Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Myth & Mogul: John DeLorean is a 3-part docuseries that examines DeLorean’s larger-than-life story, from his time as a somewhat unknown engineer at General Motors to the decade he broke from his corporate life to design his own fuel-efficient sports car. It also documents the cocaine trafficking bust in 1982 that accelerated the already failing fortunes of DeLorean Motor Company.
MYTH & MOGUL: JOHN DELOREAN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: An archival shot of John DeLorean getting out of the car he created and named after himself. His son Zachary says, “My dad’s probably the largest guy in life that I’ve ever met.”
The Gist: Much of the footage of DeLorean in the late ’70s and early ’80s, prior to the 1981 introduction of his gull-winged, stainless steel DMC DeLorean sports car, was shot by filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker and his soon-to-be-wife Chris Hegedus for their documentary DeLorean. Most if not all the footage has never been seen before. Hegedus is one of the people interviewed for the docuseries; she and Pennebaker’s son Frazer are among the series’ producers. Also interviewed is DeLorean’s third wife, Cristina Ferrare, who was married to DeLorean during his early ’80s rise and fall, as well as journalist Gail Sheehy, Ralph Nader, and people who worked at DMC during its nine years of existence.
In the first episode, there’s a quick look at DeLorean’s rough upbringing in 1920s and ’30s Detroit and his time as a well-respected but unknown engineer at GM in the 1950s. During the 1960s, as he rose up the ranks at GM, he started listening to — and living, to an extent — the more open lifestyle that “the youth” was living at the time. He transformed himself from a meek, weak-chinned engineer to a strong-chinned, virile car man, thanks to plastic surgery. He dated models, and he designed the Pontiac GTO to appeal to young adults that want a cheap car that can go like hell.
But, as he entered his late 40s, DeLorean felt shackled by the corporate world; in 1973, he left GM and created DMC (DeLorean Motor Company). It took him years to design the car that bore his name, but in the process we see him and Ferrare charming car dealers at conventions, showing them a concept model, and getting them to sign on in order to help fund the rest of the design phase and the manufacturing phase.
He was running the company on a shoestring, though, and after finding that he couldn’t find manufacturing space — or have a state or town build it for him — in the U.S., he turned to Northern Ireland. Despite the country being smack in the middle of “the troubles” between Catholic and Protestant factions, with Belfast being bombed almost on a weekly basis, DeLorean arrogantly felt that he could manufacture his car there.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Because of the auto theme, Myth & Mogul plays out similarly to The Lady And The Dale. DeLorean — the car and the man — are more famous than the Dale and Elizabeth Carmichael; as we all know the DeLorean was featured in the Back To The Future films. But it has the same feel of the rise and fall of someone who had a vision of changing the auto industry. And, naturally, this docuseries tells many of the same tales that we heard in Framing John DeLorean (minus Alec Baldwin, for which your own personal mileage may vary.)
Our Take: Myth & Mogul: John DeLorean succeeds because it’s nicely-paced, with moving graphics filling in information where a narrator might in similar docuseries. It also succeeds because of the access director/producer Mike Connolly got to important people in DeLorean’s story during the era when he designed his now infamous car.
From his trusted execs at DMC to Ferrare to his son Zach, the interviews give a very rounded picture of a man who was very much living his best life, and impressed everyone with whom he came into contact. Everyone who talked about him did so with at least a tiny bit of reverence, impressed by either his man’s man persona, his skill as a designer and engineer, or even his vision of what he wanted his new car to be.
But where the docuseries really shines is in the footage that Pennebaker’s family provided. It fills in the other blanks that most docuseries have to use reenactments to fill. Instead of seeing an actor playing DeLorean, we see DeLorean himself, hard at work at DMC, putting on the charm to sell dealers on his vision, even joking around with Ferrare in a New York taxi. It shows his arrogance mixed with his Midwest everyman persona that people found so ingratiating.
Because the series is paced so well, it will take no time to get to DeLorean’s fall, where he got into cocaine trafficking in order to keep DMC afloat after the car got bad reviews and had tepid sales. Even though we know the basics of the story, and the idea that the DeLorean was already a joke by the time Back To The Future came out in 1985, what we appreciate is the docuseries reminding us that DeLorean himself wasn’t a joke, that he took years to get this car to the sales floor, and that even after his trial and acquittal, he spent the last 20 years of his life still trying to get a new version of his car on the road.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: “He was walking into an absolute snake pit,” says Jeremy Paxman, a BBC reporter in Northern Ireland in the ’70s, as we see a bomb go off in the streets of Belfast.
Sleeper Star: Zachary DeLorean, whom John adopted while he was single — two years before marrying Ferrare — talks about his father with equal parts awe and anger, love and regret. When he talks about the car that led to his father’s downfall, he says “I just wish I had, like, a fucking hand grenade and just toss it in the thing.”
Most Pilot-y Line: None, really.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Myth & Mogul: John DeLorean fills you in on the story behind DeLorean and his infamous car. Even if you know the story, as we did, it still fills in information about his life and his efforts to shake up the auto industry.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
