The King of Cool’s Crowning Moment

When you hear the term “Hollywood Legend,” what do you think?  If you say “Clark Gable,” most people will only think Gone with the Wind, though his filmography goes well beyond that.  Probably the same goes for Judy Garland; tons of great films, but you’re likely to only answer Wizard of Oz.  Maybe, just maybe, a little love for Meet in St. Louis.  Maybe.  For other actors, it’s hard to narrow down to one film  Take Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Denzel Washington, Robert DeNiro or Tom Hanks.  All of them have been in so many great films throughout their long career, you can’t really come up with a definitive image.  So you say Paul Newman is Butch Cassidy?  Well, what about Cool Hand Luke?  Or do I dare bring up Slap Shot?  And then you get actors who are just sort of known for…well, for being themselves.  Larger than life personalities who, through longevity, and maybe some typecasting, are known more for image and brand than any role.  I’m thinking names like John Wayne, Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, Jimmy Stewart and Clint Eastwood.  All five of those are among the biggest names to ever grace a Hollywood marquee.  All had long careers and in cases like Eastwood, highly decorated in multiple formats.  Yet at the end of the day, unlike a Denzel Washington or Tom Hanks, these actors were a brand.  John Wayne: the most famous Western star of them all; Clint Eastwood, a darker West and the toughest of the toughs.  Cary Grant, doesn’t matter the role, you just know he’s going to look great doing it, and you’re going to want to be just like him.  Astaire….class all the time, while Stewart, integrity and middle America values.  These actors represented a brand, whether they set out to do that or not.  You think Fred Astaire or Cary Grant….it’s images that come to mind, what they embodied; individual roles, not so much.

But when you talk Hollywood cool, you’re talking Steve McQueen.  Just look at him.  Rugged, yet impeccable style.  There’s no question in my mind, Steve McQueen is every much a brand as Fred Astaire or Jimmy Stewart.  And like those icons, with the possible exception of Stewart, McQueen is known today more for his brand (in this case, cool) than for any film.  You say the name John Wayne, and all kinds of images come to mind.  But do you instantly think of a particular film?  Maybe The Searchers or True Grit, but the point is, Wayne is thought more of as a brand than any one film.  And if it wasn’t for Frank Capra, would we have the brand of good guy Jimmy Stewart to go with?  It’s a shame, because he really shows us something in his role as Scotty in Hitchcock’s Vertigo.  It’s more than the comfortable “Aw shucks” Stewart brand we almost always immediately conjure up.

So what then is Steve McQueen?  Cool, style, the 1960s and ’70s, fast cars and motorcycles, great stunts.  Heck, Sheryl Crowe gave us a song that, while not about Steve McQueen, sure embodies what we think “The King of Cool” stood for.  Even the video pays homage to some of the more iconic vehicular moments of McQueen’s career.

What are the films, then?  You might say The Great Escape, which has a huge cast and multiple storylines.  But if you know the film, what images come to mind?  For me, it’s easy.  Either McQueen tossing that baseball against the fence, or…..what else….

And man, doesn’t he look COOL on that bike?!  The Great Escape is a perfect statement for McQueen too.  Though he’s a huge part of the World War II prison break, he’s a loner.  The escape is put together by the British, and they don’t always know what to make of the American who plays by his own rules.  Perfect for Steve McQueen.

Another movie that might come to mind first  is The Magnificent Seven.  I’ve always wondered why there aren’t more Westerns in the McQueen canon.  Perhaps he just didn’t want to be typecast.  He and Eastwood came on the scene at around the same time, and maybe seeing Clint’s smashing success with the spaghetti westerns, Steve knew he’d have to forge his own path.  Which is ironic, since Bullitt, which I’ll get to  really might as well be Dirty Harry, just not quite as quotable or…well…dirty.  Of course, Magnificent Seven is pretty close to the start of McQueen’s movie career; he’s not a big name….yet.  But like that iconic close-up of John Wayne when he first appears in Stage Coach, I think Hollywood knew what they had in Steve McQueen.  A big cast, and too much time spent on uninteresting characters.  But Yul Bryner and Steve McQueen in the front of the wagon, riding up Boot Hill?  That’s gold there.  And in what will become noticeable even more, and probably what sets him apart from Eastwood is, McQueen rarely needs a line to make his point.  There’s no “Do you feel lucky punk?” from the King of Cool.  With McQueen, the story happens, and if you want commentary, just look at his face.  Yes, The Magnificent Seven is “just about to become a star” McQueen….but what makes him the King is definitely on display!

