TAKING A DRIVE WITH MCQUEEN!

For those of you who've never seen this film clip, it is widely regarded throughout the world as the best car chase ever filmed from the Steve McQueen movie Bullitt. Even 41-years later, it holds up. Stunt driver Bill Hickman and actor Paul Genge portray two mafia hit men who are following Lt. Frank Bullitt (McQueen), a plainclothes San Francisco Police detective to determine where he has hidden a witness they've shot but failed to kill. McQueen "turns the tables" on the duo and winds up pursuing them to determine their identities.

Interestingly, Hickman was a close friend of actor James Dean. He was following Dean's Porche Spyder on the way to a car race in Salinas, California on September 30, 1955 when Dean and his passenger Rolf Wuetherich tragically collided with an oncoming car at the intersection of Highway 41 at 466 in Paso Robles, California. Just minutes after the accident, Hickman and Hollywood celebrity photographer Sanford Roth arrived at the crash scene in Dean's Ford station wagon pulling the sports car's flatbed trailer. Hickman rushed to pull Dean from the twisted wreckage of his car when Dean died in his arms. Wuetherich survived the accident but died 26-years later in a 1981 car crash.

Bill Hickman's career as a stunt driver in films began in 1948. Among his best know work besides Bullitt (1968) was Walt Disney's The Love Bug (1969), driving a Pontiac Le Mans for actor Gene Hackman in The French Connection (1971), and in The Seven Ups (1973) where he is pursued in a Pontiac Grand Ville by fellow stunt driver Jerry Summers driving a Pontiac Ventura for actor Roy Schieder. Bill handled all of his own driving in films, including Bullitt where he drove the Black 1968 Dodge Charger. Bill died in February, 1988.

Actor Paul Genge (riding in the passenger seat with Hickman ) who plays the role of the gunman, began his training in East-Coast theater before his debut in 1936 on Broadway in "Hamlet" opposite Olivia de Havilland and Leslie Howard. Genge came to Hollywood in 1958 and appeared in many television series such as The Twilight Zone and films such as The FBI Story, North by Northwest (1959), and The Sandpiper (1965). Paul died in May, 1988 just three months after Bill Hickman.

Steve McQueen shared the driving of the Green 1968 Ford Mustang GT Fastback in Bullitt with stunt drivers Bud Ekins and Carey Loftin. Ekins, who doubled for McQueen in the daring motorcycle jump in The Great Escape is behind the wheel of the Mustang during the high speed airborne jump sequence. He is also the motorcyclist who lays down his bike as Hickman and McQueen swerve to miss him on the Guadelupe Canyon Highway. The chase was filmed over 22 city blocks and took two weeks to complete. Bullitt is considered a groundbreaking film for McQueens' insistence to shoot on location. I have watched this clip well over 100 times in recent years, and I must admit--I enjoy the dubbed in sound of the Mustang GT, since I owned one, restored it and sold it. Also included here is the tense scene after the chase with character actors Simon Oakland and Norman Fell. Here is a perfect example of what McQueen could convey on the "big screen" with a mere facial expression. So, turn up the sound, sit down, buckle your seat belt, and have fun!

IT'S THURSDAY!