Bullit - Steve McQueen´s Commitment To Reality [1968]

Found this on You Tube.....very cool...

 

Great find!

What is the camera car about 2.30 from the end?

P.

 

Cheeky git..........who found it........

 

That is one of the added "special features" on the DVD.

 

Cool, Dave.

McQueen is King.

 

I didn't know this existed. The narration is overheated but it looks cool.

I've never seen that lowboy camera vehicle before. I'd like to know more about it.

 

It --MIGHT-- be one of the Ol Yallers!? Max Balchowsky prepped the Mustangs and Chargers for the film and I have seen pictures of one of his Ol Yallers (maybe Ol Yaller III) that Max held onto and converted to a camera car. Trying to find that photo on the net but haven't so far.

Cool film clip.

Kurt

 

You did....gut you weren't a member...

So...

Graham found it....

 

The Bullitt camera car wasn't prepped by Max. It was built by, and driven for the filming, by Pat Houstis. He had not long finished building it prior to the Bullitt filming and it was based on a big-block Corvette, and was ideally suited for the task, although it looked like shite......

 

Wouldn't it be too cool to see the teensiest reflection in one of the cars of 'Ol Yaller', if it IS O.Y.?!!

 

Yup, GeeRam is right on. I poked around some and found this.

There were THREE cars racing wildly through the streets of San Francisco, making car chase history, although only two arisen in the movie. The third vehicle, a camera car, was driven by Pat Houstis, while cinematographer Bill Fraker manned the camera. Said Ron Riner, "Pat Houstis was excellent and he was in his prime at the time." Carey Loftin has nothing but praise for Mr. Houstis and an amusing recollection. "Pat Houstis, a terrific driver, had just built the camera car, and he showed it to me. He did a real good job on it. It was a Corvette chassis, and he had stripped all the stuff off and built a good suspension, good engine and everything. But it looked like hell."

From here;

http://www.autotube.co.uk/Film_and_TV_Cars/Film_and_TV_Cars/Bullitt/

I have seen a picture of one of the Ol' Yallers as a camera car, but thats not what was used in Bullitt.

Kurt O.

 

neat stuff . wasent that jimmie vaughns car they hit ?

 

i heard the camera car was a cobra? eh anyways Steve McQueen is my hero.

 

yea, steve mcqueen, wanted dead or alive,

 

Smith, Nevada Smith.

 

so cool. That movie has the best car chase scene in it ever! Makes modern movies look like Sesame Street productions.

 

OY IV was used as a Camera Car in the Herbie Movie.


http://www.tamsoldracecarsite.net/MaxBalchowsky5.html

 

McQueen came to Anchorage about 1972, rented a Toronado and took the local cops on quite a chase. I guess he finally got tired and let them catch him after a fair amount of broadies on 4th ave. They didn't think it was funny at all and really didn't think his comments about their "hick" town were amusing either. Wish I would have been there. I knew some of the cops and they were still pissed 30 years later and after he was dead. I think he got a DUI out of the deal.

 

Nuff Said.

 

Bill Hickman, the stunt driver who drove the Charger in Bullitt, was one of the many drivers involved in the filming of the Love Bug, which was being filmed in San Francisco at the same time as they were shooting Bullitt.

Interestingly, Hickman was a great friend and driving tutor of James Dean and was driving the station wagon/tow trailer combo following along behind Dean's Spyder, when he had the fatal crash. It was Hickman that personally pulled a dying James Dean from the wreckage of the Porsche.

 

What are the wheels on the back of Ol' Yaller?

I think I'm in love!

 

reality?somebody should have told them cars have only four hubcaps.ANYWAY,i love that movie,mcqueen rules

 

The best car chase ever! period!

Wasn´t it Bill Hickman that drove some large moredoor in "the seven ups"?

 

It's also on the beginning of the VHS tapes before the movie starts. It plays in nonstop rotation 24/7 with American Graffiti in my office.

