Friday Feature -- The Antichrist Drives a Cadillac, but the King of Cool Drives a Mustang!

Steve McQueen in his 1968 Ford Mustang 390 GT 2+2 Fastback, chasing the two "hoods" in their 1968 Dodge Charger 440 Magnum.  Great scene!

Comments

[pb]

Wildly inaccurate on so many levels (the mysterious reappearing green VW!) but still the first and best. From then on every movie in the genre had to have a car chase whether it made sense or not

[Doug]

Very cool. When it comes to car chases this one and the one from The French Connection come to mind immediately. The late 60s, early 70s were a great time for film making. Stunts were stunts! Performed in real time, at real speeds. No blue screens or filming in slow motion and speeding up the film. Crazy good back then. I cringe every time I see movies nowadays where a car blows up and the one next to it doesn't budge. The last really good action sequence I saw was the train wreck scene in The Fugitive (filmed in 1993 even)... and they actually crashed a real train to do it; one take, 13 cameras (3 were destroyed in the filming). Hooray for realism!

[RubeRad]

Believe it or not, I first saw this sequence in high school, when it was shown in my driver's ed class. The instructor led with "now that we're done learning, I'm going to show you how NOT to drive." A true classic of movie car chases. McQueen did all of his own driving.

However, I have to say my favorite movie for car chases is Ronin, with Robert de Niro, Jean Reno, Stellan Skarsgaard, etc.

[Bobby]

I don't know how the permit process works to film in San Francisco, but Im guessing they were only given a few takes per shot to get it done right.

[pb]

About the permits - I believe they were less than forthcoming about what they were really planning to do! The shooting was in very early morning, judging by the light angles.

[RubeRad]

I remember hearing that for French Connection, they decided not to even get permits, but to just go out onto the streets of NY (or was it Chi?) and shoot it in real traffic!

[Kim Riddlebarger]

PB:

I've watched his many times over the years but didn't notice the green VW in so many scenes. I did recall seeing the 1965 El Camino--my first car. I'm still kicking myself that I ever let it get away.

Rube:

I recall reading that the driver of the Dodge Magnum was also the stunt driver in the French Connection, and IIRC also did some of the driving for McQueen.

[Mike]

Still one of my favorite car commercials came from this scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZzXHq7gKN8