I will admit, I haven’t seen much of Steve McQueen’s filmography.  I know he was in The Towering Inferno, The Thomas Crown Affair, The Heist and so forth….and I haven’t seen any of them.  Like most, I know Steve McQueen as a brand.  But I had seen Bullitt.  Years ago, and all I could remember was (what else) the car chase through the streets of San Francisco, a chase across the tarmac of SFO, and Robert Vaughan riding away in a limo with a Support Your Local Law Enforcement bumper sticker.  That was about it.  Whether I had seen it on TV or rented it and watched on VCR, I don’t recall.  I just remember having seen some of it.

Now, if you know anything about Bullitt, you know this:

Widely considered the greatest car chase in film history.  And if you don’t exactly remember the chase, you remember that car.  A 1968 Ford Mustang.  Maybe you even remember the car it was pursuing, a Dodge Charger.  But if you’re like me, your memory of Bullitt is pretty much McQueen and cars.  Not that that’s a bad thing.

Anyway, this past Sunday, I had a rare day off.  And I know that our local Cinemark theatre usually shows a classic film, one showing only, on Sunday afternoon.  To my pleasant surprise that was film this week was Bullitt.  It was being promoted as the 50th Anniversary edition.  My wife was asleep (she works nights), so I reached out to my Father in Law to see if he wanted to go.  A date was set, and so at 2 pm, it was time for late 1960s San Francisco, cops, cars, and the King of Cool in his prime.

Here’s the thing with Bullitt…it’s more than a car chase.  Which is something I don’t think the team behind the 50th Anniversary tour got.  The movie started with a 20 minute presentation from members of the McQueen family and others who worked with Steve.  And while I learned much about him, the focus was on the chase.  Yes, I get it; it is spectacular, and the opportunity to see it on the big screen was going to be awesome.  But as it turns out Bullitt is a darn fine film, and I daresay….maybe the definitive moment for coronating a King of Cool.  McQueen may have never been better….and Bullitt is an absolute classic, more than a chase.  Let’s talk about it, shall we?

Every now and then, you see a movie that may have modest goals…and by golly, it hits all of them.  There’s a story to tell and it does just that, without much excess.  Take, for example, the early 2000s movie Drumline, about marching bands at Historic Black Colleges.  Being in the band community, I know many of my peers have mixed feelings about that film.  But I’ll always maintain, Drumline has a story, and it tells it.  It doesn’t try to be The Godfather, it’s just a fun, engaging story, with characters you like, and it delivers.  The movie that lives up to what its trying to do.  The same can be said about the film that announced Liam Neeson as an action hero, Taken.  Little to no plot development, limited background on the characters, just a very tense storyline, and the filmmakers stay true to that.  Taken‘s momentum is never slowed by ancillary characters or secondary storylines.  It stays focused on Liam Neeson and his quest, and as such, it’s an unrelenting, tight story that takes the audience completely in.  Like Drumline, Taken hits all of is goals.