Here's a neat website comparing the then & now locations in the movie.

http://www.rjsmith.com/bullitt-locations.html

.

 

I heard the camera car was a stingray also.

I'd like to see pics of the mustang today. Rumor has it one of the two originals still exists, and the owner is keeping it under tight wraps.

 

That clip pretty much ends the arguments about whether McQueen drove a four speed or a GTA Mustang. The racetrack scene clearly shows him shifting.
Unfotunately, I live in SF and I can tell you guys that even 40 years ago it was amazing what the film crew got away with. Driving over 100 mph down Marina Blvd? Holy shit!!! Don't try that with your film company now. I reccomend that website comparing the old locations to now. Some of the stuff is gone and some is still here.
For those people that watch the movie just for the chase scene, next time pay attention to the story. It is actually interesting.

Joe

 

McQueen I hate that guy!



This is from Muscle Car Review, March, 1987.

THE GREATEST CHASE OF ALL

An inside look at how they filmed BULLITT, the granddaddy of car pursuit
movies.

BY: Susan Encinas

Where were you in 1968? You might have opened up the movie section of the
newspaper and read a review about the newly released movie BULLITT. One
such review, by the National Observer, said, " Whatever you have heard
about the auto chase scene in BULLITT is probably true...a terrifying,
deafening shocker." Life magazine wrote, "... a crime flick with a taste
of genius...an action sequence that must be compared to the best in film
history."
With reviews like that, and sharing double billing with the hit
BONNIE AND CLYDE, BULLITT devastated audiences with incredible scenes of
leaping, screaming automobiles that seemed to fly off the screen. Among
all of Hollywood's road movies, BULLITT unquestionably made film history
with its original car chase sequences. There may have been chase scenes
before, but nothing before or since has equalled the intensity and impact
of BULLITT. The scenes, which were novelty then but classic now, were
brilliantly executed. Over the years, fans have asked questions about the
two cars used in the movie, a 1968 Dodge Charger and a 1968 Mustang GT.
Of all the musclecars offered in the late sixties, why were these two
cars chosen, and how were they modified to survive the torturous driving?
It's been 19 years since BULLITT was filmed, however the magic of
this special movie has not diminished. We questioned some of the crew who
participated in the filming, and asked them how the chase was coordinated
and shot, who was involved in the chase scenes and what happened during
the filming. Steve McQueen and director Peter Yates brought in some of
the best names in the business in preparation for the filming of
BULLITT's chase scenes, and we were able to track some of them down. We
interviewed Carey Loftin, stunt coordinator for BULLITT and occasional
driver of the BULLITT Mustang; Bud Elkins, the main stunt driver of the
Mustang, aside from McQueen; and Loren Janes, who had doubled for McQueen
for nearly 20 years and stunted for McQueen during the airport sequence
at the end of the film. We also interviewed Max Balchowsky, the man
responsible for maintaining the Mustang GT and the Charger throughout the
filming. Finally, we spoke with Ron Riner, who acted as transportation
coordinator for Warner Brothers on the BULLITT set.
We set out to learn what the recipe is for such a successful
chase sequence. What we found out was that there is none; it was pretty
much a hit and miss thing and, as Ron Riner put it, "other people have
tried to put the same combination together to get the same results and
haven't really done it. Before we'd shoot a scene, everyone, the location
people, the police department, the stuntmen, the director and Steve,
would get into discussions. We realized we didn't know what to do because
no one had ever done this before." What hadn't been done before was a
chase scene, done "at speed"(up to 110 miles per hour) through the city
streets and not on a movie studio back lot. Bud Elkins said, "I think it
was the first time they did a complete car chase at normal camera speed.
What you saw is what really happened. It was real!"
McQueen was determined to have "the best car chase ever done,"
recalls Carey Loftin. "I told Steve I knew a lot about camera angles and
speeds to make it look fast. You can undercrank the camera so you can
control everything in the scene. Then when it's run, it'll look like high
