Bullitt

Front Row at the Movies by Shirrel Rhoades

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Yeah, I hung out with Steve McQueen, Mr. Cool himself. I have a photo of us standing together, him only coming up to my shoulder (and I’m not very tall). All he wanted to talk about was race car driving. McQueen had actually considered becoming a professional race car driver, before the acting bug bit him.

Although Steve McQueen was credited with the driving during the chase sequence, he actually shared it with Bud Ekins, one of Hollywood’s top stunt drivers.

Peter Yates was hired to direct the film because McQueen had seen his 1967 UK film “Robbery,” with its extended car chase. Screenwriter Alan Trustman admitted he wrote the “Bullitt” chase scenes after watching “Robbery.”

“Bullitt” was McQueen’s favorite movie role. It’s often described as his “signature film.”

The plot has Det. Lt. Frank Bullitt (McQueen) and his squad assigned to protect a gangster named Johnny Ross (Felice Orlandi and Pat Renella) prior to testifying at a senatorial hearing.

Based on Robert L. Pike’s 1963 novel “Mute Witness,” the lead character was originally described as an older, overweight police lieutenant, a role intended for Spencer Tracy.

When McQueen took over the role, he patterned his performance on San Francisco Inspector Dave Toschi, with whom he’d worked prior to filming. Toschi was a suave cop. McQueen even copied Toschi’s unique fast-draw shoulder holster.

The bad guys are pretty much “cardboard stand-ups in a shooting gallery, too vaguely defined to achieve true villain status.” That is, with the exception of Robert Vaughn as Walter Chalmers.

Robert Vaughn initially turned down the role because he thought the plot was too thin. But he was “absolutely right for the part, and thank God that McQueen talked his ‘Magnificent Seven’ co-star into doing it – and the producers threw a lot more money at him – because without Vaughn, the movie would have no compelling antagonist to speak of.”

Jacqueline Bisset played Bullitt’s girlfriend, memorably parading around his apartment wearing only a blue pajama top. His pal Don Gordon was cast as his cop partner. Other familiar faces included Simon Oakland, Norman Fell, Vic Tayback, and Robert Duvall.

The first 65 minutes 30 seconds of the film amount to little more than a protracted setup for The Chase, Bullitt driving his green Mustang and two gunmen in their black 1968 Dodge Charger R/T 440. The chase sequence – a game of cat-and-mouse – spans 10 full minutes of screen time.

An aficionado, McQueen owned over 100 exotic and vintage cars, he told me. But, despite his efforts, he was never able to buy the Mustang GTO he drove in “Bullitt.” He was very disappointed, for besides the nostalgia, value the car featured a modified drivetrain that suited McQueen’s driving style.

Movie fan Brent Shepherd sums it up nicely: “Without ‘Bullitt,’ there certainly would be no Dirty Harry Callahan, but the film might also have paved the way for the more thoughtfully crafted, fact-based police stories of Sidney Lumet, such as ‘Serpico’ and ‘Prince of the City.’ We wouldn’t have the exquisite one-upmanship of William Friedkin, who directed two certifiably great car chases of his own in ‘The French Connection’ and ‘To Live and Die in L.A.’ We wouldn’t have Pacino and De Niro’s LAX showdown at the end of Michael Mann’s ‘Heat.’ As cold and unemotional as McQueen’s performance is, without Frank Bullitt, there would be no colorful, loose-cannon franchise detectives like Martin Riggs or John McClane. And that’s just on the big screen – the knockoffs ‘Bullitt’ inspired on television comprise a list as long as your arm.”

As Steve McQueen said to me, “It was a helluva ride.”

Email Shirrel: srhoades@aol.com