Showing posts with label Chases. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chases. Show all posts
Friday, August 01, 2014
Burning Rubber
It should come as no surprise that, when The Guardian’s Anne Billson picked “The Best 13 Car Chases in Film,” she was drawn to Steve McQueen’s speedy tour of San Francisco in Bullitt and Gene Hackman’s roadway pursuit of an elevated train in The French Connection. But there are enough other, less-obvious clips embedded in Billson’s compilation to make visiting it a bit of good fun.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Pedals to the Metal
Since I just got through showcasing a memorable car chase scene from the John Wayne crime thriller McQ (1974), which was a follow-up to my previous post about Steve McQueen’s more famous chase sequence in Bullitt (1968), it’s only right that I now revisit another on-screen pursuit, this one ... well, not quite so renowned. It comes from the 1971 tailored-for-TV film Once Upon a Dead Man, which was the pilot for the Rock Hudson-Susan Saint James mystery series, McMillan & Wife. I can only assume director-writer Leonard B. Stern had McQueen’s automotive acrobatics in mind when he conceived of this two-wheeled race, also through the streets of San Francisco.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
The Duke, Speed Demon
Just over a year ago, when I was writing my latest history of San Francisco, I went searching online for the famous car chase scene from Steve McQueen’s 1968 movie thriller, Bullitt. (You will find that particular video clip embedded here.)
For the sake of comparison, I decided more recently to look for another film chase sequence that I remembered well: John Wayne’s careening through Seattle in the 1974 crime drama McQ. You can watch that video below. It takes fewer liberties with Seattle geography than Bullitt did with the heights and sights of San Francisco, but there’s a lot of running around in circles, and at least one glaring continuity problem. Still, it’s a pretty engaging sequence--and it lets you see what Washington’s Emerald City was like before it got to be quite so popular and touristed. Whoever uploaded this McQ clip helpfully labeled some of the places by which Wayne speeds in his 1970 Firebird.
READ MORE: “Shall We Gather at the River?” by Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times); “Sort-of Related: McQ (1974)/Harry in Your Pocket (1973),” by Vince Keenan.
For the sake of comparison, I decided more recently to look for another film chase sequence that I remembered well: John Wayne’s careening through Seattle in the 1974 crime drama McQ. You can watch that video below. It takes fewer liberties with Seattle geography than Bullitt did with the heights and sights of San Francisco, but there’s a lot of running around in circles, and at least one glaring continuity problem. Still, it’s a pretty engaging sequence--and it lets you see what Washington’s Emerald City was like before it got to be quite so popular and touristed. Whoever uploaded this McQ clip helpfully labeled some of the places by which Wayne speeds in his 1970 Firebird.
READ MORE: “Shall We Gather at the River?” by Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times); “Sort-of Related: McQ (1974)/Harry in Your Pocket (1973),” by Vince Keenan.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Cut to the Chase
Because I’ve been writing feverishly lately on a non-fiction book about San Francisco history, and because the 1968 Steve McQueen thriller Bullitt was shot on location in that 
beautiful city, I decided it was incumbent upon me to watch the film again. Solely for the purposes of research, of course.
It had been a few years--quite a few, maybe 10--since I last screened Bullitt, but the picture has lost none of its hard-boiled allure. Based on the 1963 novel Mute Witness, by Edgar Award winner Robert L. Fish, it finds McQueen playing a world-weary but tough police lieutenant named Frank Bullitt, who’s asked by an ambitious U.S. senator (Robert Vaughn in another fine role) to protect a key witness in an organized-crime trial. Naturally, things go seriously awry, the witness is murdered, and an angry Bullitt goes after the folks who did in his charge.
In Fish’s original novel, which I’ve never had the chance to read, Bullitt was known as Lieutenant Clancy, and there was no car-chase sequence. However, that nine-minute, 42-second high-speed pursuit is one of the most memorable parts of Bullitt, and certainly one of the best car chases in film history. No matter that it has “some strange inconsistencies,” as the San Francisco Chronicle pointed out a few years back. (“The bad guys’ Charger lost six hubcaps and couldn’t hit the broad side of a gas station during the explosive finale. The chase route looks as if it were designed by Siegfried and Roy, with cars disappearing and reappearing at random points in the city.”). Every time I see the determined look on McQueen’s face, as he begins chasing up and down the hilly streets of San Francisco, the tires of his 1968 GT V8 Ford Mustang smoking as he closes on the black Dodge Charger containing his quarry, I know that I’m in for one hell of a wild ride. And glad to go.
Buckle your seat belts and take that scenic ride for yourself in this adrenaline-pumping clip from Bullitt.
READ MORE: “Bullitt: Sounds of the ’60s,” by Peter Rozovsky (Detectives Beyond Borders); “Bullitt Locations in San Francisco: April 1968, July 2002,” by Ray Smith.
beautiful city, I decided it was incumbent upon me to watch the film again. Solely for the purposes of research, of course.It had been a few years--quite a few, maybe 10--since I last screened Bullitt, but the picture has lost none of its hard-boiled allure. Based on the 1963 novel Mute Witness, by Edgar Award winner Robert L. Fish, it finds McQueen playing a world-weary but tough police lieutenant named Frank Bullitt, who’s asked by an ambitious U.S. senator (Robert Vaughn in another fine role) to protect a key witness in an organized-crime trial. Naturally, things go seriously awry, the witness is murdered, and an angry Bullitt goes after the folks who did in his charge.
In Fish’s original novel, which I’ve never had the chance to read, Bullitt was known as Lieutenant Clancy, and there was no car-chase sequence. However, that nine-minute, 42-second high-speed pursuit is one of the most memorable parts of Bullitt, and certainly one of the best car chases in film history. No matter that it has “some strange inconsistencies,” as the San Francisco Chronicle pointed out a few years back. (“The bad guys’ Charger lost six hubcaps and couldn’t hit the broad side of a gas station during the explosive finale. The chase route looks as if it were designed by Siegfried and Roy, with cars disappearing and reappearing at random points in the city.”). Every time I see the determined look on McQueen’s face, as he begins chasing up and down the hilly streets of San Francisco, the tires of his 1968 GT V8 Ford Mustang smoking as he closes on the black Dodge Charger containing his quarry, I know that I’m in for one hell of a wild ride. And glad to go.
Buckle your seat belts and take that scenic ride for yourself in this adrenaline-pumping clip from Bullitt.
READ MORE: “Bullitt: Sounds of the ’60s,” by Peter Rozovsky (Detectives Beyond Borders); “Bullitt Locations in San Francisco: April 1968, July 2002,” by Ray Smith.
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