To prepare himself, his crew and the cars for the movie sequence, McQueen and company went to the Cotati race course near San Francisco. 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. For example, additional sound was needed because on occasion a tire squeal was not picked up by the microphones. An audience digs sitting there watching somebody do something that I’m sure almost all of them would like to do.”īULLITT was also the first picture done with live sound (some of which was added later as needed). “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. In an interview with Motor Trend magazine, Steve McQueen related his desire to bring a high speed chase to the screen. “Until you run out of money, you’ve got to stop me!” 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. You can undercrank the camera so you can control everything in the scene.
“I told Steve I knew a lot about camera angles and speeds to make it look fast. McQueen was determined to have “the best car chase ever done,” recalls Carey Loftin. Bud Elkins said, “I think it was the first time they did a complete car chase at normal camera speed. 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. Before we’d shoot a scene, everyone, the location people, the police department, the stuntmen, the director and Steve, would get into discussions. 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. We set out to learn what the recipe is for such a successful chase sequence. Finally, we spoke with Ron Riner, who acted as transportation coordinator for Warner Brothers on the BULLITT set. We also interviewed Max Balchowsky, the man responsible for maintaining the Mustang GT and the Charger throughout the filming.
We interviewed Carey Loftin, stunt coordinator for BULLITT and occasional driver of the BULLITT Mustang Bud Ekins, 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.
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 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. It’s been 19 years since BULLITT was filmed, however the magic of this special movie has not diminished. 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? Over the years, fans have asked questions about the two cars used in the movie, a 1968 Dodge Charger and a 1968 Mustang GT. The scenes, which were novelty then but classic now, were brilliantly executed.
There may have been chase scenes before, but nothing before or since has equalled the intensity and impact of BULLITT. Among all of Hollywood’s road movies, BULLITT unquestionably made film history with its original car chase sequences. 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. 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.” 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.