On Any Sunday
Encyclopedia
On Any Sunday is a 1971 American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 documentary feature
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 about motorcycle sport, directed by Bruce Brown
Bruce Brown
Bruce Brown is an American documentary film director, known as an early pioneer of the surf film...

. It was nominated for a 1972 Academy Award for Documentary Feature
Academy Award for Documentary Feature
The Academy Award for Documentary Feature is among the most prestigious awards for documentary films.- Winners and nominees:Following the Academy's practice, films are listed below by the award year...

.

This documentary follows the lives of motorcycle
Motorcycle
A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...

 racers and racing enthusiasts. Brown tried to show the unique talents needed for the different forms of racing. For instance, the motocross riders were typically free-spirited types, while desert racers were often loners. In Grand National racing, Brown showed the differing personalities, such as the business-like approach to racing displayed by Mert Lawwill versus the carefree approach that wild young rookie David Aldana became known for.


Steve McQueen
Steve McQueen
Terrence Steven "Steve" McQueen was an American movie actor. He was nicknamed "The King of Cool." His "anti-hero" persona, which he developed at the height of the Vietnam counterculture, made him one of the top box-office draws of the 1960s and 1970s. McQueen received an Academy Award nomination...

 is featured in the film, along with Mert Lawwill
Mert Lawwill
Mert Lawwill is an American dirt-track and road racer, born on September 25, 1940 in Boise, Idaho.He started his racing career as an amateur racer on the local TT track in Boise and, later, scramble races across the United States Northwest ....

, Malcolm Smith
Malcolm Smith (motorcyclist)
Malcolm Smith is a Hall of Fame American off-road racer.-Career:Smith first raced in 1956 atop a 1949 Matchless 500cc motorcycle. Later, he was associated with Husqvarna motorcycles. His renown grew as he won races in the 1960s and 1970s...

 and many other motorcycle racers from the late 1960s and early 1970s.

From a historical perspective, the motorcycles featured in the film include Triumph, Husqvarna
Husqvarna Motorcycles
Husqvarna Motorcycles, a subsidiary of BMW, is a company manufacturing motocross, enduro and supermoto motorcycles. The company began producing motorcycles in 1903 at Huskvarna, Sweden, as a branch of the Husqvarna armament firm which had supplied the Swedish army with rifles since 1689.-History:As...

, Harley Davidson, Honda
Honda
is a Japanese public multinational corporation primarily known as a manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles.Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, as well as the world's largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines measured by volume, producing more than...

, Yamaha
Yamaha
Yamaha may refer to:* Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services** Yamaha Motor Company, a Japanese motorized vehicle-producing company...

, Suzuki
Suzuki
is a Japanese multinational corporation headquartered in Hamamatsu, Japan that specializes in manufacturing compact automobiles and 4x4 vehicles, a full range of motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles , outboard marine engines, wheelchairs and a variety of other small internal combustion engines...

, and other manufacturers that are still in business or gone by the wayside such as BSA
Birmingham Small Arms Company
This article is not about Gamo subsidiary BSA Guns Limited of Armoury Road, Small Heath, Birmingham B11 2PP or BSA Company or its successors....

 and Bultaco
Bultaco
Bultaco was a Spanish manufacturer of two-stroke motorcycles from 1958 to 1983.-Origins:The origin of the Bultaco motorcycle company dates back to May 1958. Francisco "Paco" Bultó was a director of the Montesa motorcycle company founded in 1944. After several years of steady growth and road racing...

.

Production

The film was partially financially backed by Steve McQueen through his "Solar Productions company", receiving credit in the final seconds of the film.

Bruce Brown on filming method:
"At times I’d have a particular shot in mind. For example, I wanted to shoot a muddy motocross race and show the riders with mud all over them. First you have to be at a motocross race when it rains, then you have to find a good location to shoot. We tried and tried to get a shot with a rider caked with mud. We finally did get the shot, but for a while it seemed like we never would."

Some of the most dramatic shots of the movie were the extreme closeup slow-motion segments of the Grand National races. From his surfing movie days, Brown was used to working with super telephoto lenses. The budget didn’t allow the expense of high-speed cameras, so Brown improvised by using 24-volt batteries in the 12-volt film cameras. The result was a makeshift high-speed camera. Brown also used a helmet camera
Helmet camera
A helmet camera, otherwise known as a micro video camera, bullet camera, or lipstick camera, is a camera attached to a helmet allowing someone to make a visual record from their point of view , while keeping their hands and vision free....

 on some of the riders, one of the first times something like that had been attempted. This was before the days of miniature cameras and the set-up was often quite bulky on the rider’s helmet.