speed and the car will appear to be handling real well." McQueen refused
to hear of it, and advised Loftin that money was no object. "Fine,"
Loftin replied. "Until you run out of money, you've got to stop me!"
In an interview with Motor Trend magazine, Steve McQueen related
his desire to bring a high speed chase to the screen. "I always felt a
motor racing sequence in the street, a chase in the street, could be very
exciting because you have the reality objects to work with, like bouncing
off a parked car. An audience digs sitting there watching somebody do
something that I'm sure almost all of them would like to do."
BULLITT was also the first picture done with live sound (some of
which was added later as needed). For example, additional sound was
needed because on occasion a tire squeal was not picked up by the
microphones. Bud Elkins remembers blowing the rear end of the Mustang at
Willow Springs winding the gears for engine noise to be added to the
soundtrack.
To prepare himself, his crew and the cars for the movie sequence,
McQueen and company went to the Cotati race course near San Francisco.
"Steve handled the Mustang real well," recalled Riner. "He flowed well
with the car." Also on hand was the late Bill Hickman, the fantastic
stunt driver who would handle the menacing Dodge Charger in BULLITT.
"Bill came in with the Charger," Riner said. "And he flipped it around
and he slid in backwards. He was excellent."
The BULLITT chase scenes were shot around Easter of 1968. When
city officials were first approached about shooting in the streets of San
Francisco, they balked at the proposed high speeds and the idea of filming
part of the chase on the Golden Gate Bridge. Eventually, it was agreed to
keep the chase within only a few city blocks. McQueen was the prime
motivator behind the chase sequence, and then director Peter Yates and
Carey Loftin worked out logistics behind the scenes.
McQueen hadn't planned on having a stunt driver. Relates Carey
Loftin:"The first thing Steve said was, he was going to do his own
driving. Well, I wasn't going to argue, so I said, 'okay, fine'."
McQueen's stint as a stunt driver didn't last long, however. "He overshot
a turn, smoked the tires and everything. It's in the film," said Bud
Elkins. "When Steve did that, it wasn't on purpose. He goofed up, and
they said, 'that's it, get him out of the car'. The next morning they
were spraying my hair down and cutting it. Consequently, it was Elkins
who drove the car down hilly Chestnut Avenue. Also, according to the book
entitled The Films of Steve McQueen by Casey St. Charnaz, the other
reason for McQueen's removal from the Mustang was that McQueen's wife at
the time found out that he wanted to do all his own driving and
apparently SHE had some input into the decision not to have him do all
the driving.
As director Peter Yates prepared to begin filming the chase
scenes, there were four drivers, McQueen, Bud Elkins, Bill Hickman, and
in a few scenes, Carey Loftin. Loren Janes tells up, "Carey Loftin was
easily the best car man in the business. He brought in Bill Hickman to
play a part and drive the other car." Loftin recalls: "I asked (the studio)
what kind of guy were they looking for? And they described Bill Hickman,
who was working on the LOVE BUG at the same time. Well, I said, he's
sitting right here. They really described Bill Hickman."
The screenplay of the movie was written by Alan Trustman, based
on the novel, Mute Witness by Robert L. Pike. But the story, according to
Ron Riner was not the key element to the success of the movie. Riner
says, "I think basically the story was long and confusing, so when the
chase came along it was so good it gave more substance to the movie. I
think it really saved the film, because most people don't remember the
story, they remember the chase. You couldn't really remember the complete
story, if somebody asked you, unless you read the script, because the
script was much better and made more sense."
As filming of the chase progressed, Loftin wanted to see the
daily work (rushes). He was told that Mr. McQueen wouldn't like that.
Loftin insisted, and threatened to quit unless he could view the daily
work. "It worked out really good," Loftin said with a smile. "Because as
we watched the rushes, you could hear a pin drop. I was sitting 3 or 4
rows in front of him (McQueen) and when it was over, he came down, stuck
out his hand, and said, 'Mr. Loftin, when you need me for a closeup you
WILL let me know, won't you?"
