Fans of Steve McQueen shouldn't expect to see too much of the star in Bruce Brown's motorcycle documentary, On Any Sunday (1971); he's only in it a short time, and he rarely speaks. But the often-rebellious actor appears relaxed, happy, and in his element here. Maybe that's because, as he once said, whenever he was feeling down, he raced, and he felt the joy of humanity from the other racers. A popular documentarian and a chronicler of high-energy outdoor sports, Brown was inspired to do this film by his association with McQueen, who had been a motorcycle racer even before his appearance in The Great Escape (1963), in which he did most of his own stunts. McQueen imparted to Brown a sense of the sport's exhilaration, and Brown captured that on screen, using a number of cinematic methods to get across the you-are-there sense of speeding along on one of these machines - amazing point-of-view shots from a camera strapped to the front of a bike, as well as slow-motion cinematography that manages to convey the great thrill the riders are feeling.

Brown was known primarily for documentaries that - along with the music of The Beach Boys - raised widespread awareness of the formerly cult sport of surfing and practically made it an American institution. The most famous of these was The Endless Summer (1966) and its less successful 1994 sequel. Brown had been making surfing films since Slippery When Wet (1958). But with The Incredible Pair of Skis (1967) and On Any Sunday, he branched out into other territory, culminating in his view of extreme sports in The Edge (1975).

Brown's documentary method, especially in the earlier surf films, was sometimes criticized for his non-purist approach. But his work here in the non-fiction arena imparts an excitement and immediacy to the experience that earned the film a Best Documentary Feature Academy Award nomination. He depicts every type of motorcycle competition, from asphalt track and drag races to cross-country and hill climbing.

McQueen was also one of the major backers of this film. And the music was written by Dominic Frontiere, the Emmy-winning composer of many TV themes and scores like The Outer Limits (1963) and Stoney Burke (1962). He also wrote for film, mostly in the action genre, and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score for the Bruce Willis movie Color of Night (1994) and won a Golden Globe for The Stunt Man (1980).

In an interview with Chris Neumer of centerstage.net, Brown recalled why we wanted to make On Any Sunday: "We were in Japan in '63, I think, and at that time everyone in Japan was riding around on little motor scooters. Then when I got home they just imported the first ones to this country and I got one of those and started riding around....And it all sort of evolved from there. From the little Honda Stetson to the Triumph, I went through several different bikes. I thought man this is a lot of fun. It started initially just to get up in the hills and ride the dirt roads and all that. All the surf guys around Dana Point, you know, Hobie and Gordon Clark..they all got interested so we all started riding and racing and doing different things. The more I got into it, the more I realized how much fun it was and how nice the people were. There was this huge public misconception of what it was all about."

Director/Producer: Bruce Brown
Assistant Editor: Brian King
Original Music: Dominic Frontiere
Cast: Steve McQueen, Mert Lawwill, Malcolm Smith as themselves
C-89m.

by Rob Nixon