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Bikes on Film
By Jeff Guerrero
Breaking Away
For many of us, Breaking Away
was the movie that first introduced
us to road bike culture.
And while not many of us came
away from the movie ready to
shave our legs and start wearing
cycling caps, the academy award
winning film sure did make us
want to go ride our bikes. Fast.
The basic premise of the
movie is that Dave Stohler and
his three best friends have graduated
high-school and now face
the daunting world of adulthood.
Their general disdain for the local
college kids sours them towards
the notion of higher education,
and the allure of an endless summer
lulls all but Stohler into
complacency.
Stohler dreams of becoming
a professional cyclist, and his passion for Italian racing
bikes (like his precious Masi) borders on obsessive
behavior. In addition to training as though he
was entering the Giro d’Italia, Stohler impersonates
an Italian exchange student in an attempt to woo a
beautiful co-ed named Katherine.
After numerous clashes with the college kids,
including a fistfight at the local pizza joint, Stohler
and his friends decide to challenge their advesaries in
the university’s annual Little 500 bicycle race. They
dub themselves “Cutters” and enter the race with
hopes of reestablishing their pride.
The 1979 film was written by Serbian-born
screenwriter Steve Tesich. Tesich attended Indiana
University and was an alternate rider for his fraternity’s
Little 500 bicycle racing team. His teammate,
Dave Blase, rode 139 of the 200 laps to win the race
in 1962, and served as Tesich’s inspiration for the
film’s main character. Blase makes a cameo appearance
in the film as the race announcer.
The character of Dave Stohler is played by Dennis
Christopher, who also played a track star in
Chariots of Fire. The other three Cutters were played
by Daniel Stern (narrator on
The Wonder Years), Jackie Earle
Haley (best known as Kelly from
the Bad News Bears) and Dennis
Quaid. Quaid’s career highlights
are too numerous to list here.
Suffice it to say a few of us will
be looking forward to seeing
him play General Hawk in the
upcoming G.I.Joe movie.
Director and producer
Peter Yates has four Oscar nominations
to his credit, including
one for Breaking Away. Yates
may be best known for directing
the 1968 thriller Bullitt, starring
Steve McQueen. The film’s
climactic car chase through the
streets of San Francisco is legendary.
Breaking Away was followed
by a short-lived television series of the same name,
and it inspired a 1992 Bollywood film entitled Jo Jeeta
Wohi Sikandar. Being that Breaking Away was such a
huge success for 20th Century Fox, the film is readily
available for rent or download.
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