As for the cars, Max Balchowsky tells us, "I suggested they get a
390 GT. I had suggested using a Mustang, and a Dodge Charger, or else
there would be too may Fords in the picture. I thought we'd mix up the
cars." The two 1968, four-speed Mustang GT fastbacks were purchased
primarily because, promotionally, they were the best deal at the time. As
far as Bud Elkins can recall, he feels the reason they used the Mustang
was because "they wanted it to look like a cop car. This was his personal
car and he wasn't a rich guy, he didn't have a real nice car. And it was
Steve's idea to put the big dent in the fender, to show that it got
banged up and he didn't have enough money or the time to fix it."
Warner Brothers purchased two four-speed Dodge Chargers... "at a
Chrysler dealership in Glendale California," recalls Ron Riner. He also
said the Dodge Chargers had to be purchased without promotional
consideration, but after the success of the movie and the increase in
Charger sales, Chrysler was more than willing to be generous with their
vehicles to Warner Brothers for future projects. Mr. Riner posed an
interesting premise: "did you realize that there wouldn't be an 01 car
(the General Lee in Dukes of Hazzard) if we hadn't done BULLITT and Dodge
hadn't sold so many Chargers?"
Before the filming could be done, the Charger and the Mustang
required preparation. One of the best wrenchmen in the movie business,
Max Balchowsky, recalls the Mustang in particular needed considerable
modifications so it could hold up during the relentless beatings it would
take during the filming. "Carey said they were gonna do a lot of jumping
with it, and he said it had to be strong. So I was a little hesitant. I
didn't know if they wanted to go over 50 foot cliffs. I had no idea what
they wanted to do until I got there." To beef up the Mustang, Balchowsky
started with the suspension, reinforcing the shock towers, adding
crossmembers and reinforcements, exchanging the springs for replacements
with higher deflection rates and replacing the stock shocks with Konis.
All suspension parts were magnafluxed and replaced where nescessary. The
engine also came in for some modifications, including milling the heads,
adding an aftermarket high performance ignition system and reworking the
the carburetor and adding headers.
On the Mustang, Mr. Balchowsky recalls, "everybody suggested I put
a Holley on the Mustang, it was better than the Ford carburetor. I've
always had good luck with Fords, and didn't want to spend money if i
didn't have to putting a Holley on. It ran good, needed just a few little
adjustments. I changed the distributor and all, but basically never had
the engine apart on the Ford." Ron Riner remembers "the stock Mustang had
undercarriage modifications, not only for the movie, but for Steve
McQueen. Steve liked the sound of the car and he wanted mags. We hopped
it up because Steve wanted the car hopped up. He was still a kid."
Balchowsky remembers "I hardly had to anything to the Dodge's
engine, but what I was worried about was the strength of the front end."
To shore up the front, Balchowsky revised the torsion bars, beefed up the
control arms and added heavy duty shocks. As with the Mustang, all parts
were 'fluxed. For the rear end, Balchowsky told us, "I got some special
rear springs, what you call a high spring rate, a flat without any arch
in it, and using that spring the car would stay low. It's similar to the
same springs they use in police cars, which makes a good combination.
When the police specify a package, they have more spring here, a little
bigger brake there, a little bit more happening in the shocks, and it
makes a good car. But the director of BULLITT wanted a brand new car
instead of an ex-police car, so I got the springs from a friend at
Chrysler. We had to weld reinforcements under the arms and stuff on the
Dodge. We did lose a lot of hubcaps on the Charger. We'd put the hubcaps
back on, but I suppose it probably would have been better if we had lest
them off."
"I'll tell you this," said Max Balchowsky, "I was really
impressed with the Mustang after I got done with it. I didn't think it'd
make that much difference beefing it up. Later, we took both cars out and
went playing around with them over by Griffith Park (near Los Angeles).
The Dodge, which was practically stock, just left the Mustang like you
wouldn't believe." Ron Riner has similar recollections. "The Charger ran
rings around the Mustang. We trimmed the tires down (on the Charger), we
