After being a supporting actor in successful big budget films such as The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape, McQueen was promoted to playing the lead in such films with The Sand Pebbles. But it was Bullitt that made him a superstar. It was probably his best film role, other than Papillon (1973).
Bullitt (Steve McQueen) is a San Francisco police detective. His soft-spoken partner is Delgetti (Don Gordon), his burly boss is Captain Bennett (Simon Oakland). Chalmers (Robert Vaughn) is an ambitious, dislikable politician who wants Bullitt, recommended by Bennett, to protect Johnny Ross. Ross has embezzled millions from the mob, and plans to testify against them in a Senate hearing.
Look for Robert Duvall as an observant cab driver.
Bullitt is best remembered today for its ten minute car chase scene. McQueen does most of the driving during the sequences. The steep hills of the streets gave me motion sickness, just watching it. You can see McQueen's Ford Mustang bottom out going down the hills at over a hundred miles an hour. It took three weeks to stage and film, and a stunt driver did replace McQueen for the more dangerous shots. The intensity of the chase scene would be surpassed a few years later in another cop/mob drama, The French Connection.
Bullitt broke cinematic ground by being the first mainstream release to use the word "Bull----" in the script. But it was about time that McQueen told off that jerk Vaughn, anyway.
McQueen carries an air of clinical detachment throughout the film, almost as much as the coroner who rattles off an autopsy. Bullitt hasn't been hardened completely, but he is no longer able to show revulsion upon seeing a mutilated body. When confronted by his girlfriend about his aloof manner, he offers no excuses. That is the way he has become.
There are several spoilers in the plot summary that follows. They are present because many plot events occur without much explanation, which (as in 2001: A Space Odyssey, from the same year) can be confusing.
The mob hires a white-haired hitman (John Aprea) to kill Ross. But Ross has hired a stand-in, Rennick (Felice Orlandi), lured with the promise that he will be freed from police custody to spend a vacation with his wife in Italy. Instead, they are both murdered, to ensure their silence.
Unaware that their contract has already been fulfilled, the hitman tails Bullitt, hoping to be led to Ross. Meanwhile, the real Johnny Ross (Pat Renella) plans to use Rennick's plane ticket to Rome to escape both the mob and the law. It's possible for Ross to have carried a handgun onto the plane, as it wasn't until 1973 that all passengers and their baggage were searched for weapons.
Plot holes remain. Rennick and his wife must have been really stupid to fall for Ross' scheme. Bullitt's girlfriend Cathy (Jacqueline Bisset) shouldn't be tagging along when he is on police business interviewing witnesses. Bullitt's taste for late model sports cars doesn't seem compatible with a cop's salary, assuming that he's not on the take.
But while the gritty realism of Bullitt isn't completely convincing, there's no denying the screen charisma of McQueen, or the quality of Peter Yates' direction.
Despite the critical and commercial success of the film, McQueen never made a sequel. However, tough guy cops based in cinematography friendly San Francisco have been around ever since: Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, Nick Nolte in 48 HRS., Karl Malden and Michael Douglas in The Streets of San Francisco, Jack Nicholson in Chinatown. Wait a minute, that was in Southern California. And Nicholson played a private eye. But it's such a great film that I had to throw it in.
Bullitt won an Academy Award for film editing (Frank Keller), and also received a nomination for Best Sound. (73/100).
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