Bullitt is a 1968 American thriller film starring Steve McQueen. It was directed by Peter Yates and distributed by Warner Bros. The story was adapted for the screen by Alan Trustman and Harry Kleiner, based on the novel titled Mute Witness (1963) by Robert L. Fish (aka Robert L. Pike). Lalo Schifrin wrote the original music score, a mix of jazz, brass and percussion.
The film won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing (Frank P. Keller) and was nominated for Best Sound. Writers Trustman and Kleiner won a 1969 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Motion Picture Screenplay.
Bullitt is probably best-remembered for its car chase scene through the streets of San Francisco, regarded as one of the most influential car chase sequences in movie history.[1] The scene had Bullitt in a dark "Highland Green" 1968 Ford Mustang 390 CID Fastback, chasing two hit-men in a "Tuxedo Black" 1968 Dodge Charger R/T 440 Magnum.
In 2007, Bullitt was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot
Ambitious California politician Walter Chalmers (Robert Vaughn), is holding a Senate subcommittee hearing in San Francisco on Organized Crime in America. Hoping that by bringing down mobster Pete Ross (Vic Tayback) with the aid of key witness Johnny Ross, Pete's brother, Chalmers' political standing might improve. The story takes place the weekend before the hearing, from Friday night (during the opening credits) to Sunday night.
Following the theft of $2,000,000, and his escape to San Francisco, Johnny Ross (played by Felice Orlandi) is placed in the San Francisco Police Department's protective custody for the weekend. Chalmers requests Lieutenant Frank Bullitt's (Steve McQueen) detective unit be assigned to guard him.
Bullitt, Sergeant Delgetti (Don Gordon) and Detective Carl Stanton (Carl Reindel), give Ross around-the-clock protection at the Hotel Daniels, a cheap flophouse near the Embarcadero Freeway during separate shifts. Before Ross enters the hotel, he makes several phone calls. Late Saturday night, while Stanton is guarding him, the desk clerk calls and says Chalmers and a friend are seeking Ross. Stanton calls Bullitt who refuses, surmising that Chalmers would not show up at 1:00 in the morning. In the meantime, Ross walks over to his room door and unlocks it. A pair of hit-men, Mike (Paul Genge) and Phil (played by stunt driver Bill Hickman), then burst into the room and shoot both Inspector Stanton and Ross.
Stanton and Ross are rushed to San Francisco General Hospital. Bullitt wants to get to investigate who shot the pair and find the Mafia boss who ordered the hit. Chalmers, quite uninterested in the injured detective or identity of the hitmen, is angered and blames Bullitt; threatening to ruin his career if Ross dies (consequently hurting Chalmers' political career). Chalmers attempts to shift blame on to Bullitt and the San Francisco Police Department.
Stanton survives his wounds, and Ross comes out of surgery with a "fifty-fifty" chance at survival. A gunman then appears at the hospital to finish Ross off but is discovered and chased by Bullitt. After he escapes, Bullitt returns to discover Ross has died from his wounds. Bullitt suppresses news of the death, asking Doctor Willard (Georg Stanford Brown) to misplace the chart and have the body placed in the morgue under a John Doe identity. Chalmers arrives at the hospital Sunday morning and is angered that Ross has disappeared. He is further incensed when he and his police minder Captain Baker (Norman Fell) receive no help from Bullitt. Chalmers increases pressure on Bullitt by serving his boss, Captain Bennett (Simon Oakland), with a writ of habeas corpus to produce the witness, just as Bennett arrives at Grace Cathedral church with his family. Bullitt reconstructs Ross's movements with the cabbie (an early role for Robert Duvall) who brought him into the city and investigates phone calls made by Ross. He finds one to a hotel in San Mateo, to a woman registered under the name Dorothy Simmons. With the hearing the next day, Bullitt suspects the dead mobster may not be who he seems. Upon exiting the building, Bullitt is tailed by the hit-men who killed Ross. Bullitt eludes them and instead pursues: leading to the now-legendary car chase, culminating in the hit-mens' deaths.
Back at the police station, Bullitt is interrogated by Captains Baker and Bennett but is given until Monday morning to follow his remaining lead. He begins to check out Dorothy Simmons, but is denied transport; instead resorting to his girlfriend Cathy (Jacqueline Bisset), driving him to the suburban motel. He discovers Simmons murdered by strangulation. After seeing a marked patrol car arrive at the motel, Cathy follows the officers into the crime scene. She is traumatized by what she sees and is led away by Bullitt. She has trouble accepting both the nature of police work and Bullitt's apparent lack of emotion toward its horrors.
