Bullitt
- Jun 7
- 2 min read
1968 was a monster year for movie lovers. Releases that year included 2001: A Space Odyssey, Rosemary’s Baby, Planet of the Apes, Night of the Living Dead, Monterey Pop, Once Upon a Time in the West…and the granddaddy of all modern crime-action movies, Bullitt.
Directed by Peter Yates and starring Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn and Jacqueline Bissett, Bullitt is justifiably regarded as the film that gave birth to years of memorable Hollywood cop movies--from The French Connection to Dirty Harry.
Lieutenant Frank Bullitt is a cynical, rogue cop who takes orders from no one and bucks the system in order to do his job. He is also regarded as one of the best detectives on the San Francisco police force, which is why he’s assigned to protect a witness who’s been brought to town to testify in court against the mob. But the mob sends killers to silence the witness, and before long Bullitt finds himself up to his neck in trouble. The killers are after him as well, and so is an ambitious politician who blames Bullitt when things wrong.
In real life, he was called “the king of cool”.
The story is strong enough, but as we travel deeper into the puzzle of the crime that must be solved, it's Steve McQueen’s performance that overshadows everything. You can’t take your eyes off him. In real life, he was called “the king of cool”. And in Bullitt, with his ice blue eyes, turtleneck shirts, and his gun snug across his chest in an upside-down shoulder holster, he is the cool of the coolest. He radiates charisma.
It’s been said that during the film’s production, McQueen and director Yates tore entire pages of dialogue out of the screenplay to allow McQueen’s actions to speak for him--his facial expressions. the way he moves. He doesn’t tell us who Frank Bullitt is. He shows us.
McQueen’s physicality is perhaps most famously on display in Bullitt when we watch him drive his Ford Mustang GT in a wild, 11-minute sequence that was the greatest car chase that had ever been filmed until that time. Grom the moment he shifts the car into gear, you feel that he’s in total Zen-like control. A race driver in real life, McQueen did most of his own driving in the movie.
It's worth noting that while watching Bullitt again recently, I was struck by the number of minor scenes and characters that casually embellish the story. Clearly this touch stems from the influence of popular, New Wave European films at the time. While some may feel that this slows the thrust of the main narrative, I—for one—love these stylized flourishes, as much as I love Lalo Schifrin’s groovy, jazz-pop music score.
Add the presence of McQueen, and Bullitt is an intoxicating late 60s action movie cocktail, one that continues to influence filmmakers more than 50 years after its release. No wonder none other than Steven Spielberg has expressed interest in making a new version of Bullitt.
I give the Bullitt of 1968 four out of four stars. It is a true American classic.
