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In 1971 On Any Sunday premiered, and in a small town in North Carolina known for cigarettes and NASCAR, my father, his brother and their father took two chopped-up, raked-out Triumphs to their local movie theatre. On display at the small theatre were the two bikes for the local premier of what would become one of the most iconic motorcycle movies ever.


In 2014, On Any Sunday, The Next Chapter premieres in Hollywood, California, 3,000 miles away from Winston-Salem, North Carolina and over 40 years later, his son attends the US premier of the sequel. I one-up’ed my dad this time, who every Christmas made the family watch On Any Sunday.

I thought about that as I listened to Dana Brown give thanks for the turnout and help on the movie next to his dad. Dana had done that same thing as I did, just on a much grander scale. His movie wasn’t better than the original, but it certainly was just as cool and has the potential to be listed as one of the best motorcycling movies. A movie for our generation of bikers... who are a lot like the previous generation.


The Venice Vintage Motorcycle Club were cool dudes.“The equipment has changed, the technology and stuff, but the people are just the same. All the people I’ve met through Dana, the new guys, they’re all just nice, everyday down to earth people,” said Bruce in an interview earlier that week. “I mean you talk to Robby Madison, unless he told you, you’d never know what he did. He just seemed like a nice young man.”
On Any Sunday was the first movie meant to break misconceptions about motorcyclists. Bruce Brown told us a friend had taken him to a motocross track to watch a race. Damned by association, in the mid to late ‘60s if you rode a motorcycle the general, morning-news populous thought you were a big, burley, ugly, mean, lawbreaking biker.

“I was sort of anti-motorcycle coming from the surfing background, thinking, ‘aww they were a bunch of bad guys',” said Bruce. “Once I got into it and realized that was wrong, that was part of the inspiration to make On Any Sunday, to show and sort of debunk the myth that they were all losers.”


I've always liked the Venice Vixens' hard tail Sporty… I mean Buell, sorry.He went to the pits after that race and expect to see big, gnarly dudes, “but they were all these little guys like me,” said Bruce. He had just finished The Endless Summer, said to be one of the best surfing documentaries ever, second only to his son Dana’s Step Into Liquid movie, and had an idea to make a documentary exposing what a motorcycle rider/biker really was. At the same time his own obsession with motorcycles emerged as he and a friend jumped on two Triumph 250 Cubs and rode from Ensenada to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.


When he returned he started talking about the idea with Steve McQueen who said he wanted to be in the movie if it ever got made. “I told him, if he wanted to be in the movie, he’d have to pay for it,” said Bruce. “I didn’t think anything of it, but he said, ‘I’ll get back to you.” Sure enough, Steve called the next day and said "I’ll do it", and gave Bruce the entire funding for the movie.
The studio later paid him back in full before the movie was released, but it was the first and possibly only movie Steve McQueen had to pay to be in.

senor honda

On any Sunday, the next chapter
By Jesse Kiser


Apparently I’ve been living under a rock, or maybe I wrote this off and didn’t believe it would actually come to fruition. But while visiting Roland Sands Designs, I was able to check out the bike they’re building for a charity event to promote the movie On Any Sunday, The Next Chapter, set to release this fall. This was the first thing that made me believe in the new movie.
First off, I wasn’t supposed to see the bike, let alone show you photos, but it’s going to be cool. Propped up on one lift, the KTM was up on blocks beside another lift with an era-correct, Triumph pre-unit done in early amateur flat-track, hill-climb fashion. Worn and torn black seat, lacquer-painted red tank with no badges, stiff tall suspension and a chopped up tail section, the Triumph had been drug out of a garage somewhere and was in near-pristine shape. It lay there, unmoved and bare with no tools around it. This Triumph was the inspiration for the team to use when constructing the new bike.

It was a manifestation of the old and new movie in two motorcycles. The two symbols of the movies sat there in all their two-wheeled glory, causing me to envision scenes of jumping dirt, racing between trees or wheeling across a beach. Now it made me believe that this new movie might work.

On Any Sunday, The Next Chapter

For me, On Any Sunday replaced Christmas movies come holiday time. We’d gather around the television like a fireplace. One Christmas my mother bought my dad the special-edition DVD with bonus features. We never saw a second of bonus features, but now we no longer had to dig out the VCR.
On Any Sunday holds a special place in my heart, so a sequel would have to live up to a high standard. My grandfather ran a Yamaha and Triumph dealership in the late 60s. His son - my uncle - flat-track raced and competed in hill climb events. An accident resulted in a two week coma followed by his death.
My grandfather and his two sons set up a couple motorcycles from the dealership for the 1971 premier at the local North Carolina theatre.

The Sequel

I have my reasons to doubt. See, there has already been a sequel, 1981's On Any Sunday II. A failed attempt at making lightning strike twice, it was a flop. The sequel was just Hollywood trying to cash in on a successful name, without having any of Bruce Brown's family involved.
Bruce Brown was a man with a talent, and pretty much nothing else. He shot On Any Sunday after experiencing motorcycling for himself. Slowly moving up to bigger bikes and camping and riding with friends, he decided after the success of his legendary surfing documentary, The Endless Summer, he’d examine the world of motorcycling. "We just shot a ton of film without knowing exactly where it was going to end up. That kind of film… you sort have to see where it develops," said Bruce Brown. "I'm proud of what it did for the motorcycle community."

He took the same approach he did with The Endless Summer: little in the way of equipment, but a lot in the way of time and footage. Add that mind frame with the big-budget he received for On Any Sunday and you create a masterpiece.
A couple decades later, Bruce's son Dana stepped up to bat, producing Dust to Glory. A good attempt at his dad’s format, it has been a moderate success across the board with a lot of us riders who really enjoy it. I might be the only one that didn’t really like it, but I was given high hopes as many people insisted I watch if after I told people I liked On Any Sunday. I think a better thing to say is, if you like desert racing then watch Dust to Glory. It’s not fair to compare it to On Any Sunday.


The question now remains - will On Any Sunday, The Next Chapter fall short? Dana has teamed up with Red Bull, who have the funding and talent when it comes to cinematography. And with guys like Roland Sands and Travis Pastrana, it’ll be hard to fail. "I hope we do justice to all the stories we come across," said Dana.
After watching the trailer, something that for a few months I had neglected to do - and maybe on some level I was reluctant to do - I have new hope. Even if the narration, script and storyline are pure crap (which there’s no way they can be), the movie would still be worth watching for the awesome cinematography and directing. Slow-motion clips of super sportbikes laid over and motorcross jumps will make it worth the price of admission.

I'm optimistic that this movie will be a success. What do you think? Have you seen On Any Sunday? Will this movie truly be an update on a classic - or will it fall short of capturing the magic of the first one? Comment below or email me at Jesse@RideApart.com. Visit www.onanysundayfilm.com for more information.

senor honda

"I'm Dana Brown and these are the things that happen on any Sunday..........."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=U...&v=I5nglGD8AVI

senor honda

Tampa Racing has the full length 1971 movie
https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/v...ll-length.html

senor honda

https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/v...last-mile.html

senor honda

What happened to Steve McQueen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTctP70TRD0

senor honda

More Steve McQueen
https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/v...ml#post9384228

senor honda

Steve McQueen the Man & Lemans

https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/v...ml#post9393625