Movie Night at the Ebenezer: Le Mans

Doors open at 6:30 / Film begins at 7:00 PM

Concessions and bar open at 6:30.

Movie Night at the Ebenezer features classic and influential films one Friday every month

with small plates by Executive Chef de Cuisine Harley Peet

and beer, wine, and cocktails from our Mahogany Bar.

Run time for Le Mans is 1 hr 48 min.

Starring Steve McQueen.

Directed by Lee Katzin and John Sturgis. 

During a deadly endurance race, a driver faces the trauma of a past accident.  Le Mans, known as the 24 hueres du Mans, is the best-known sports car endurance contest in the world, featuring forty-six cars racing simultaneously in a number of different categories. The overall winner is the car that covers the greatest distance in twenty-four hours.

The following information on the production of Le Mans was taken from a biography on McQueen: As early as 1965, the actor was filming footage at Le Mans with the intention of incorporating it into a feature. During the 1970 filming of Le Mans, some twenty-six of the world's most famous race drivers were brought in to drive for the film. Their race cars were valued together at more than a million dollars. Six were to be crashed intentionally during the film, at the cost of $45,000 a piece. McQueen's contract specifically stipulated that he would do all his own driving, although the professional racers refused to drive with McQueen during particularly dangerous shots. McQueen insisted that the racing footage be photographed at full speed, but slow motion was utilized during both accident sequences. A special racing camera car, a Porsche 908 Spider, was rigged with a camera to capture the experience and actually came in second place during the filmed competition. The racing footage took more than six months to photograph.

"Le Mans lets you see and hear the machines and the circuit in a way no other racing movie has managed. McQueen wanted this movie to introduce a wider audience to the world he loved; he really ended up just preaching to the choir, but what a sermon it was.  Perhaps Richard Atwood—winner of the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans, and participant in the filming of Le Mans—summed it up best in an interview he gave a couple years ago. "[I]n period, it bombed. Didn’t do well, was over budget, cost a fortune. But it ended up… it’s like a documentary. I never realized until the last couple of years." -Road & Track