Cathal Dennehy: Chariots of Fire proof that film is never just a film

One hundred years on from the 1924 Olympics, producer David Puttnam is convinced that 'Chariots of Fire's' themes of defiance and staying true to your conscience are more relevant than ever 

NEVER JUST A FILM: Actor Ben Cross in a scene from the film ‘Chariots of Fire’ in 1981. Below: A magazine poster for the film. Picture: Stanley Bielecki Movie Collection/Getty Images

A film is never just a film. And from the moment it was released, it was clear 'Chariots of Fire' would be so much more. Most deem it the best Olympic movie of all time, detailing the stories of British sprinters Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams’ victories at the 1924 Games in Paris.

One hundred years to the day of Liddell’s 400m win, and 44 years on from the film’s release, producer David Puttnam has the stories to show it. Over the years he’s received “half a dozen letters, at least” from those who told him the movie was the reason they didn’t kill themselves. “What it did was reassure them,” says Puttnam, now 83.

We meet at a café in Rathmines ahead of a screening of the movie hosted by the British Embassy to mark the centenary of Paris 1924 and Ireland’s first appearance at the Games as an independent nation. A few hours later, as the closing credits roll, the audience stands and applauds at length as Puttnam smiles, shaking his head – scarcely able to believe the story he unearthed has gone the distance in this manner.

“I’m an athletics nerd,” says Puttnam, who fell in love with the sport when his dad, a photographer with the Associated Press, brought him along to the 1948 Olympics in London. “It was the post-war years, pretty grey. This was like looking at your first colour movie.” 

Thirty years after that experience, Puttnam’s film career went supernova via Midnight Express, which told the story of an American student getting imprisoned in Turkey for smuggling drugs. “I’d watched audiences watching it and some of the reactions were troubling,” he says. “It didn’t bring out the best in people.” 

Puttnam was a big fan of A Man for All Seasons, which told the story of Thomas More standing up to Henry VIII due to his religious principles. “I realised what cinema can do is it can offer us an image of ourselves that we’re very attracted to. It’s about identity. It offers you a kind of conceit. I remember thinking: If you can come up with a story (about) an act of defiance, but it doesn’t result in you getting your head chopped off.” 

He remembers the “horrible phrase” endemic in US culture in the 70s: nice guys finish last. “The idea that good guys could come first was very attractive,” he says.

In the library of a house he was renting, Puttnam came across a book detailing the history of the Olympics until 1948. There was a single paragraph about Liddell’s story from the 1924 Games: how the Scottish sprinter refused to run the 100m due his religious beliefs, with one of the rounds occurring on a Sunday. At the time, Liddell’s story was almost completely unknown. “It got lost in the mist of time,” says Puttnam. “I had to write to the Amateur Athletic Association and they sent me their scrapbooks. I don’t think they even knew.” 

He unearthed more information from Edinburgh University, Liddell’s alma mater which had previously celebrated his achievements on the track and rugby pitch, where he’d been a Scottish international. Puttnam has been asked many times over the years if he’d have done the film if Liddell won silver in the event he switched to, the 400m. The answer is no.

“It was the fact that against all odds, he not only wins but breaks the world record. I grew up with comics with athletics heroes and soccer heroes. That’s the stuff of comic books.” 

But he didn’t feel there was a film in Liddell alone and so broadened the story to include Abrahams who, as a Jew, had to overcome huge prejudice on his path to 100m gold.

One of the things Puttnam recalls most from the production is they “didn’t ever have quite enough money”, which forced them to get creative. “We were always 10% short of what we needed and it shows,” he says.

One of the most famous scenes is when Abrahams becomes the first person to complete the Trinity Great Court Run at the University of Cambridge, which was actually shot at Eton College, with Cambridge refusing them permission because they didn’t want the spectre of anti-semitism to be raised. The scene Puttnam is most proud of is when Harold first sees the love of his life, Sybill, which was shot in just 10 minutes, the whole thing improvised due to time constraints. “But the scene works,” he says.

The film’s immortal score, by the late, great Greek composer Vangelis, very nearly didn’t make it at all. Puttnam had originally approached Vangelis to create the score for Midnight Express but it didn’t work out due to contractual obligations, but he and director Hugh Hudson approached him again for Chariots of Fire. Vangelis’ father had been an international thrower for Greece and it was a “kind of oratorium” for him, says Puttnam. “He became more emotionally engaged than any of us.”

The only issue? He finished it far too late. Puttnam had completed the movie when Vangelis finally met him in a restaurant, then took him to his car to play him the chilling electronic theme song. “I said, ‘I tell you what, we’re still doing the titles on the front and back, we’ll try see if it works on the titles,’” recalls Puttnam. “And it did. But that theme is never in the movie.” 

The film was a runaway success, netting more than 10 times its budget at the box office and winning four Oscars, including Best Picture for Puttnam. A hundred years on from those 1924 Games, with the Olympics now far removed from what they once were, Puttnam knows the film’s themes of defiance and staying true to your conscience are more relevant than ever. 

He says he will be “glued” to this year’s Games in Paris, watching from Skibbereen where he sees the Irish rowing hopefuls training daily on the river beside his home.

“They’re wonderful characters, there’s nothing remotely grand about them,” he says. “They couldn’t be more down to earth.” 

And 76 years on from his first look at top-level athletics, he remains as passionate as ever about it, asking if I’ve seen the Netflix docuseries Sprint which follows the world’s top 100m runners. “It’s such an amazing sport, it really is mano a mano, you can’t fake it,” he says. “You’re either the fastest person or you’re not.” 

Puttnam believes the sport’s authorities have “done a good job on drugs, which looked eight years ago like it could derail the entire Olympic movement” and says “you have to live in hope” about its future.

He can never go long without being reminded of the impact of Chariots of Fire, and just last month he was at a film festival, again watching others as they watched it. He recalls one man who was “absolutely glued” to it and the emotion that spilled out of him during its captivating climax.

“Then I find out his son, an athlete, had recently died,” says Puttnam. “I got a letter and it was unbelievable the emotion of it, and what the film meant to him.” 

A film is never just a film.