SPEEDtv.com Reviewed: “The Greatest Movie Car Chases of All Time”
Written by: Gregg Leary Charlotte, NC – 5/8/2006

“The Greatest Movie Car Chases of All Time”

By Jesse Crosse
Foreword by Peter Yates, Director of “Bullitt”

Before you even OPEN “The Greatest Movie Car Chases of All Time” you know you’re in for something special. The dust jacket shows “bad guy” Bill Hickman launching his 1968 Dodge Charger R/T above the streets of San Francisco. This book may just be “Number One…with a Bullitt.” (Bad pun totally intended.) The “back jacket” depicts scenes from “The French Connection,” “The Blues Brothers,” “The Rock,” “The Road Warrior,” and even “The Keystone Kops, “ and asks the intriguing question, “If you were stranded on a desert island and could only have twenty car chases to watch, which would you pick?”

O.K., I’m hooked. Author Jesse Cross is uniquely qualified to bring us his Top Twenty List of the greatest car chases of all time. He is an automotive writer and former racer…and a film buff to boot. In the Foreword, Peter Yates, director of “Bullitt,” calls this book, “the definitive guide to-and analysis of-car chases on film. Anyone fascinated by the history of the car in film cannot fail to be riveted by this book.”

Kowalski’s Challenger blows off a Jaguar XKE in “Vanishing Point”. The naked girl on the motorcycle does NOT appear here.

What constitutes a great car chase? Crosse’s rules are: “A car chase is a pursuit scene that has its own beginning and end within the movie. It must be real enough to flood your veins with adrenaline, make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, and leave you with a tangible sense of relief when it’s over.”

Jesse takes us all the way back to 1912 with Mack Sennett’s Keystone Kops, as some of the earliest examples of car chases. They had “no stunt doubles, no blue screens and no computer generated images” to help them document their celluloid craziness. Perhaps “under cranking” the film was their only “special effect.” I remember being spellbound as a kid watching their chases as well as marveling at the unique racing contraptions the “Our Gang” crew concocted in “The Little Rascals” episodes. I guess I was born a car chase fan.

“The Greatest Movie Car Chases of All Time” is divided into seven well researched chapters...plus Chapter 8, the payoff list: The Top Twenty Car Chase Films of all time.

Chapter One “Dynasty,” tells of the People who made the great films … the directors, stunt drivers, actors, cinematographers and special effects masters.

Chapter Two, “Dancing in the Street,” tells How the great chases were made. Peter Yates employed light weight Arriflex cameras and actually rode along in the back seat of Steve McQueen’s Mustang in “Bullitt” to give theatre goers “in car camera footage.” John Frankenheimer used professional stunt drivers in “Ronin” but wanted realistic expressions from his actors, so he employed right hand drive cars with the actors sitting behind dummy steering wheels on the left. Robert De Niro’s looks of terror were genuine…he was actually IN the car at speed as the stunt driver did the real driving. (I’ve ridden in pace cars that were driven at speed by professional drivers and am glad there was no camera to capture my expressions.)

Chapter Three, “Mustangs to Minis,” tells of famous cars that became stars through their roles in great car chase films. The Mustang and Charger in “Bullitt,” the Dodge Challenger in “Vanishing Point,” and the Minis in “The Italian Job,” are profiled in detail.

Chapter Four, “Licensed to Thrill” traces the great James Bond rides…from the Aston Martin DB5 through the Lotus Esprit and BMW 750…and on to the Aston Martin Vanquish and Jaguar XKR.

Chapter Five, “Cut to the Chase,” tells of the specialized equipment necessary to capture the chases on film. Low loaders, tracking vehicles, nitrogen cannons, pipe ramps, stunt turntables, and even the “Spit Roast Rig” are explained and illustrated with breathtaking photographs.

Chapter Six, “Lights, Camera, Action,” describes the various cameras, mounts and techniques used in filming great action sequences.

Chapter Seven, “Playing Rough,” chronicles a “day in the life” of a movie stuntman.