Bullitt is along those lines.  It sets out to tell its’ story, and it does just that.  What’s interesting to me, though, is how just little a story there is.  And I thought Taken doesn’t give you background info!  Taken‘s character development is veritably Tolstoyian compared to Bullitt. In that regard, I think Bullitt is a perfect summation of the Steve McQueen ethos, if you will.  All that made him the King of Cool is on display.  The director was Peter Yates, who I will admit, I know little about.  But I have to think McQueen’s hand was felt on pretty much all aspects of film-making.  The documentary introduction to the 50th anniversary of Bullitt told us that McQueen would take a script and just mark out the lines he thought were unnecessary.  Man, I would love to see what the original script of Bullitt, pre-Steve McQueen getting his hands on it, looked like!  There’s so much of that film, where a look, the scenery, an image, a sound (be it from the film or from Lalo Schifrin’s jazzy score) does what dialogue could.  Take the legendary car chase.  No dialogue at all.  Never do we hear a curse word when a driver struggles to control their car.  Never does McQueen mutter something.  Nor do the two “professionals” in the Dodge say a word.  They don’t discuss how the iconic Mustang is upon them.  We see the driver’s brow dabbled with sweat….but he doesn’t say anything.  No complaint, no oath, no conference with his companion.  Just silence.  By silence, I mean the incredible sounds of muscle car engines, screeching tires, and the blaring horns of opposing traffic.  Likewise, his compatriot doesn’t open a discussion when he puts together his shotgun.  The image, the moment suffices for dialogue.

Driver of the Dodge Charger.  Look at the angle of the eyes, checking out the oncoming Mustang.  Those eyes do the work of dialogue

The notion of “less is more” permeates Bullitt.  What do we know about McQueen’s character, Frank Bullitt?  We know he keeps late hours, but not sure why.  His partner has to wake him up at 10 in the morning to go to work.  He wears very groovy pajamas.  He’s a Lieutenant in the San Francisco Police Department, and he has two other officers on his team.  He is involved with a beautiful woman (Jacqueline Bisset) but we’re never sure of the relationship.  Girlfriend?  Live-in significant other?  Spouse?  What we do know is that, until a moment in the second half of the film, she’s not aware of the true nature of police work.  We know his captain seems to support him, and that he is a decent man.  How do we know that?  We see him tell one of his men to go home to spend time with his wife.  When that same officer is the victim of a mob hit, Bullitt shows concern for him.  He may seem hard edged but there is a heart there.

And we definitely know Lt. Frank Bullitt is cool.  He drives a Ford Mustang.  For only half the film, though; there’s an amusing, seemingly forgotten sequence after the legendary car chase, where he tries to requisition a car from the police motor pool, only to be told there’s none available.  I’ve already mentioned the pajamas.  But did I mentioned this outfit?

So many great roles have a set of clothes you associate with them.  Cary Grant in North by Northwest?  The grey suit.  James Bond?  A tuxedo.  But this look from Bullitt…just give it a gander.  A tweed blazer, over a turtleneck sweater, and charcoal slacks.  If that isn’t 1968 cool, I don’t know what is!  Heck, that’s cool today!  But Lt. Frank Bullitt’s cool doesn’t stop there.  It’s 1968 in San Francisco, but our man Bullitt isn’t checking out the Grateful Dead or the Jefferson Airplane; he’s having dinner and drinks with friends at some far-out jazz club, where a woman is wailing away on a flute.  Jazz is cool.  So is Frank Bullitt.  And so is Steve McQueen.

The “bare bones” philosophy is everywhere in Bullitt.  What do we know about the Lieutenant’s back story?  Is he a decorated member of the SFPD?  We assume he’s good, that’s why his Captain has his back, right?  Who are the bad guys?  We saw a mob shootout in Chicago to open the film, and then we’re led to believe there’s a Johnny Ross who is being protected by Bullitt’s squad, so he’ll testify against “The Organization.”  Ross isn’t who we’re led to believe he is, and maybe there isn’t an informer, but rather, someone who is just trying to pull one over on the Mob.  We don’t know.  The script never gives us dialogue with the “bad guys.”  They don’t get their own scenes; they’re merely plot devices, goals towards which Bullitt is moving.  No evil monologuing here!

And then there’s Robert Vaughan’s character, Chalmers.  We assume he’s a politico.  But we don’t exactly know of what sort.  Does he currently have an office?  He throws his name around to impress people, be they law enforcement or hospital workers, but he never lists his title.  What we know is, it’s vital for him to have a star witness at an upcoming Senate subcommittee meeting on organized crime.  And that’s basically the plot.  Johnny Ross is that star witness.  Chalmers has Bullitt’s unit protect him, things go awry, and Bullitt wants to figure out what’s really happening.  Vaughan is terrific in the role; icy, creepy, a slight bit of menace….not of violence, but of connections.  He’s not going to hurt you and your family; he just might block your career advancement, or impede your child’s college application.  He’s a political animal.  No political party is given, and he doesn’t have an office.  And Vaughan plays him with all the appropriate amount of sleaze.

