is always top-notch, and Ed Begley for once is not over the top in his acting. The supporting cast is all fine and believable. We even get a cameo of Jack Brabham, real life three time formula one champion.

All the cars shown are fun to see nowadays. There are lots of Triumph Heralds, which were even sold in the USA in the 60's, a Triumph 2 or 3, what look like Jaguar D-types, and many more I don't recognize.

The climactic race at the Mille Miglia has a lot of hair-raising scenes of racing on regular roads through towns and along cliffs. I looked on Wikipedia and the race was discontinued in 1957 after one too many fatal crashes, so the movie does not exaggerate the danger.

Well worth a watch.