Movie review: ‘Bullitt’

FloridaGator80

I hadn’t planned on reviewing well-known or legendary films when I began writing reviews for this blog five years ago. However, I’ve come to examine some over those five years and today you’ll find that I’m looking at the Steve McQueen car-chase classic “Bullitt.” The title is, of course, the title character’s last name and Steve does an outstanding turn with this one. By modern cinema standards, the “action” isn’t eye-popping, but it remains solid today in a world where the graphics are computer-generated and not filmed, and, given the context of the release year of 1968, the film expanded the boundaries of action and crime noir verisimilitude. It wouldn’t be as much of an influence as Sam Peckinpah’s over-the-top “The Wild Bunch” would do for westerns and cinema in general a year later, but still a stage-setter for the years to come. So, check out “Bullitt” … you’ll never be disappointed for a second.

‘Bullitt’
(1968; 114 minutes; rated M/PG; directed by Peter Yates and starring Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn and Jacqueline Bissett)

‘BULLITT’ IS MUCH MORE THAN A CAR CHASE FLICK

(NOTE: I expanded this review with additional opinion and trivia and the updating of links on June 13, 2024. I updated with the passing of Robert Duvall on Feb. 17, 2026.)

I continue to be constantly amazed at how older “action” films were so much deeper in acting and character development than so much of the crap shoveled out today by Hollywood. I’m looking now at “Bullitt” with Steve McQueen and while it is a known as a classic with a legendary car chase scene at its heart, it is truly a fine motion picture worthy of a round of applause for all the actors.

McQueen heads the cast and is the title character “Lt. Frank Bullitt.” He’s stoic, tough, but he’s also deep and able to navigate very murky emotional eddies. Even better in the acting department in “Bullitt” is Robert Vaughn, who does the oily, back-stabbing politician to perfection as “U.S. Sen. Walter Chalmers.” Without a doubt, both actors could put this one at the top of their respective resumes – even though Vaughn initially didn’t want to do the film and called it vacuous.

While “Bullitt” is most and best remembered for its car chase sequence (the same team would do the equally legendary chase scene in “The French Connection” – click here to read my review – and the lesser-remembered one that is just as good in “The Seven-Ups” – click here to read my review), the film offers an outstandingly intricate plot that exposes itself slowly, but always gaining momentum.

In short, “Bullitt” is a real actors’ motion picture and not a just some throwaway action flick with superstar McQueen giving it marquee value.

“Bullitt” also tossed out shock value in 1968 with two bloody shoot-out scenes and another with the body of a woman murdered in a hotel room (sorry if that’s a spoiler). However, it isn’t shock or the car chase that defines “Bullitt.” It is great acting and great cinematography that tells the story along with the actors.

In brief, “Bullitt” is about an informant (like “The Godfather” four years later, it never uses the word “Mafia” but called it The Organization) who is supposed to give testimony before the U.S. Senate and a senator is salivating at all the good press he’s going to get with the testimony.

Well, the informant – and the plot will thicken a bunch with him – gets to San Francisco and lands in the care of McQueen and his team. Things go downhill from there for a variety of people and the whole thing plays out with an undercurrent of conspiracy and the inevitable question of, “What’s really going on?”

The best thing about the film besides the car chase is the intelligence in the filmmaking. It has a plot not easily dissected; there’s no crowning moment of glory for the good guy; you don’t get things explained like you can’t deduce the storyline for yourself; and it ends with a wonderful scene without any dialogue, but wonderful camera angles that tell the story as well as any talking could have accomplished.

Whew! All-in-all, “Bullitt” is a tremendous motion picture and you need to watch it before Hollywood “reboots” it with enough CGI to put McQueen’s Mustang GT on the moon. Well, maybe that is the plot that they would do today.

BTW … McQueen’s Mustang was Highland Green and sported a 390 cubic-inch engine, according to Internet sources. The Ford Motor Co. provided two of the cars to filmmakers. The final remaining “Bullitt” Mustang sold at auction in 2020 for $3.74 million. Click here to learn more about the Mustang …

Unfortunately, the bad guys’ black Dodge Charger, with its nasty 440 cubic-inch big block didn’t get as much attention.