As for the “bad guys” we know, the two in the Dodge are “professionals.”  They wear suits.  We assume they’re hitmen.  There’s no names.  The only time we hear one of them talk is when he is trying to track down Ross at the hospital.  One drives the car, the other uses a pump-action shotgun for his weapon.  And as for the real Ross, I don’t think he ever has a line.  He may lead Bullitt across a dimly lit tarmac, underneath planes and back into the terminal….but his motives are left to him.  Apparently, it was to take the mob’s money and run, simple as that.  And what happens after the film?  We know Jacqueline Bissett’s character isn’t comfortable with the reality of police life.  He’s just come back from taking out the real Ross, he’s had a tense conversation with Chalmers, and now he’s back at his apartment.  Is he fulfilled that it’s all over?  Worried about the longterm affect of frustrating Chalmers’ plans?  Or is he now had his fill of police work and its over?  We don’t know; all we see is McQueen gazing weary-eyed into this bathroom mirror after washing his face…..and cue the credits.  That’s the McQueen ethos…..don’t tell me, show me, and do it with as little as possible.

Like I said, Bullitt is more than a car chase….but let’s face it, it is pretty much the most spectacular vehicle scene ever filmed.  Indiana Jones’ taking over the Nazi convoy in Raiders of the Lost Ark is also in contention but that’s an entirely different blog.  Between director Yates or McQueen, you wonder who was in charge here.  The pacing is perfect; it comes just about halfway through the film.  We’ve set the stage: the Bullitt unit is set up to protect Ross and something goes wrong; there’s misdirections at the hospital, between Chalmers trying to get involved and the “professional” on hand; Bullitt has gone on a trip across the city (thanks to not-yet-famous Robert Duvall as his cab driver) and met up with his informer; Chalmers is working against Bullitt.  The plot is well in motion, but rather than keep that developing, it’s time to take up 11 minutes of screen time with something utterly unbelievable and unquestionably awesome.

It would be impossible to describe the visual that is the Bullitt car chase but there are a few things that stick out.

1.  When it begins, with Bullitt and “the professionals” playing hide and seek, there’s a nifty jazz score from Lalo Schifrin playing.  But when it gets serious, once the Dodge driver buckles his seat-belt, the music instantly stops.  From then on, it’s just the sounds of those engines and the tires squealing.  That’s a touch of great film-making.  Despite how brilliant Bernard Herrmann’s score was, the famed crop duster attack scene in North by Northwest is done without music.  Or the initial T-Rex attack in Jurassic Park.  No John Williams at that moment.
2. If the 50th Anniversary of Bullitt is playing near you, it’s worth it just for those 10 minutes.  When those cars started flying down the hills of San Francisco,seeing it on a big screen was like riding a roller coaster.  I actually felt my stomach drop a few times.
3. And then there’s the sounds.  This will lead to a bigger conversation of how Bullitt is a postcard of a time and a place, and of how I have no idea if San Francisco of 1968 was anything like what I saw.  But here’s the thing (and there are more moments like this throughout the film), the sounds of that car chase would soon be impossible to recreate.  Sunday, I not only saw it on a big screen, but I heard IT in stereo.  And what is this fabled IT  I am referring to?  It’s the sounds of the engines on Bullitt’s 1968 Ford Mustang and “The Professional’s” 1969 Dodge Charger.  That, my friends, is the sound of pure Detroit motor muscle.  Within a few years, the fuel crisis would silence such gas-guzzlers.  But sitting in a movie theater, with stereo sound…those engines were a more powerful sound than a Mahler Symphony.  I don’t know if McQueen and Yates knew what the future held, but the Romantic in me wants to believe they knew the era of the Muscle Car would soon end.  And if that was to be the case, then what a memento they left us with! Could there be an better possible homage to the power and glory of American automotive making than a duel between a Mustang and a Charger?  Henry Ford and the Dodge Brothers; automotive engineers; United Auto Workers; all preserved in glorious sight and sound…the sounds and images of an era that would soon be history.
4. This goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway:  the chase will never be topped.  It can’t be.  Today it would be done with CGI.  But not Bullitt.  All the filming happened on the city streets of San Francisco, and then out on some highway past the Cow Palace.  The cars were real.  The sounds were real.  And no, McQueen wasn’t behind the wheel for all of it….but he did more than a little of the driving, especially the famous shot of him hitting the reverse on the fly.  The Fast and Furious movies keep trying to top themselves in terms of outrageousness.  And you can do that with the latest technology.  But Yates had none of that.  Real cars, real location, real drivers.  It will never be topped.  NEVER.

