With last week’s look at the 1923 Tour de France here, time to move ahead three decades. 1953 marked 50 years since the Tour began and we have an enjoyable feature length film about that race courtesy of the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. In 2015, to mark the start of the Tour in Utrecht that year, the museum digitalized “Tour de France.” This production by Haghefilm was directed by Wiebe Mullins and covers all 21 stages of the 1953 Tour. Once thought to be lost, it is ours to enjoy on YouTube today. The narration is Dutch but the English subtitles are excellent.
The 1953 race, the 40th edition, was 4,468 in length over 22 stages. It marked the introduction of the green Points Jersey for the first time, as well as an increase in the number of riders per team from eight to ten. Since 1930 the Tour had been contested by national and regional teams. In 1953 Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and France were the national teams, with an addition five French regional teams. 119 riders would start from Strasbourg as the Tour ran counterclockwise around France, passing through foreign territory in Belgium, Luxembourg and Monaco.
The video looks like something that would have been shown in movie theatres in the Netherlands and is a fully-realized film production. The black-and-white photography is excellent, there is a droll narration and plenty of jaunty music. The story focuses on the team from the Netherlands and their goal of winning the team classification at the Tour. In our era this does not seem like a particularly important prize (the standing joke at one time was that it was the only thing Movistar could win) but it was clearly a bigger deal in 1953.
It was certainly a different era. The movie opens with a strategy session for the Dutch team being held in manager/coach Kees Pellenaars’ living room in Breda. I imagine Kees’ wife served some cake and coffee to the lads. Pellenaar won the Amateur World Road Race in 1934 and had a successful career as a pro before turning to coaching the national team in 1950. In the 1951 Tour Wim van Est became the first Dutch rider to wear the Yellow Jersey. Wim was notable as well in that edition for falling 200 feet down a deep ravine while wearing said jersey.
The Tour organizers seemed pretty keen to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Tour and there is some nice footage showing what appears to be a reenactment of that first edition in 1903. Lots of handlebar moustaches and period dress before the current riders assemble in Strasbourg for the first stage.
For each of the stages, the producers provide a nice map of France showing where the riders are headed and the distance to travel. The first nine stages were essentially flat, with most being around 200 kms. Stage 8 would have been a challenge: the route from Nantes to Bordeaux was 345 km, a real throwback to the Tour’s early days. Happily, it was followed by a rest day in Bordeaux.
There is a lot of interesting stuff to look at in this movie. Although it was only seventy-three years ago, the towns and cities look far older, with most only changing rapidly in the 1960s. There is still war damage as we see the peloton pass near the Normandy beaches and Caen. The crowds of spectators are massive everywhere, with plenty of suits and ties in evidence. The Tour’s reach into la France profonde in the days before television must have been remarkable. The Dutch filmmakers are happy to include some tourism images, particularly of the sunny South of France. We even get to see Yvette Horner, the accordionist who was present as the offcial musician of the Tour starting in 1952 and whose energetic performances at the race for the next 11 years made her a national icon.
Not entirely out of place today is the publicity caravan and the presence of race officials in an endless motorcade. There are a surprising number of Jeeps–obviously war surplus– employed for hauling bicycles. No helmets for cyclists or motorcyclists and the wool jerseys and short shorts are of their time. Also of its time was the brutally hard gearing as we see riders claw their way up the mountains, fighting their bicycles for momentum. Nobody looks too concerned with aerodynamics but at the end of the race hairstyles get managed.
While the attention is on the Dutch riders, everyone gets to play their part. At some point in the movie we see each of the biggest stars of cycling of the day: Fiorenzo Magni; Gino Bartali; Raphael Geminiani; Jean Robic; Hugo Koblet; and joker Roger Hassenforder, nicknamed “Life of the Party.” Fausto Coppi, winner in 1952, had not been selected for the Italian team but appears as a camera-wielding spectator radiating rock star power.
1953 was to be the final Tour for Coppi’s great rival Gino Bartali but the first Tour for up-and-comers Charly Gaul and Andre Darrigarde, the latter still with us at 97.
As the race wound down to its conclusion at the Parc des Princes velodrome in Paris, spectators were entertained by the presence of no fewer than 11 previous Tour winners, including 83 year old Maurice Garin, winner in 1903.
The Dutch had good reason to be happy with their Tour. In addition to winning the team prize, their primary goal, they also managed to take four of the individual stages. Nice.
For those with an interest in bike racing history, we owe a debt to Eye Filmmuseum for restoring this excellent forgotten treasure. The so-called Golden Age of Cycling has meant black-and-white images of frozen movement but here the Tour de France truly comes to life.
“Tour de France” (1953) directed by Wiebe Mullins
118 minutes, black-and-white, in Dutch with English subtitles
Haghefilm 1953, digitalized in 2015 by Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam
YouTube link HERE.
The post PEZ at the Movies: Tour de France 1953 appeared first on PezCycling News.
