Robert Redford Goes Downhill

There are those who will tell you that Robert Redford was the original choice to play Benjamin Braddock in the 1967 romantic classic, The Graduate. He was certainly in the running, and wanted the role badly. And, as my Seduced by Mrs. Robinson clarifies, he had just finished starring for director Mike Nichols in a Broadway hit comedy, Barefoot in the Park, so he seemed to be in a good position to headline Nichols’ planned first film. But, as the film’s producer, Larry Turman, spelled out to me, neither he nor Nichols was entirely sure that Redford was the right choice to play an awkward lover who was funny precisely because he was in over his head with a sexy older woman. Enter Dustin Hoffman, who turned in a performance that was a comedy gem.

 By 1969, Redford had made a half-dozen films, both amiable comedies and action thrillers. But lightning struck when he joined with Paul Newman for a true blockbuster, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The two Hollywood hunks proved to have remarkable comic chemistry in a story less about the Old West than about the friendship of two rebellious buddies set against a rapidly changing world. Thinking back about the whole of Redford’s acting career, which includes some major thrillers and some films with strong political implications (see The Candidate and, of course, All the President’s Men), I’m convinced that as an actor Redford was at his best in roles that combined substance with comic flair. These include Butch Cassidy and The Sting, two brilliant pairings with Newman, as well as such more modest efforts as Sneakers (a caper comedy about hackers) and the late-in-life The Old Man & the Gun, shot when Redford was over 80.

 Which brings me to Downhill Racer, made in the same year as Butch Cassidy. Michael Ritchie’s first directorial effort, magnificently filmed on some of the world’s great ski slopes, is a gutsy look at the professional ski circuit, and grapples with the question of what it takes to be a winner. Redford plays an ambitious young racer, summoned by coach Gene Hackman to join the U.S. ski team after (in the film’s highly dramatic opening minutes) a talented skier suffers a bone-shattering fall. We know right away that Redford’s character, Dave Chappellet, is good—but also that he’s not particularly nice. He regards his new teammates as nuisances or rivals, and can’t be bothered to listen to his coach’s warnings. He’s willing to work hard on his own skills, but camaraderie is not for him.

 We understand something about Dave’s psychological makeup during the off-season, when he goes home to rural Colorado. His curmudgeonly dad, clearly a loner, greets him coldly, showing little interest in his son’s efforts to achieve Olympic gold on the way to fame and fortune. A local flame is thrilled to see him, but clearly it’s only sex he’s after.. The pattern repeats itself in Europe, where the sophisticated assistant (Camilla Sparv) to a manufacturer of ski equipment falls hard for him, only to learn that he’ll give her nothing beyond a roll in the hay.  He’s a loner and a user, that’s all.

 I won’t go into the end of the film, when his jest to the team’s #1 skier leads to an outcome he may or may not have anticipated. Is he a carefree hotdogger, or is there something more devious in the back of his mind? That’s an open question, one the film leaves us asking ourselves. I’d much rather watch Redford again in Butch Cassidy.