At one point, Bruce Brown found a perfect location for a sunset beach riding shot — Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton
Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton
Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton is the major West Coast base of the United States Marine Corps and serves as its prime amphibious training base...

.


"I figured there would be no way to get approval to film on the Marine base," Brown recalls. "Steve McQueen said he’d see what he could find out. The next day he called and told to contact some General and the next thing you know we are shooting the beach sequences. It was pretty amazing the doors he was able to open."
This beach scene is used for the final scenes of the film with Brown filming McQueen, Lawwill, and Smith riding in the setting sun.

Critical reception

On Any Sunday is often credited as the best and/or most important motorcycle documentary ever made. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

 says it "does for motorcycle racing what The Endless Summer
The Endless Summer
The Endless Summer is a 1966 film in the surf movie genre.Director Bruce Brown follows two surfers, Mike Hynson and Robert August, on a surf trip around the world. Despite the balmy climate of their native California, cold ocean currents make local beaches inhospitable during the winter...

did for surfing". Ebert praises the film's high level of artistry in accomplishing the impressive footage of motorcycle races (which he says are difficult to film), and he also credits the film for not bothering viewers with the technical details of how the filming was done.

Impact

During the opening sequence, children are seen riding their bicycle
Bicycle
A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....

s on a dirt track, in imitation of motorcyclists. Thanks to this scene, On Any Sunday is thought to have popularized BMX
BMX
Bicycle motocross or BMX refers to the sport in which the main goal is extreme racing on bicycles in motocross style on tracks with inline start and expressive obstacles, and it is also the term that refers to the bicycle itself that is designed for dirt and motocross cycling.- History :BMX started...

 biking across America; previously it had only been observed in Southern California.

"I think many people changed their minds about motorcyclists after watching the movie," Brown said. "One particularly funny story was told by Mert Lawwill. Being a motorcycle racer he was sort of considered the Black Sheep of the family. The old matriarch of the family, Lawwill’s grandmother-in-law, went to see the movie and in the middle of one of the scenes featuring Lawwill she stood up and shouted, 'That’s my grandson!' Suddenly he was the big hero of the family."


Malcolm Smith, who was also a major focus of the film, credits "On Any Sunday" with giving him the worldwide recognition that enabled him to become a leading entrepreneur in the off-road motorcycling business.


Several follow-ups to the film were produced:
  • On Any Sunday II, 1981, starring Bob Hannah
    Bob Hannah
    Robert "Hurricane" Hannah was one of the most successful motocross racers in American history. He won a total of seven AMA national championships....

     and Larry Huffman
  • On Any Sunday: Revisited, 2000, by Dana Brown
    Dana Brown
    Dana Brown is an American surfer, filmmaker, and oldest son of filmmaker Bruce Brown. His films include The Endless Summer Revisited which is made up of unused footage from The Endless Summer and The Endless Summer II , as well as some original interviews with the stars of those films...

  • On Any Sunday: Motocross, Malcolm, & More
    On Any Sunday: Motocross, Malcolm, & More
    On Any Sunday: Motorcross, Malcolm, & More is a documentary about the most famous motorcycle film of all time, On Any Sunday , which was done by the father of this director. The film is directed by Dana Brown of Step Into Liquid and Dust to Glory fame.-External links:* *...

    , 2001

Scene Index

0. Scene Access

1. Opening Titles [4:07]

2. San Francisco, Calif. [7:19]

3. Road Racing [4:55]

4. Dirt Track Racing [1:08]

5. Taking Care of the Machine [4:08]

6. String of Bad Luck [5:49]

7. Motocross Racing [8:55]

8. Malcolm Smith [3:05]

9. El Escorial, Spain [6:35]

10. Elsinore, Calif. [7:52]

11. Side Car Racing [:23]

12. Drag Racing [:57]

13. Ice Racing [1:47]

14. Bonneville Salt Flats [3:15]

15. Sacramento, Calif. [6:59]

16. Hill Climb [5:21]

17. Magicians of the Motorcycle World [1:56]

18. Desert Racers [13:37]

19. End Credits [:18]
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