Back at the police station, Bullitt and Delgetti check the luggage of the victim; finding that all the clothing and toiletries are new and unused. They learn that the dead woman's true identity was Dorothy Renick (Brandy Carroll) scheduled to fly from San Francisco International Airport (SFO) to Rome with her husband; whose only identity is his monogrammed shirts. Travellers' cheques in the luggage reveal him to be "Albert E. Renick." Bullitt tells Delgetti to have immigration check Renick's passport application along with fingerprints.
Chalmers arrives at the police station, demanding Bullitt sign an official statement acknowledging Ross died in his custody. Bullitt refuses, wanting a copy of the couples' passport photos in return. Chalmers realizes the discrepancy upon seeing the couples' true identity. The murdered man was not Johnny Ross but Albert Renick. The real Johnny Ross paid Renick to impersonate him, using Renick's passport and identity to leave the country. Ross set up Renick as a decoy to escape and then killed Dorothy.
At SFO, Ross is not found on the Rome flight. Bullitt surmises he changed location and convinces a London-bound pilot to return to the terminal. Bullitt boards the plane, discovers the real Johnny Ross (played by Pat Renella) and pursues him on foot across runways. Back inside the terminal a stand-off ensues with Bullitt eventually shooting and killing Ross, to the horror of the waiting passengers.
Bullitt returns home to find Cathy asleep. He enters the bathroom to wash his hands and looks into the mirror, quietly contemplating his future.
Car chase
Detective Bullitt spins his tires for the chase.
At the time of the film's release, the car chase scene generated a great amount of excitement.[2]
Two 1968 390 CID V8 Ford Mustangs (325 bhp) were used for the chase scene, both owned by Ford Motor Company and part of a promotional loan agreement with Warner Bros. The Mustangs' engines, brakes and suspensions were heavily modified for the chase by veteran car racer Max Balchowsky. Ford Motor Company had also originally loaned two Ford Galaxie sedans that were intended to be used in the chase scenes, but the producers found the cars entirely too heavy to put through jumps over the hills of San Francisco without the suspensions of the cars being severely damaged. The Galaxie sedans were replaced with two 1968 440 CID/375 bhp Dodge Chargers that were bought outright from Glendale Dodge in Glendale, California. The engines in both Chargers were left largely unmodified, but the suspensions were upgraded to cope with the demands of the stunt work.
The director called for speeds of about 75–80 mph (120–130 km/h), but the cars (including the ones containing the cameras) reached speeds of over 110 mph (175 km/h) on surface streets. Driver's point-of-view angles were used to give the audience the "feel" of the ride as the cars jumped the hills. Filming the chase scene took three weeks, resulting in 9 minutes and 42 seconds of film. During this film sequence, the Charger loses six hubcaps and has different ones missing in different shots. As a result of shooting from multiple angles simultaneously, and some angles' footage used at different times to give the illusion of different streets, the speeding cars can be seen passing the same green VW bug four different times, and the same blue sedan with black top three times. The Charger also crashes into the camera in one scene and the damaged front fender is noticeable in later scenes. After the Charger hits a parked car, it disappears for a split second from the screen before the scene is changed.
Steve McQueen was an accomplished driver and managed to perform the bulk of the driving stunt work. The stunt coordinator, Carey Loftin, hired famed stuntman and motorcycle racer Bud Ekins to do the risky stunts in the Mustang. He is also the stunt man who lays down his bike in front of a skidding truck during the chase (Ekins also doubled for McQueen in the sequence of The Great Escape in which McQueen's character jumps over a barbed wire fence on a motorcycle). The Mustang’s interior rear view mirror goes up and down depending on who is driving: when the mirror is up (visible) McQueen is behind the wheel, and when it is down (not visible) Ekins is driving. The black Dodge Charger was driven by Bill Hickman, who also played one of the hit-men and helped with the choreography of the chase scene. The other hitman was played by Paul Genge who also rode another Dodge off the road to his death in an episode of Perry Mason - "The Case of the Sausalito Sunrise" 2 years earlier.
Of the two Mustangs, one was scrapped after filming due to liability concerns and the surviving backup car was sold to an employee of Warner Brothers' editing department. The car changed hands several times, and Steve McQueen at one point made an unsuccessful attempt to buy it. Currently in non-working condition, the Mustang is rumored to have been kept in a barn in the Ohio River Valley by an anonymous owner.[3] The Ford Motor Company has twice reproduced the dark green Mustang for sale to the public; once in 2001, and once in 2008.