Chapter Eight, “The Top Twenty,” is the payoff. Think of it as twice the fun of David Letterman’s Top Ten List. I have seen exactly HALF the films on Jesse Crosse’s list. So I’ll give you my “HALF-fast” comments in parentheses at the end of some of the films I have seen. However, to get the Complete Top Twenty List, you’ll have to BUY the book.

#20 - “Thunder Road.” (1958) (One of the first films I remember seeing as a kid. Robert Mitchum was cool…almost as cool as Elvis Presley playing race driver Lucky Jackson in “Viva, Las Vegas.” I just found out that Elvis wanted to be in “Thunder Road” but Colonel Parker made him turn it down.)

#18 - “The Rock” (1996) (A chase scene through San Francisco? Déjà vu? “Bullitt’ did it better but the pyrotechnics and special effects in “The Rock” are worth seeing. Nicholas Cage makes the Top Twenty twice.)

Gene Hackman exudes intensity behind the wheel in “The French Connection”.

#15 - “The French Connection” (1971) (When I interviewed Gene Hackman at Mid-Ohio in 1993, he was a partner in the Galles Team with drivers Al Unser Junior and Danny Sullivan. He grew up in Danville, Illinois, about 80 miles from Indianapolis and had seen many races there. He admitted to being a “Petrol Head,” and said he was very proud to have done most of the driving in “The French Connection.”

#12 “Vanishing Point” (1971) (A friend and I saw the film the summer we graduated from high school in Ohio. We decided to take a “road trip” to Florida. He may have had a cooler car than Kowalski’s Dodge Challenger… a 1970 Plymouth ‘Cuda convertible with four on the floor and pistol grip shifter. We didn’t race any Jaguar XKE’s or see any naked girls on motorcycles. Fortunately, we didn’t see any bulldozers in the middle of the road, either.)

#11 - “Gone in 60 Seconds” (1974, 2000) (The Halicki Garage in Dunkirk, NY was still surrounded by cars used in the original “Gone in 60 Seconds,” and “The Junkman,” when I visited in 2003. Toby was killed on the set of “Gone in 60 Seconds 2” when a water tower collapsed on him in Buffalo, NY.)

#10 - “Smokey and the Bandit” (1977) (Jerry Reed as Cledus Snow utters the line “Boogity, Boogity, Boogity!” many years before Darrell Waltrip used it on his race broadcasts.)

#9 - “The Blues Brothers” (1980) (The line “The use of unnecessary violence in the apprehension of the Blues Brothers has been approved” is very appropriate considering the shear number of vehicles destroyed in this classic.)

#4 - “The Italian Job” (1969, 2003) (You know you’re getting old when you pay as much attention to the MINIs as you do to Charlize Theron.)

#3 - “The Seven Ups” (1973) (Watch for the great stunt driving of Bill Hickman, who plays “Bo.” Hickman was one of the first to reach James Dean at the controls of his crumpled Porsche Spyder, and held him until the ambulance arrived too late in Cholame, California on September 30, 1955. Hickman also did stunt driving in “Bullitt,” “The Love Bug,” “The French Connection,” and “Vanishing Point.”

The “King of Cool” is about to kick the spurs to his Mustang on the streets of San Francisco.

#1 - “Bullitt” (1968) (I drove San Francisco’s Lombard Street, in my camper van…not as fast as the Mustang and Charger…but at least I didn’t lose any hubcaps. Those on the Charger kept flying off and reappearing. Watch for the green VW that shows up again and again.)

So, I gave you ten of the Top Twenty Greatest Movie Car Chases of All Time. How many of them have you seen? How many made YOUR list? Why not head to the neighborhood video store and stock up? The book, “The Greatest Movie Car Chases of All Time” is available from the SPEEDtv.com bookstore . Some of the movies on the Top Twenty are also here. Jesse Crosse’s book earns four out of five lug nuts, despite the missing hub caps.