Photos Jeeves, photos.

The "real" Dave Stoller, Dennis Christopher, at the 2016 Eroica California. Sorry its it's such a small picture.

How many of us were inspired by 1979 movie. Too bad Hollywood hasn't done much in the cycling genre since despite the movies success at the box office and winning the 1980 Academy Award for best original screenplay. BA was also the movie that put Dennis Quaid on the map?




Cycling culture has come a long way since the late 70s.

A long time ago I was living in Northern IN, and discovered one of my co-workers was an IU-Bloomington graduate.
I asked him if there really was a quarry there as depicted in "Breaking Away";

Him: "Yes, the quarry was real, but the scene was not realistic."

Me: "What was wrong with the scene?"

Him: "Nobody ever wore clothes at the quarry!"

My Favorite fresh water swimming place,
I used to ride an hour + each way to get to, on my bike,
avoiding public chlorinated pee pools, in town,

was also filled in,
probably at the command of the county lawyers and liability insurance carrier..




....

Don't forget Daniel Stern -- later seen as one of the 'wet bandit' burgulars, 'Marv' in the first two Home Alone movies...

Oh, and I rode HH in '77, '78 and '79. BEFORE the movie came out!

Definitely a TOP TEN movie for me. Just one of those films where every scene was a great scene. I was about the age of the cast of characters and could truly relate, although I wasn't a serious cyclist at the time. Coming of age film that really hit the mark.

This whole area is littered with stone quarries. Washington monument, the Pentagon, Chicago water, among many other cathedrals all came from within miles of each other.

This whole area is littered with stone quarries. Washington monument, the Pentagon, Chicago water tower, among many other cathedrals all came from within miles of each other.

Around here played out gravel or stone quarries are used as clean fill sites.It lets the operator continue to make money charging $20 - $50 a load to dump. Trucks come in, dump spoil, load stone out. Win Win. All that dirt from new basements, sewer & water trenches, road construction etc has to go somewhere.

I saw "Breaking Away" in high school at a theater when it came out. I saw it again in college. I thought the cycling was kinda cool. I re-watched "Breaking Away" a couple of years ago at 50+ years old, and it is a great movie even without the cycling. I mean, well-written,compelling characters, well-acted and well done all around. The cycling just makes it even better.

The movie is loosely based on the experiences of Dave Blase, who won the little 5 solo in the 60's. The cutters vs college boys wasn't part of Dave's story, but the cycling bits were pure Mr. Blase. Dave grew up to be a H.S. biology teacher, hence "Mr Blase" to me. He got a bit part in the movie as the race announcer, plus he was one of the Cinzano racers on the road race.

I believe it was his first major motion picture.

Christopher is from my home town of Philadelphia. And unless he has quit, he smokes.

Actually, the stone for the Washington Monument stone came from Texas, Maryland and Massachusetts. Many states provided memorial stones but the the main construction stones were from the aforementioned states. Breaking Away is one of my favorite go to movies.

https://www.quora.com/What-type-of-s...-they-quarried

ok, you can have Washington monument, but i totally get to claim this as the home of the Empire State Building....

[MENTION=425024]jbell_64[/MENTION]

Right you are!

I liked the movie, but am always surprised when I see mention of the great acting.
the script and acting combo for his parents was junior high production quality. It was almost as if the characters were spoofs of actual parents.
his mom was overly dramatic and hysterical. His dad was comically gruff.

neat story though.

Barbara Barrie was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Paul Dooley won Best Supporting Actor from the National Review Board. I liked both their characters.

Its listed as a comedy.

Salem, aka Bedford, aka Indiana limestone is the good stuff. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Limestone

And yes, when real estate values around Bloomington increase to levels above the cost of filling up the played out quarries and developing them, they will all be filled in. There are still very active quarries down there.
Liked the movie too!

My daughter goes to IU and is on her sororities bike team. She just rode the Hilly 100 this weekend as well. I haven't seen Breaking Away but have heard about it. I've learned a lot these past few months about the Little 500 and watching to see if she get's to ride the race in the spring, she actually just earned her official team kit yesterday. She never was into cycling and just picked it up after joining her sorority. She had one of the 2016 Little 500 Bikes home this summer for training. I rode it for a short time just to say I rode and actual Little 500 bike. I need to track down the movie and watch it sometime.

Interesting. I would have put it as a comedy drama.
From a comedy perspective- it isnt laugh out loud funny. It has a sprinkling of humerous scenes or situations.
Even in a comedy, the characters can be believable and well rounded. They dont need to spoof themselves.

Maybe if it were made in a more recent cinematic period the style would be different and more appealing to me(though perhaps less appealing to others). Though I dont think most adults miss the cinematic style of the 40s and 50s and the more recent 25 years is more enjoyable. That was some terrible acting back then too.

Oh well.

Not all good comedies are. Still, I would consider it more humorous that comedy. But that's not really a category that most movie watcher would recognize. Besides, as you probably already know many movies can cover a wide swath of styles, so often-times the genre has to be a generalized or averaged one.

I've watched many comedies that aren't funny (to me) at all, and seen horror movies where I never stop laughing (Is there any wonder my friend don't want to go to movies with me.)

Anyway, I found 'Breaking Away' to be a deeply complex film that doesn't always take itself too seriously. The dad -- and mom scenes provide most of that comic relief.