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OLYMPIC MOVIES AND FILMS
THE VERY FIRST 10
Film was truly in its infancy in 1896 when the first of the Modern Olympics took place in Athens but 29 years and 8 Olympic Games would pass by before the first 'entertainment' film would be made that featured this remarkable sporting event. This is the list of the First Ten 'movies' that featured the Olympic Games as part of their storyline. |
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1896 ATHENS OLYMPIC GAMES
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1912 STOCKHOLM OLYMPIC GAMES |
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1900 PARIS OLYMPIC GAMES |
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1916 GAMES - CANCELLED DUE TO WWI |
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1904 ST. LOUIS OLYMPIC GAMES
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1920 ANTWERP OLYMPIC GAMES |
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1906 ATHENS INTERCALATED OLYMPIC GAMES
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1924 PARIS OLYMPIC GAMES |
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1908 LONDON OLYMPIC GAMES
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| NINE AND THREE-FIFTHS SECONDS |
1925 |
Released: 1925 - Black and White
Importance: The very first entertainment film to feature the Olympic Games
Production: USA
Style: Fictional Film / Central Olympic Theme
Main Star: Charley Paddock (1920/24/28 Olympic Sprinter )
Storyline: College athlete Charley Raymond (Paddock) is disowned by his father, robbed of his clothes by a hobo and pitched off a train. He's forced to find help from the owner of a nearby ranch. He races a horse and is recognised for his talent. He later rescues the ranch owner's daughter. He's trained for the Olympics where he wins the race and the love of the rescued girl.
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Released: 1927 - Black and White
Importance: The first entertainment-based film to use the word 'Olympic' in its title
Production: USA
Style: Fictional Film / Alternative Olympics
Main Stars: The Little Rascals
Storyline: A group of children known as 'Our Gang' aka 'The Little Rascals', stage their own version of the Olympic Games on the streets of New York. Wheezer tries to teach Minnie the dog to blow razzies. The Gang try to catch Wheezer for being rude but are chased away by Minnie.
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1928 AMSTERDAM OLYMPIC GAMES / CHAMONIX, (France) WINTER OLYMPICS |
Released: 1928 - Black and White
Production: USA
Importance: The first film to use to focus on a specific Olympic Champion
Style: Semi biographical Film / Central Olympic Theme
Main Star: Charley Paddock (1920/24/28 Olympic Sprinter )
Storyline: Semi biographical story of the All-American-Olympic-Champion Charles Paddock and his rise to success and victory at the 1920 / 1924 Olympic Games.
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1932 LOS ANGELES OLYMPIC GAMES |
(Not to be confused with the 1939 film of the same title)
Importance: The first fictional film about the real Olympics that did not make use of actual Olympic athletes.
Released: 1932 - Black and White with Audio
Production: USA
Style: Fictional Film / Central Olympic Theme
Main Stars: Jack Oakie, W. C. Fields
Storyline: Migg Tweeny (Oakie) is a travelling Brush salesman who persuades the unusually strong President of a small country called Klopstokia (W. C. Fields) to enter the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics and hopefully win enough money to pay of the bankrupt countries debts. competition.
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They put together a national team and set sail for America but Migg must also win the love of the President's daughter, Angela, and save the team from the conflict caused by a beautiful spy and saboteur who is working for members of the Klopstokia government .. devious men who are trying to overthrow the President. Angela eventually beats Mata the spy in an underwater fight and forces her to confess that she has been working to disrupt the team. Moral is restored and the team perform well in the Olympics. All that is needed is for the President to win the final event. Tweeny rouses The President's fierce who hurls a 1000-lb weight at Tweeny, which fortunately misses but wins both the weightlifting and the shot put.
