FILM (1981)

Chariots of Fire
Ben Cross, Ian Charleson, Nigel Havers
Director: Hugh Hudson

Even if you've never seen Chariots of Fire, you will have heard its stirring theme, which is often used on television to accompany footage of people doing things in slow motion.

Come to think of it, the way it has been used as a de facto anthem for British athletics may help to explain why the country's sprinters no longer win the same number of medals they did at the 1924 Olympic Games, which provide the setting for much of this film.

Such concerns are for another day, however. Along with The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Chariots of Fire is one of two very fine British films about running and in truth is no more about fire than Slap Her, She's French. But fire does feature indirectly.

For one there is a lot of smoking, clearly an aid to sporting achievement in those days. Secondly, it features two young men fired up by zeal or ambition: Scotsman Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson) has more than a touch of Calvinist fire and brimstone in his make-up. In his unorthodox running style, he also appears to have a rocket warming his bottom.

Where Liddell is running for God (he even refuses to compete on the Sabbath), Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) - the son of a financier and former Lithuanian immigrant - is motivated by a desire for acceptance by the establishment, as exemplified by the dons at his Cambridge college, that is distinctly sniffy about his Jewishness.