San Francisco has been the setting of a lot of exciting movie car chases over the years, but this 1968 police thriller is still the one to beat when it comes to high-octane action on the steep hills of the city by the Bay. The outstanding car chase earned an Oscar for best editing, but the rest of the movie is pretty good, too. Bullitt is a perfect star vehicle for cool guy Steve McQueen, who stars as a tenacious detective (is there any other kind?) determined to track down the killers of the star witness in an important trial. Director Peter Yates (Breaking Away) approached the story with an emphasis on absolute authenticity, using a variety of San Francisco locations. Jacqueline Bisset and Robert Duvall appear in early roles, and Robert Vaughn plays the criminal kingpin who pulls the deadly strings of the tightly wound plot. --Jeff Shannon
He'll get you away faster than anyone else on wheels. Ryan O'Neal plays the driver - an ice-cool getaway ace for hire by whoever can afford his crash course skills. Bruce Dern is the detective - a man obsessed with arresting the speed demon at any cost... The Driver lures his foe into a deadly game of cross and double cross by leaving tantalising evidence at every heist until the vengeance-crazed Detective can stand no more and the film erupts into a frenzy of twisted metal and burning rubber. A 1970's classic from Walter Hill.
A movie that proved a fine swansong for Humphrey Bogart, The Harder They Fall is a gripping drama set against a background of fixed boxing matches. Not so much about the fights as the exploitation of the sport, the film is based on a novel by Budd Schulberg, whose Oscar-winning screenplay for On the Waterfront (1954) helped turn Rod Steiger into a star. Here Steiger delivers an equally bravura performance as the chillingly corrupt manager, Nick Benko, a man who will do anything to turn a buck. Bogart meanwhile is outstanding as unemployed sports writer Eddie Willis, hired against his better judgement to promote a no-hope Argentinean boxer, Toro Moreno (Mike Lane). Powerfully written, if built around the unlikely premise of building a 10th-rate fighter into a world-class contender, the drama is essentially a battle for Willis's soul as he is torn between money and conscience. Though the scenes with Bogart and Steiger facing off are the strongest and a veritable masterclass of hardboiled characterisation, Mark Robson, who also helmed the Kirk Douglas boxing classic Champion (1949), directs with a convincingly dirty realism, the final punishing and bloody match a clear influence on Scorsese's Raging Bull (1980). On the DVD: The Harder They Fall's anamorphic 1.77:1 transfer is excellent with only one brief scene showing any significant print damage. Burnett Guffey's noir-ish black-and-white cinematography looks sharp and fresh as the day it was shot, with only minimal grain. The mono sound is strong and clear, without a hint of distortion or compression. The only extra is a scored gallery of posters and lobby cards from other Bogart films available on Columbia. There are dubbed versions in French, German, Spanish and Italian, and a plethora of subtitle options. --Gary S Dalkin
The boys are back in town! Conman Reggie Hammond and cop Jack Cates team up once again and turn San Francisco inside out to nail an elusive druglord. Sequel to the smash hit ""48 Hours"".
An exercise in film noir fairytale, 1955's Killer's Kiss was Stanley Kubrick's second feature film (he had the first buried forever) and shows just how powerful a filmmaker he was right out of the gate. Followers of Kubrick's career will note the appearance of themes and images that recurred (a final axe-fight in a warehouse full of disembodied mannequin parts would not be out of place in The Shining), but this is also notably unlike later Kubrick films in its use of authentic locations and its 65-minute running time. The plot is a tiny anecdote about a washed-up boxer (Jamie Smith), a dance hall dame (Irene Kane) and a slimy hood (Frank Silvera) during one crowded weekend of brutality and romance. There's a sense of a young director playing games: the boxing match (a definite influence on Raging Bull) is all low-angle close-ups and subjective shots with plenty of thump and dazzle, and the traditional Expressionist look of noir is exaggerated with many a tricky shot or doomy plot twist. The three unfamiliar leads are all excellent as small-timers struggling with big passions, and there is already a potent use of raucous source music and subtle sound design to augment the stark, haunted black and white imagery. On the DVD Killer's Kiss on disc features no extras other than a blaring trailer ("a picture as brazen as the naked lights of Broadway, as hard as the New York streets in which it was shot!"). The black and white picture is 4:3, and comes with soundtracks in English, German, Italian and Spanish; subtitles in English, German, Italian, French, Dutch and Spanish. --Kim Newman
Charles Bronson demonstrates exactly what tough is in this two-fisted action drama about a drifter suddenly caught up in the fight game during The Great Depression. Chaney (Bronson) a down-on-his-luck loner hops on a freight train to New Orleans where on the seedier side of town he tries to make some quick money the only way he knows how - with his fists. Chaney approaches a hustler named Speed (Coburn) and convinces him that he can win big money for them both. Chaney wins a f
Ryan O'Neal plays the driver - an ice-cool getaway ace for hire by whoever can afford his crash course skills. Bruce Dern is the detective - a man obsessed with arresting the speed demon at any cost... The Driver lures his foe into a deadly game of cross and double cross by leaving tantalising evidence at every heist until the vengeance-crazed Detective can stand no more and the film erupts into a frenzy of twisted metal and burning rubber. A 1970's classic from Walter Hill.
San Francisco has been the setting of a lot of exciting movie car chases over the years, but this 1968 police thriller is still the one to beat when it comes to high-octane action on the steep hills of the city by the Bay. The outstanding car chase earned an Oscar for best editing, but the rest of the movie is pretty good, too. Bullitt is a perfect star vehicle for cool guy Steve McQueen, who stars as a tenacious detective (is there any other kind?) determined to track down the killers of the star witness in an important trial. Director Peter Yates (Breaking Away) approached the story with an emphasis on absolute authenticity, using a variety of San Francisco locations. Jacqueline Bisset and Robert Duvall appear in early roles, and Robert Vaughn plays the criminal kingpin who pulls the deadly strings of the tightly wound plot. --Jeff Shannon
The word 'cop' isn't written all over him - something more puzzling is. In one of his most memorable roles Steve McQueen stars as Detective Frank Bullitt a hard-driving tough-as-nails San Francisco cop. Bullitt has just received what sounds like a routine assignment: keep a star witness out of sight and out of danger for 48 hours then deliver him to the courtroom on Monday morning. But before the night is out the witness will lie dying of shotgun wounds and Bullitt a no-glitter all-guts cop won't rest until he nabs the gunmen and the elusive underworld kingpin who hired them. Famed for it's Lalo Schifrin score and one of the greatest car chases in cinema-history 'Bullit' won the 1969 Oscar for Best Film Editing (Frank P. Keller).
The word 'cop' isn't written all over him - something more puzzling is. In one of his most memorable roles Steve McQueen stars as Detective Frank Bullitt a hard-driving tough-as-nails San Francisco cop. Bullitt has just received what sounds like a routine assignment: keep a star witness out of sight and out of danger for 48 hours then deliver him to the courtroom on Monday morning. But before the night is out the witness will lie dying of shotgun wounds and Bullitt a no
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