practically made them down to bicycle tires to try and handicap Hickman,
and Bill just run them." Carey Loftin also recalls," we test ran the car
at Griffith Park near the Observatory, up a long hill. and if you can run
a car real hard up and down that hill it's working pretty good."
"The day before the chase scenes were to be filmed, we went up to
Santa Rosa and rented the track,"said Balchowsky. "Steve wanted to test
the car. A production manager would have cut your throat if you wanted to
do something like that. An accident would have ruined the cars, and we
were slated for Monday morning, 6:00 a.m. to start shooting. Hickman and
Steve were buzzing around the tracks, and it was pretty even. McQueen and
Hickman were both tickled with the cars. So, fortunately everything
worked out."
Generally everyone seemed to agree that the chase went smoothly,
although filming went a "little bit slow," Bud Elkins recalls. "Yates and
Steve were particular. You would rehearse it once- it's got to be
choreographed- then you would rehearse it again, and if it looked good,
they shot it. You rehearsed at about 1/4 speed or 1/2 speed, then you
went in to film it at full speed."
For the in-car scenes, two camers were mounted in the cars and
painted black. The jarring landings after the cars were airborne are the
result of the cameras being tightly secured and not cushion mounted. The
effect was more than McQueen had bargained for. "It's a funny thing," he
told Motor Trend. "That was what shocked me and I didn't expect it,
because we were using a 185 frame which is a very small frame. We weren't
even using a big super Panavision or anything. Even on the 185, they (the
audience) jumped out of their seats. I didn't do the shots going down the
hill, they pulled me out of the car. Bud Elkins did that."
In the Motor Trend interview, McQueen recalled there were some
close calls and incidents that looked good on film but weren't exactly
planned to happen, some of which occured in the memorable downhill
sequences. "Remember that banging going down? That was about 100 mph. I
was bangin' into Bill. My car was disintegrating. Like, the door handles
came off, both the shocks in the front broke, the steering armature on
the right front side broke and my slack was about a foot and a half. The
Mustang was really just starting to fall apart."
There was an incident which alerted the crew to take extra
precautions while doing the car chase. "A child," Riner told us, "maybe
five years old, came out of a building and stepped out on to the street.
We stopped and brought in more stunt people and more cars and I think the
theory was if anybody had a problem, they'd make a barricade out of the
vehicles. The problem never came up again, or I never saw a problem."
Incredible, considering there were only two policemen on the scene as
compared to the 40 policemen utilized for the chase in MAD MAD WORLD.
Carey Loftin says, "the extras were a big help. If there was an alley or
any place that wasn't covered, they'd come and tell me. They were real
good."
Because some of the stunts were so well orchestrated, they did
not look like stunts at all. Recalls Carey Loftin: "Several years after
BULLITT, an extra (on another set) was talking about BULLITT, and he was
saying how it was amazing how accidents get into films and he said that
the best one he ever saw was the scene where Bud Elkins did the spill off
the motorcycle. I let him go ahead and tell it. He said 'the cops were
watching the action and weren't watching the traffic and this motorcycle
guy slipped through, and got into the scene and ended up in the picture.'
I said, 'you really think that's what happened?' The extra said, ' I
know, I saw it, I was there.' And I said that's the way it's supposed to
look, because it wasn't supposed to look like a stunt." Ron Riner
comments on the scene, "I didn't know about the stunt and I was supposed
to get the information!"
There were THREE cars racing wildly through the streets of San
Francisco, making car chase history, although only two are seen in the
movie. The third vehicle, a camera car, was driven by Pat Houstis, while
cinematographer Bill Fraker manned the camera. Said Ron Riner, "Pat
Houstis was excellent and he was in his prime at the time." Carey Loftin
has nothing but praise for Mr. Houstis and an amusing recollection. "Pat
Houstis, a terrific driver, had just built the camera car, and he showed
it to me. He did a real good job on it. It was a Corvette chassis, and he
