BULLIT Movie. Bullitt US, 1968, 113mins, colour Dir: Peter Yates There isn't much left to say ab
Its 13-minute car chase through San Francisco is still the prototype for all the others and, arguably, it has not been bettered — although many have tried. Based on a book by Robert L. Pike (published as Mute Witness) this is the story of a cop (Frank Bullitt) who covers up the death of an underworld witness in his charge and goes after the killers himself. Curiously, neither its star Steve McQueen nor its director Peter Yates wanted the chase. 'Steve had done the chase in The Great Escape ...' Yates told Uncut in 1998, '... and I'd done the chase in Robbery, so we weren't that keen at first.' But once the sequence was in the script both agreed that it should be the hottest ever filmed. Although Bullitt now seems, vehicular action apart, like a pretty routine cop drama, the fact that it was shot on location set it apart. To get a rough, documentary feel much of it was filmed using hand-held Arriflex cameras. Nearly all the cars used are Fords, because the studio had a deal with them. The Sunshine Cab driven by Robert Duvall is a '67 Ford Custom and Robert Vaughn's transport is a black Lincoln Continental, product of the FoMoCo. Most of the police cars were Fords. Ford supplied two Highland Green Mustang 390GT fastbacks. The two black Dodge Chargers were bought by the production company from a Los Angeles dealer. While the Dodge remained in virtually standard condition, the Mustangs, because of their marginal underpinnings, had to be heavily beefed-up to endure the jumps and general abuse of the chase scene. Some tuning to the Mustang's 390ci High Performance engine was needed, apparently, to help it keep up with the Dodge's 440ci Magnum. The chase scene took two weeks to shoot. Max Balchowski, a well-known racecar builder, was hired to keep the cars running and to do any last-minute modifications. In one downhill landing, the Mustang's oil pan was ripped open. Balchowski simply welded the pan while it was still bolted to the engine.
According to Bullitt aficionado Dave Kunz, McQueen did some of the stunt driving, but the tricky stuff was left to professional stunt drivers. 'When McQueen appears in the mirror, that's a good indication,' says Kunz. 'However, when the mirror is turned slightly away, and all you can see is part of the camera support, it is likely a stunt driver.' The chase begins on Columbus Avenue in San Francisco. Bill Hickman — the character in the Charger with the horn-rimmed glasses, a top stunt driver of the day who had small speaking parts in The French Connection and The Seven-Ups — buckles his seatbelt in anticipation of jumping the lights and blasting through the junction with tyres smoking up Chestnut Street. The Mustang, caught in the traffic, finally breaks through with McQueen, rocketing up Chestnut after the Charger: the neck hairs still bristle with the sound of the V8 being gunned and anticipation of the cops & robbers chase, no matter how many times one sees it. Yates wanted McQueen's Mustang to make a sharp left-hand turn from Taylor Street onto Filbert Street. As he went into the corner, the car bounced up, and he lost control, causing the Mustang to skid across the junction, according to eye-witness Anthony Bologna. After two attempts McQueen exchanged places with his stunt double who also had problems. The steep gradient forced the driver to hug the kerb in order to complete the turn. The Charger rounded the corner by oversteering sideways, then accelerating coming out. This one segment of the film is just a few seconds of screen time but took two days to film. Bud Ekins, a great friend of McQueen's (he rode the fence jumps in The Great Escape) drove the downhill jumps in Bullitt. He also lays down a motorcycle later on in the chase when the Charger crosses the centre line and runs him off the road. At one point in the Bullitt chase, Hickman actually lost control of the Charger and smashes into a camera position: the final cut shows the Charger rounding the turn at Leavenworth and Chestnut, then clouting the camera at speed. McQueen and the stunt drivers were touching 110mph in places, with Yates strapped in the back with the hand held camera. 'It was pretty terrifying,' Yates told Allan Jones in Uncut. 'McQueen was really flying. I eventually tapped him on the shoulder and shouted "OK you can slow down now, we're out of film." Steve turned to me and smiled. "That's nothing baby; we're also out of brakes."' After a side-by-side game of push and shove on the open highway Bill Hickman's white haired passenger produces a sawn-off shot gun and opens fire on McQueen through the pillar-less side window of the black Dodge.
The Charger is finally consumed in a ball of fire when McQueen forces it off the road. The special-effects department built a fake service station on a vacant lot at the bottom of the hill on Guadalupe Canyon Road in Daly City, where the pursuit climaxes. The Mustang and Charger were held together by a bracket to keep the cars separated while being towed. It was then intended that the Charger would be released, exploding as it went through the service station. In reality, the Charger missed its mark and went alongside the service station — but the explosives were set-off anyway and some nifty editing saved the scene. Jacqueline Bissett provides McQueen's love interest. As an interesting European type she drives a slightly tatty Porsche 356. Two bits of Bullitt car trivia. Look carefully in the opening part of the film in the underground car park scenes and you'll spot a Bizzarini GT Strada — one of only 149 made —parked casually among the yank tanks. When McQueen meets politico Robert Vaughn at a posh society party, linger a while on the Silver Cloud III parked outside: its on English number plates.