I stayed in San Francisco and watched the influential cop thriller Bullitt. The film starred Steve McQueen as the ultimate in cool police officer, and is famous for it's car chase between a Ford Mustang and a Dodge Charger. Director Peter Yates took 3 weeks to film the chase all over San Francisco to end up with nine minutes of film. The cars were equipped with cameras and McQueen, an accomplished driver, did most of his own stunt driving in the Mustang. The driver of the Charger was Bud Ekins a famed stuntman, who played a hit man and getaway car driver. Yates achieved a fantastic amount of realism in the chase because he could photograph these two men at the wheel of the cars while going at extremely high speeds. The car chase in Bullitt set the standard, and was influential for many film makers, including William Freidkin and the famous car chase in The French Connection. Peter Bogdonavich spoofed the chase in What's Up Doc and other films followed with famous chases through San Francisco, including Foul Play and A View To A Kill.
The film also introduced the concept of the hip, cool police officer who was insubordinate and usually had to solve the case despite interference from his commanding officer or politicians. This type of cop was later scene in Dirty Harry, The French Connection and started appearing in TV shows, such as Baretta, Kojack and Starsky And Hutch.
Lt. Bullitt is chosen by a powerful politician to protect a witness who is to appear at a Senate hearing in 40 hours. When the witness is killed Bullitt is determined to find out who set him up, and the politician, played by Robert Vaughn, is determined to bring Bullitt down. During the investigation Bullitt is followed by the killers, but he turns the table on them and this leads to the high speed pursuit all over San Francisco. Later on, when Bullitt solves the mystery, there is another chase, this time on foot, across the runways of San Francisco Airport. This scene was obviously filmed on location, with real planes moving about and is totally authentic, unlike so many of today's CGI created action sequences. Putting actors on location, instead of in front of a blue screen really pays off in giving the film a sense of realism and true suspense.
The movie has one flaw. For whatever reason the director or writer felt in necessary to add sex-appeal to the movie by casting Jacqueline Bisset in the film as Bullitt's love interest. None of the scenes with Bisset work. There is a restaurant scene that plays out for 5 minutes, with no dialogue that is pointless. Bisset delivers a speech about Bullitt becoming jaded because of all the violence he sees and it stops the movie cold. The movie would be about 15 minutes shorter if they removed her parts, but would play at a much tighter pace. This was one mistake Don Siegel did not make when he directed Dirty Harry.
At The Movie House rating ***1/2
2 comments:
Excellent review....I believe McQueen turned down some key roles in his career...can you expand on this pleasE
McQueen is known for turning down some of the most popular roles in film history. he passed on playing opposite paul newman in Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid because they could not agree on who gets top billing.
After Frank Sinatra turned down Dirty Harry it was offered to McQueen who said no because he did not want to be in another cop movie. He turned down The French Connection for the same reason. He was offered the lead in Breakfast At Tiffany's, opposite Audrey Hepburn, but he passed. And he negotiated with Spielberg for the lead in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind but then said no, so the role went to Richard Dreyfuss.
He was Francis Ford Coppola's first choice for Apocalypse Now, but he turned it down because he did not want to be on location for 17 weeks. The role went to Martin Sheen.
One can only imagine what these films would have been like with McQueen in them.
He eventually did work with Paul Newman in tonight's film The Towering Inferno. Billing was arrange to be side by side on all posters and film credits. The script was negotiated so each actor had the same amount of lines and screen time. The appear together briefly throughout the film and then are together for the big finale.
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