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VINTAGE MOVIES

Vintage Movies: “Bullitt”

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 500 titles—from the silent era through the ’90s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Bullitt

Bullitt (1968, 113 minutes)

Though he made top dollar, Steve McQueen was an enigma as a Hollywood leading man. He didn’t really say much, but he had that look. Those piercing baby-blue eyes and his razor-cut hair made him seem like the younger brother of Paul Newman. But it was pretty obvious it was James Dean that McQueen was aiming for. McQueen excelled at a half-smile that didn’t show his teeth. And when he jumped that barbed-wire fence on a stolen motorcycle while being chased by Nazis in The Great Escape, he became the ultimate WW II hero: “the king of cool.” McQueen used his driving expertise in Bullitt for some of the most harrowing San Francisco car-chase scenes ever put to film.

“Frank, let me in, willya,” pleads Sgt. Delgetti to his fellow police officer over the apartment intercom. Bullitt awakens from a coma long enough to press the buzzer that opens the front door. “What time you get in, Frank?” asks Delgetti (Don Gordon) as he ruthlessly throws open the blinds. “Around 5:00,” mumbles Bullitt. Finally, the ice rattling in Delgetti’s glass becomes too much. “Why don’t you just have your orange juice and shut up, Delgetti!” says Bullitt. “Let’s go, Frank,” says his partner.

“Thanks for coming over, and Frank, please call me Walt,” says Walter Chalmers (Robert Vaughn) in the middle of a high-brow party he’s throwing at his Pacific Heights mansion. “I have an important job for you. As you know, the Senate Subcommittee hearing will begin here next week. And I have a star witness who needs protection.” “Protection from whom?” asks Bullitt.

The informant Chalmers has produced is Johnny Ross, seemingly a low-level employee of “the Chicago organization,” who will name names and tell all to the senators. “We’ve got him at the Hotel Daniels on the Embarcadero. He’s there now.” Adds Chalmers: “You know, a Senatorial hearing has a way of catapulting everyone involved into the public eye with subsequent effect on one’s career. Have him in court on Monday, Frank.”

Bullitt, Delgetti and Det. Carl Stanton climb the stairs of the $1.75 a night hotel where Ross is being housed. “You got any firearms on you?” asks Delgetti. “No, man, I got nothin’ on me,” says a prickly Ross (Pat Renella). “How come you picked this room to hole-up?” asks Delgetti. “I didn’t pick it, Chalmers picked it! Why?” “Stay away from those windows,” warns Bullitt. “That’s why.”

Bullitt goes out into the kitchen to phone his commanding officer, Capt. Bennet (Simon Oakland). “What do you know about Ross,” asks Bullitt. “He could be very big. He had access to all their records,” says Bennet. “Did Chalmers ask for me?” asks Bullitt. “Uh huh. He’s grooming himself for public office,” says the captain. “You make good copy, Frank. The newspapers love you.”