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1936 BERLIN OLYMPIC GAMES |
Released: 1937 - Black and White with Audio
Importance:
Production: USA
Style: Fictional Film / Central Olympic Theme
Main Stars: Bruce Bennett / Joan Fontaine / Kenneth Harlan
Storyline: Johnny (Bennett) is the son of a man who was disqualified at the Olympics for being a professional athlete. six years after the event he accidentally meets William Stevens, the man who got the medals instead of his father. Seeing the potential in the boy Stevens (Harlan) decides to train him for the Olympics but as Johnny grows up he becomes distracted by Stevens' daughter Joan (Fontaine).
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While training he meets a group of privileged youngsters and is soon enjoying the pleasures of the wealthy 'rich-set'. Johnny is trapped between his need to train, his distractions and his attraction to Joan. A potential love triangle ensues. Joan eventually rejects him in the hope that he will resume training properly. Johnny realises his mistakes and pulls himself together just in time to compete against his arch rival and win a place on the Olympic team.
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| CHARLIE CHAN AT THE OLYMPICS |
1937 |
Released: 1937 - Black and White with Audio
Importance: The film prophetically indicated the USA's growing concern about Nazi Germany and the relevance of new and dangerous secret weapons. It was also the first film that featured the Olympics as a secondary storyline rather than a central plot device. Conspiracy theorists have suggested that this film and others were used to psychologically prepare the American people for a potential conflict in Europe and that spies may try to steal the technology and assets of the USA.
Production: USA
Style: Fictional Film / Central and Peripheral Olympic Theme
Main Stars: Warner Oland / Keye Luke / John Eldridge / Jonathan Hale
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Storyline: When a secret plane that can fly without a pilot is stolen the fictional Chinese-American Detective Charlie Chan (Oland ) is called in to help. The pilot is found dead and both the plane and its aerial guidance unit are missing. Together with the owner of the plane, Mr Hopkins (Hale), and Professor Cartwright (Eldridge), the scientist who developed it, they travel on the Hindenberg Zeppelin to the Nazi Olympic games in Berlin. Chan must do battle with enemy agents and devious criminals but is supported by his son (Keye Luke) who is also at the games participating as an Olympic swimmer. Chan tracks down the unit but his son is kidnapped forcing him to give back a fake guidance system. The plot twists and turns as the unit is substituted. A final shoot out occurs at the estate of a foreign diplomat Charles Zakara. Hopkins is shot and it is eventually it is revealed that Cartwright was the real crook. Chan's son still has time to go an win the 100m swimming race. |
Released: 1942 - Colour with Audio
Importance: First Disney film and first cartoon featuring the Olympics. Released six years after the last Olympics and what would be six years before the next. Some historians believe it was also designed to stimulate the interest of a future generation of Olympic competitors. It is also the first Olympics-related film released in colour.
Production: USA
Style: Edutainment Film / Central Olympic Theme
Main Stars: Goofy character
Storyline: The much-loved Disney character Goof-the-Dog tells some of the history of Olympic Games and demonstrates many of the different sports events in a funny and entertaining way.
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1948 LONDON OLYMPIC GAMES (Second Staging) / ST. MORITZ WINTER OLYMPICS |
| JIM THORPE – ALL AMERICAN |
1951 |
Released: 1951 - Black and White with Audio
Importance: The first film to tackle issues of racism and perceived racism in American sports and the Olympic Games. However, may also be perceived as having whitewashed the depth of Thorpe's personal tragedy. The film brought Jim Thorpe's story into the public awareness and is believed to have been a significant factor in the reinstatement of his medals by the IOC in 1983. This is probably the first case of a entertainment film impacting on the decisions of the International Olympic Committee. The film may also have been seeking to elevate the importance of American football to be on a par with international events such as the Olympics.
Production: USA
Style: Biographical Film / Central Olympic Theme
Main Stars: Burt Lancaster / Charles Bickford |
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Storyline: The film tells the brilliant but ultimately tragic life story of Jim Thorpe an American of Native Indian (American) and Irish descent who is recognised by a high school coach, Pop Warner (Bickford) as the most outstanding athlete he has ever seen. Thorpe goes on to excel at both athletics and American football. He marries across the race barrier which is well depicted in the storyline. He competes in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics and wins first place in both the decathlon and the pentathlon.