had stripped all the stuff off and built a good suspension, good engine
and everything. But it looked like hell."
His confidence in Mr. Houstis is evident as he relates another
incident. " We had one scene where Pat was following Steve on Guadalupe
Canyon Highway, a beautiful road. We wanted some shots of the Mustang
really burning the corners. We did it several times. The operator of the
first camera said, 'Steve's not getting his foot into it, he's a better
driver than that.' I went to Steve and said, 'you know Pat Houstis is a
terrific driver.' Steve said 'yeah, yeah he is.' I said, 'he knows
responsibility too. You know what that man would do if I was driving the
car in front of him and anything would happen? He'd run into a parked car
or hit a tree just to miss me. Now think what he'd do for the star? Now
get into that car and get your foot into it!' We got the shot on the next
take."
One particular scene that impressed Max Balchowsky was the gunman
in the Dodge firing a shotgun blast at the pursuing Mustang that shatters
the right front of the windshield. "The guy who did special effects
devised the chain balls that bust the Mustang windshield. I thought it
was terrific when the guy whips the shotgun out and the way the special
effects fellow devised how those pebbles cracked the windshield and it
made it so realistic like he really shot the windshield. It sure made Ford
glass look good."
The gentleman in the car, playing Bill Hickman's partner in
crime, was actor Paul Genge. According to Ron Riner, Mr. Genge, who
played a very realistic tough guy, "seemed like he had hardly ever seen a
gun before. They scared the hell out of him. In the scenes in the Charger
with Hickman, he was scared to death. After two or three time we almost
had to bodily put tranqiulizers in him, and put him in the car. Mr.
Hickman was one of the coolest drivers I've ever met." Max Balchowsky
tells us, "there was a scene where the Charger passed a truck, and they
only wanted to leave so much room on one side, and Hickman did it
perfectly when he came by and took the bumper off the truck. That was a
super shot. Throughout the chase sequences, some of them were accidents
but, they looked fantastic- Hickman was terrific."
To achieve the stunning conclusion to the chase in which the
Charger loses control, leaps an Armco fence and plows into a gasoline
station, Loftin rigged up a tow and release set up hidden from the
camera's view between the Mustang and the Charger. Dressed to double
McQueen, Loftin laterally towed the Charger at 90 mph with its two dummy
passengers and at the right moment released the Charger into the
nitro-loaded gas station. Unfortunately, the Charger missed the station,
but the charges were set off and the explosion, thanks to some deft film
editing, had the desired effect and was added to the movie.
There seemed to be a general atmosphere of professionalism and
mutual admiration on the set. Loren Janes tells us, " I loved to see a
lot of the little things in Steve's films. The best teeny things came up
in it, the best stuff was Steve's ideas. Like when they're (Hickman and
Genge) going up the hill and they're after Steve and all of a sudden he
disappears and they can't see him and the guy (Hickman) looks up and
Steve appears in his rear view mirror. In other words, he changed it, now
he's chasing them. Well that was a great turn of events. It was
fantastic. It was WILD reckless driving, but it was planned and
coordinated. There was class to the BULLITT chase, there was a reason for
it, and that's one of the key things people forget: the greatest stunt
in the world is worthless if there isn't a reason or story to it and
BULLITT had a story point all the way through and a reason.
The enduring scenes of the forboding Charger and the powerful
Mustang have etched themselves in film making history. The sequences were
the brain child of Steve McQueen; He knew what he wanted and how he
wanted it to appear on film. No one has duplicated the electricity or the
savage ferocity that manifested itself in BULLITT chase scenes, and it's
doubtful any one ever will.
---------------------------------

 

i thought this guy really knows his mqueen stuff,then i saw your user name."the cooler king" Hilts.you are a fan for sure.

 

great find! and the chase was awesome too! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36MFh4of6lE&mode=related&search=

 

I have the same mag with the article.......my favorite part was the quote above.....