The Green Helmet

The Green Helmet (1961)

All the Thrills of Le Mans, Silverstone, Sebring, Mille Miglia Races!

After suffering a near fatal accident in his last race over the hill, top British race car driver Greg Rafferty, is about to call it quits when he gets a telegram from racing car tire manufacture Joseph Bartell. He wants Greg to test out his latest invention, a heat resistant car tire, in actual racing competition.

Date of release
1961-04-20
TMDB
9.0 / 10 (1)
Runtime
1h 28m
Genres
Drama
Director
Michael Forlong

Casting

Interesting facts

The Green Helmet is a 1961 British drama film directed by Michael Forlong starring Bill Travers, Ed Begley and Sid James. The film is centred on a British motor racing team. It is based on the 1957 novel of the same title by Australian author Jon Cleary.

Production

Film rights were bought by MGM, who hired Cleary to adapt his own novel. He said, "They bought it on the strength that some American producer who was an alcoholic which they didn't know he'd read the book... This producer said he had something between 20 and 25000 feet of the most spectacular motor racing. And he ran about a thousand feet of it and it was spectacular. What they didn't know was the other 24,000 was just nothing."

The head of MGM's British operation was Lawrence Bachmann, and it was one of the first films made under his auspices.

The director was Michael Forlong, a New Zealander from television. This was his first film. "I want this to be an adult film about a sport I love very much," said Forlong. "I want to show why drivers race, why they are frightened, why they can't give it up."

The star was Bill Travers who Cleary said "was a charming likeable bloke but he was miscast" and who asked the author not to write "any long speeches because I can't handle them."

Travers was six feet four which meant they had to design a car around him. The technical adviser was Stirling Moss. Ed Begley was imported from America. Cleary said Walters was a beauty queen who had been signed to MGM "and she was charming and friendly and everybody liked her, she was an absolute dish to look at...and she couldn't change expression." South African Sid James was cast as an Australian although Cleary says he spoke in "an Afrikaane…

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