However, officials discover that Thorpe (Lancaster) was once paid a tiny amount to play in a couple of baseball games and is therefore not an amateur. He is stripped of his medals and returns to playing football but his life deteriorates over the following decades. His marriage collapses and he struggles to hold down a job. Even though he is eventually reunited with his old mentor and coach, this too is tinged with sadness as you discover that his only son has died. The film ends on a high note with Thorpe becoming a coach himself and sharing his knowledge with an aspiring team of youngsters.
The film implies that Thorpe gets something of a life back together. In reality he never truly recovered from loss of his medals and became a chronic alcoholic in later life. The film was released shortly before his death in 1953 from a heart attack. He was only 64. |
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1952 HELSINKI OLYMPIC GAMES / OSLO WINTER OLYMPICS |
| GEORDIE (WEE GEORDIE) |
1955 |
Released: September 1955 - Colour with Mono Audio
Importance: First British Film centred on the Olympic Games. First colour motion picture about the Olympic Games. First film based on this central theme to be character led rather than autobiographical or based entirely on plot.
Production: UK
Style: Fictional Film / Central Olympic Theme
Main Stars: Bill Travers / Alastair Sim / Norah Gerson
Storyline: This the heart warming story of Geordie (Travers), a young Scottish boy from the Highlands, who is troubled by his small size and physical weakness. He sends off for a mail order bodybuilding kit and corresponds with its designer Henry Sampson.
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He rapidly becomes the strongest man in the glen (valley) and after the death of his father is persuaded by the local Laird (Alastair Sim) to enter the Highland games in which he excels. He's recruited to join the British team and compete at the Melbourne Olympic Games in Australia. There he encounters the gorgeous and seductive Swedish shot put champion - Helga. Geordie resists her charms and goes on to win the event and the heart of his Highland lass Jean (Gerson) - all while wearing a kilt. He returns to the Glen and the message is clear - fame, fortune and fast women are all fine in moderation but there's no place like home. Geordie is a somewhat forgotten mini-masterpiece that proved that good cinema need not be tragic or dramatic. This one the first of many British films that have excelled through amusing insight and understatement. 'The Man Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain', 'Billie Elliot' and the more recent blockbuster 'The King's Speech' are excellent examples of this typically British style of movie making. |
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1956 MELBOURNE OLMYPIC GAMES / CORTINA D'AMPEZZO WINTER OLYMPICS |
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1960 ROME OLYMPIC GAMES / SQUAW VALLEY, USA, WINTER OLYMPICS |
| IT HAPPENED IN ATHENS / SEDUCTION IN ATHENS |
1962 |
Released: 1962 - Colour
Importance: The first film based on the Olympics to feature a female superstar - Jane Mansfield - as the headline actor and in which sex as a comic theme is central to the story line. Mansfield's revealing costumes also marked a significant change in attitudes towards semi-nudity in mainstream cinema.
Production: USA
Style: Fictional Film / Central Olympic Theme / Comedy
Main Star: Jane Mansfield / Trax Coulton / Xenia Del Mar
Storyline: The year is 1896 and a young Greek shepherd called wants to enter the first modern Olympic Games in Athens as a runner in the Marathon. |
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Spiridon (Coulton) is too late to join the Greek squad but so impresses Coach Graham that he's granted permission to join the USA team. He meets Christina (Xenia) who is from the same town as he is and is now working for the city's most glamorous woman and actress Eleni (Mansfield). Spiridon trains hard but is also very aware that Eleni has publicly promised to marry the champion in the certain belief it will be her lover Lieutenant Innards who wins the day. Her plan is turned upside down when Spiridon wins the race and is now destined to marry Eleni. All is resolved in the end when Spiridon decides that he would rather marry his true love Christina. It is said to be based on a true story. |
MORE OLYMPIC FILMS COMING SOON
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