Ah well, enough with the cars. Let me now take a look at some at the top of the credits …

  • An Oscar nominee (not for this one), McQueen is quietly great as the police lieutenant who has to battle political pressure just to do law enforcement. He does an impressive piece of work communicating both by speaking and just by a look or a glance. You’ll only find better work from Steve in the even more outstanding “The Getaway” from Sam Peckinpah (click here to read my review). McQueen, who was nominated as best actor for “The Sand Pebbles,” was also a two-time Golden Globe winner and four-time nominee. You’ll remember his films from “The Great Escape” (click here to read my review) to “Papillon” to “The Towering Inferno” to “The Cincinnati Kid” (click here to read my review). Less remembered were “The Hunter” (his last film – click here to read my review) and the western “Tom Horn.” He used the more formal Steven McQueen in the credits of the classic horror film “The Blob” from 1958 and wasn’t very prolific with only 44 acting credits from the early 1950s to his death in 1980 at 50 of a heart attack following cancer surgery.
  • An Oscar nominee (not for this one), Vaughn does the best job here. He’s smooth, slimy and you know you can trust him about as far as you could throw him. It takes a special performance to simply ooze such a character and Vaughn does it to perfection. He has the perfect role and executes it perfectly to effectively play off McQueen. Vaughn was nominated for “The Young Philadelphians” with Paul Newman and was a four-time Golden Globe nominee, including for “The Magnificent Seven” that co-starred McQueen. My generation remembers him best as “Napoleon Solo” on TV’s “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” (two of his Globe nominations were for work on the series). He died at 83 in 2016 of leukemia.
  • A Golden Globe winner and four-time nominee (not for this one), Bisset takes a small role – and the only memorable one by a woman – and does more with less screen time than many actors do with bigger roles. As “Cathy,” she represents humanity and good to McQueen, who sees just the opposite every day. Bisset didn’t have much to work with and she put on a clinic on how to make the most out of part. I liked her in one of her nominated films “Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?” (click here for my review) and she did memorable underwater scenes with Nick Nolte in “The Deep” and was also in “Under the Volcano” and “The Greek Tycoon” in a Jackie O-type role.
  • Simon Oakland was a prolific character actor who worked TV and films and he does pretty much a career best here as “Capt. Sam Bennett.” He’s McQueen’s boss and has to fend off just about everyone to keep McQueen focused on the case. Oakland does a great job in the stoic spectrum in this one and his glare must have been how he got the role. I liked him as Darren McGavin’s editor in the TV vampire thriller “The Night Stalker” (click here for my review) and its sequel and he was in classic films including “West Side Story” and “Psycho.” Oakland died at 68 in 1983 of cancer.
  • A Golden Globe winner (not for this one), Norman Fell as “Capt. Baker” has the unenviable work of kissing up to Vaughn as well as being the bad guy to McQueen and Oakland. However, it’s all done stoically, of course, but you’ll see a side to Fell you never did in his most-remembered work on TV’s “Three’s Company” that earned him his Globe. He was also a Primetime Emmy nominee for the mini-series “Rich Man, Poor Man” and I liked him in the original “Ocean’s 11” (click here for my review) with Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack. Fell notched 168 acting credits spanning a career of five decades before his death at 74 in 1998 of bone cancer. He was also in “The Graduate” (click here for my review).

The supporting cast is deep and talented and makes sure the film doesn’t lose any footing by always offering a firm foundation …

  • Don Gordon plays “Det. ‘Del’ Digetti” and he’s McQueen’s partner. Gordon has to do most of his acting through expression, as his part can truly define “supporting.” However, Gordon is solid and grades out a winner here. He was in “Papillon” and “The Towering Inferno” (both with McQueen) as well as notching credits in a variety of small roles including films such as “Lethal Weapon” (he played “Cop #2”) and “The Final Conflict” (the final film in “The Omen” trilogy – click here for my review). Gordon was prolific and appeared on my TV shows, including my favorite series “The Love Boat” (click here for my review). He died at 90 in 2017.
  • A Hollywood legend to be and future Oscar winner (and six-time nominee), the biggest up-and-coming name in the supporting cast was Robert Duvall. He has a small role as taxi driver “Weissberg,” but he actually doesn’t do much with it. Duvall’s smooth, though, and while not managing to elevate the character to memorable status, he doesn’t disappoint here (and really never has in his career). Of course, Duvall was “Tom Hagen” in “The Godfather” franchise (one nomination for the original) and he earned nominations for “Apocalypse Now” and the splendid “The Great Santini.” Duvall won for “Tender Mercies” and I also liked him in the Tom Cruise NASCAR flick “Days of Thunder” (click here for my review) as well as Clint Eastwood’s western “Joe Kidd” (click here for my review). Duvall died at 95 on Feb. 15, 2026.
  • A Primetime Emmy winner and two-time nominee, Georg Stanford Brown plays “Dr. Willard” and is another supporting actor who makes the most of a small part. Brown, who has had an extensive career on TV, was in “Roots” and many other series including “Medical Center” and I remember him best from “The Rookies.” He was also in “Stir Crazy” and expanded his career by going behind the camera as director. He won his Emmy for “Cagney & Lacey” and was nominated twice for directing episodes of “Hill Street Blues.”

