Bullitt - Limited Edition Collector's Set

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Peter Yates's 1968 cop drama has its existentialist pretensions, but there is something seductive about its strained seriousness and Steve McQueen's intentionally stoic performance as a San Francisco police detective on the trail of a murderer. A couple of key action sequences boost the film's stature, the most memorable of which is a vertiginous car chase that Yates almost approaches as a dance. Jacqueline Bisset provides window dressing as Bullitt's girlfriend--worried about how much his job strips away his humanity--and Robert Vaughan is almost reptilian as an opportunistic politician. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews:

A Must Have For Your Movie Library!.......2007-08-31

Bullitt is Steve McQueen at his finest! It's an excellent movie with an excellent cast, a great plot, top notch acting, and the "Greatest" chase scene ever filmed. Two of the most powerful street cars of the 1960's (1968 GT 390 Mustang Fastback, and a 1968 Dodge Charger) battled it out on the streets of San Francisco! If you have a big screen TV you'll enjoy feeling yourself move in your seat with the cars as they race down the hills of frisco. Cameras are mounted in the windshields for the best special effect ever. I remember when I was a kid watching Bullitt in the theater, everyone was rocking in their seats as the cars went down the hills. This movie was made when all of the actors were stars and headliners, not like today with one or two leading actors and a bus load of newbies. Also, Bullitt was real stuff - not special effects! Bullitt was made before green screens, gimicks, and computer techology had come along. The racing was real, the crashing was real, the explosions were real, and yes - Steve really drove the Gt 390 Mustang.

Thomas

Excellent car chase scene........2007-08-09

This is one of my favorite movies. The car chase scene in San Francisco was one the best early chase scenes,and still is. Great cop movie.

Cool Hand Frank.......2007-07-21

I saw this film when it was released nearly forty years go. It holds up well after all that time. The cinematography is not to be believed, the plot has enough twists to keep you both guessing and intertained, Steve McQueen as the taciturn detective Frank Bullitt (he does a lot of acting with his baby blues) reminds us of what a fine actor we lost when he left this world far too soon, and the stunts are as good as they get.

Everybody talks about the famous car chase on the streets of San Francisco. On the other hand, there is another great chase that takes place on foot at the San Francisco airport. Don't forget how Detective Bullitt gets a free newspaper as well. According to the commentary included with the DVD, the medical personnel used in the hospital scenes were actual doctors and nurses so these scenes are completely realistic.

McQueen is joined by a very young Robert Duvall who plays a cabbie, Robert Vaughn as an ambitious politician and Jacqueline Bissett, Bullitt's lover, who has difficulty with his chosen profession, worrying that he is becoming too involved in the awfulness of the cesspool of crime that he deals with daily. (But, Sweetie, that's what police officer do.)

I certainly haven't seen all the cop movies ever made, but I cannot think of one that is any better than this one. Certainly a lot of television movies since "Bullitt" must owe a great deal to it. McQueen's Mustang chase scene is one for the ages.

Classic action with a bit of substance.......2007-07-02

Bullitt is an intense and suspenseful crime drama that features the famous car chase through San Francisco.

Steve McQueen is memorable in the lead role, with excellent support from Don Gordon as his partner, Delgetti, and Robert Vaughn as the powerful 'good guy / bad guy'. Look also for Norman Fell in a smaller role as a hardened police captain and a younger Robert Duvall as a cab driver.

Most people remember Bullitt for its car chase sequence, for better or for worse. It's good fun with a number of known continuity errors (passing the green VW Beetle at least three times, as well as the white car (Pontiac?)) and that black Dodge Charger must have about eight hubcaps on it, I swear, since about four fall off and later they seem to be back on. (Or did cars have two sets of hubcaps as standard equipment back then?) ;-) In any case, it's a must-see for classic muscle car fans, and the best moments are the "you are there" moments filmed over the drivers' shoulders.

Beyond that, Bullitt's enduring charm is its heavy atmosphere, rather than its dialogue or character development. At times, it seems so real that it almost feels like a documentary. You are taken behind the scenes into the medical and police worlds of the late 1960's.

The plot has enough twists to keep you going. However, by today's standards, some of the scenes could've been left out. I realize that the film tries to show the main character as both a distant maverick as well as a human being, but a number of scenes and subplots could've been edited out in favor of a tighter plot. I mean, do we need to watch Bullitt in a restaurant or grocery shopping or in forced, flat dialogue with his lover? I felt that these moments detracted from the film, rather than adding to it.

The soundtrack works well for the era, as composed by Lalo Schifrin. The opening titles is one of my favorite movie themes. It's jazzy and it fits the film well.

My favorite part of the film is its opening sequence. The titles are blended in creatively with the plot, which begins immediately. That, with the already mentioned music, creates the most enduring impression with me.

Bullitt is not a perfect movie, and not quite the classic that some would make it to be, but it's definitely worth seeing and owning.

"I Want to Nail Him".......2007-06-11

I saw this again last night for the first time in years and it reensured what I believe all this time: "Bullitt" is the greatest movie I have ever seen in my life. It will take a long time for me to find a movie that can top this. Not only that, but "Bullitt" is the only movie I know that grabbed my heart and moved me deeply. As evident in the scene, my favorite in which Bullitt's girlfriend Cathy (Jacqueline Bisset-what a class act angel! She's a split image of what fellow Brit Keira Knightley is; as you know they both co-stared in "Domino" in which Bisset played Knightley's mother) discovers a dead woman strangled and half-naked and later on, Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen) pulls the car over the side of the highway because he knows she is pissed. As she gets out of the car and goes into the grass field, Bullitt follows her. Then she speaks by saying "Do you let anything reach you? I mean, REALLY reach you? You think violence is a way of life. Living with violence and death". Speaking of that there is a revealing scene in which the witness is shot and eventually killed in the face. Revealing because that's how Martin Luther King died from in the same year of "Bullitt"'s release. The supporting cast is great which includes Robert Duvall as the cab driver, Simon Oakland, Norman Fell as the police caption, and last but not least Robert Vaughn as Walter Chalmers-the most evil villian I have ever seen in any movie. This is a man that hates blacks and the police (including Bullitt). The movie along with the car and airport chase is a true masterpiece.

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