In 2001, there were 5,583 special edition Mustang Bullitts produced. The cars were all sequentially numbered with a holographic id tag on the driver's side strut tower in the engine compartment. There is also an anti-counterfeit second id tag under the rear seat. The 2001 Bullitts were produced in 3 color options. Dark Highland Green, matching the movie color, True Blue, and Black. The Dark Highland Green was exclusive to Bullitts. The only option available was the Mach 460 audio system.
The 2008 Bullitt Mustang contained the sequential numbering on an engraved strut tower brace. The 2008 vehicle was available in Highland Green and black.
The 2008 model has a 4.6-liter V8 engine, 315 hp (235 kW). Both were made available in Dark Highland Green, a color similar to that used on the film's automobile.[4]
Comparisons
The movie is also considered highly influential in many other ways within its genre. The use of a rebellious and borderline-insubordinate police officer as a protagonist operating despite interference from higher-ups was followed in many later movies, notably Coogan's Bluff 1968 and Dirty Harry and The French Connection, both released in 1971. The idea of making the officer fairly young and cool, and equipped with a sports car, was subsequently used by Starsky and Hutch and Miami Vice.
The movie as a whole, including the car chase, makes extensive use of the San Francisco Bay Area. However, San Francisco's most famous landmark, the Golden Gate Bridge, was not a part of the chase scene because the city's film commission refused to allow the filmmakers to close the bridge and film there. (The bridge is only briefly visible in the background during the part of the chase scene along Marina Boulevard.)
In the 2007 film Zodiac directed by David Fincher, the real-life San Francisco homicide investigator David Toschi (played by Mark Ruffalo) is said to be the model for McQueen's character Bullitt, including the use of a specially designed quick-draw shoulder holster for his weapon.[5]
Bullitt references
- A 2003 Chevrolet television advertisement—created by the firm of Campbell-Ewald, directed by Michael Bay, and featuring the song "Magic Carpet Ride" by Steppenwolf—makes ironic reference to the movie Bullitt. The advertisement was titled "An American Revolution, Car Carrier", and featured six not yet introduced new cars and trucks boarding a car carrier traversing the United States—notably a 103 hp (77 kW) Chevrolet Aveo descending the Twin Peaks of San Francisco and making an airborne leap remininscent of the Ford Mustang chase scene—before boarding the car carrier.
- In an episode of Futurama, a car chase taking place in San Francisco pays homage by placing green VWs into each and every cut shot—more than in the original. In the audio commentary for the episode, the creators comment on their attempt to pay homage to Bullitt, and mention that in the original film car chase, more than four hubcaps fell off the car (an obvious continuity error). To parody this, the VW bus the characters are driving in loses more than four hubcaps through the episode's chase scene.
- In honor of the Mustang in the film, the Ford Motor Company produced a limited edition 2001 Ford Mustang "Mustang Bullitt GT", which took styling cues from the '68 movie car and even mimicked its exhaust note. (The car's engine and transmission were overdubbed recordings of a Ford GT40 driven at full tilt.) Another "Mustang Bullitt" was produced in 2008.
- The 2005 film Red Line (with Steve McQueen's son Chad portraying a H.B. Halicki-like car thief) featured a green 1968 Mustang GT similar to the one used in the film. Chad McQueen, in real life, owns a replica of the 1968 Mustang GT used in the film, along with the first two production 2001 Mustang Bullitts (5,000 were produced in 2001). It is unknown if he owns the 2008 version.
- An advert for the Ford Puma car featured footage of Steve McQueen driving—edited to make him look like he was driving a Puma around the streets of San Francisco. The Bullitt theme and typography were also used.
- Another advertisement for Ford was created in 2005, to introduce the then-new style of the Mustang. The commercial, known as "The Cornfield", sees a farmer creating a racetrack in his cornfield and a digital Steve McQueen walks out of the field and takes the Mustang for a spin after being tossed the keys.
- The jumping parts of the final chase scene in The Fast and the Furious are a nod to the famous chase scene in San Francisco.
- In the 2008 movie Max Payne, Mark Wahlberg dresses similarly to Bullitt in a few scenes.
- In the music video to the Metallica song "I Disappear", the singer James Hetfield appears in a similar chase scene in a Chevrolet Camaro.
- British pop group Swing Out Sister sampled the line "Just drink your orange juice and shut up Delgetti" on their single "You On My Mind". The artwork for the album Kaleidsocope World borrowed heavily from the film.
- In the Swedish thriller The Man from Majorca, a suspect is called Bullitt by the cops after a dangerous car chase in Stockholm.
- In October 2009 the BBC Radio 4 broadcast an adaptation of the original novel Mute Witness as part of its Saturday Play series, under the better recognised title Bullitt[6].
References
External links
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