As for the director, Peter Yates earned four Oscar nominations, but not any for “Bullitt.” Too bad, but you can’t say those films were chump change: He got two nods each (best director and best film) for “Breaking Away” (click here for my review) and “The Dresser.” Yates knows how to tell a story and put together a motion picture. The best thing is that it appears he had an even hand on the tiller – you don’t get the feeling that the director took over any scene to rush to the next or take too much time. He also directed “Krull,” the excellent “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” with Robert Mitchum (click here to read my review) and “The Deep” with Bisset. Yates died at 81 in 2011 of heart failure.

Finally, about the cast … one actor was also a key stunt driver. Bill Hickman, who was one of Hollywood’s best stunt drivers, was the bad-guy driver “Phil” who first followed and then got chased by McQueen in “Bullitt’s” signature sequence. Hickman would go on to drive and act in “The French Connection” as well as the same in the “The Seven Ups.” Hickman doesn’t do much acting here, but I like seeing him in the film. He died at 65 of cancer in 1996.

“Bullitt” won an Oscar for film editing and was nominated for its musical score. How it wasn’t nominated for at least two others for acting (either McQueen for best actor; Vaughn for best supporting actor; and Bisset for supporting actress) as well as for cinematography or special effects for the chase scene is a complete mystery.

“Bullitt” was the No. 5 film with domestic audiences in 1968 with $42.3 million, according to Wiki. The No. 1 film was “2001: A Space Odyssey” with $56.7 million and coming in second to the disgust of any moviegoer with taste was the execrable “Funny Girl” starring the even more execrable Barbara Streisand with $52 million. Here are the two other films from 1968 that I’ve reviewed:

Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):

  • The car chase scene lasts 10 minutes and 53 seconds.
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “Robert Vaughn (politician Walter Chalmers) received the script and didn’t like it. He felt that there was no plot, nor a sensible story line. Steve McQueen insisted Vaughn do the film, but he refused, until the studio finally offered him so much money, he finally said yes.”
  • Gordon’s given name was Donald Walter Guadagno.
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “Bill Hickman, the backup hit man and driver of the Charger, was highly experienced in driving stunts and in racing. Thirteen years before this film, being a good friend of actor and budding race driver James Dean, he was accompanying Dean to a race in Salinas, California, driving Dean’s station wagon and car trailer while Dean drove ahead in his Porsche Spyder. Dean died in an accident on the way and it was Bill Hickman who extricated Dean’s body from the wreck.”
  • Katherine Ross, who starred the year before in “The Graduate” and who would star a year later in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” with Newman and Robert Redford, turned down the part given to Bisset. Interesting. I can see both actors in the role, but I’m glad Bissett defined it.
  • Although McQueen did some driving stunts in the film, legendary stunt driver Bud Elkins drove the most involved scenes in the chase. Elkins also did the motorcycle jump as McQueen’s stunt double in “The Great Escape.”
  • No sets were built for the filming of “Bullitt.”
  • Finally and directly from IMDb.com: “Director John Woo‘s favorite film, as well as Director William Friedkin‘s favorite film. It influenced them to make movies like Hard Boiled (1992), The French Connection (1971), Jade (1995), and To Live and Die in L.A. (1985).” PS – click here for my review of “To Live and Die in L.A.”
  • Click here for IMDb.com’s extensive trivia page about the movie …

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