Like I said earlier, Bullitt is a moment of time, frozen, that can never be recreated.  And I’m not just talking about the cars.  Like the previous decade’s Vertigo, it’s a technicolor tour through San Francisco.  But unlike Vertigo, Bullitt doesn’t insist on showing you the sights.  The former makes the Golden Gate, Muir Woods, Palace of the Legion of Honor, the Mission Dolores and the Palace of Fine Arts crucial settings.  Bullitt doesn’t do that.  I honestly can’t remember if we ever see a bridge.  If we do, it’s in the background and not dwelt on.  We definitely don’t have the car chase going over the Golden Gate!  And while the car chase powers over the hills, it doesn’t go down Lombard Street.  Sure, we see cable cars, but they’re just in the back ground.  No, our car chase doesn’t run into them, ala The Rock.  They’re just traffic our drivers have to steer around.  There’s no Chinatown, no Golden Gate Park; probably the only landmark San Francisco settings on display are the Mark Hopkins Hotel, where “Ross” stops by early on; the exterior of Grace Cathedral, where Chalmers confronts the Captain; and the airport.  Otherwise, it’s some jazz club, a sleazy hotel where “Ross” is hold up; a hospital; corner cafes; Bullitt’s apartment; and police station.  In other words, not much that says, come see San Francisco!

But then I have to wonder: how true is Bullitt’s vision of San Francisco?  It’s set in 1968, and though the headlines in newspapers refer to the Vietnam War, we never see any hippies or protestors.  This is San Francisco, for crying out loud, in 1968!  Now granted, none of the action takes place in Haight-Ashbury, but everyone we see is well dressed, with maybe a little more sideburns than before.  At the airport, we see a good number of sailors and soldiers…but we also see a great number of nuns and priests going to Rome.  So, is this vision of San Francisco true to 1968, or selective?  I could venture that McQueen, who served in the Marine Corp, didn’t want the anti-war movement shown in the film…..but that’s just a complete moon-shot.  I don’t know his politics at all.  It just struck me that for a film made in 1968 and set in the home of counter-culture, there’s really none of it.

But what we get is a San Francisco where a well dressed man with tinted glasses and great facial hair knows all the criminal happenings in the city.   And you can just meet him at a restaurant called Enrico’s.   See below and tell me I’m wrong about the facial hair!

It’s also a San Francisco in 1968 where the chief surgeon at a hospital is African-American, Dr. Willard.  All the other doctors and nurses appear to be white, and Dr. Willard is treated with complete respect.  The only person who is objectionable to him is Chalmers, and by that point in the film, we’ve already grown to dislike him.  Now I know San Francisco is not in the South, so perhaps an African-American surgeon would not have encountered obstacles in his career that would have occurred say,  had he been somewhere else.  But this is 1968, the same year Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.  The Civil Rights battle is ongoing.  Were Yates and McQueen trying to make a statement by having the surgeon be African-American?  And more than that, treated with respect by everyone save the hissable Chalmers?   It’s as if Yates and McQueen are telling us, here’s another reason to not like Chalmers: he’s a racist.  Again, I don’t know if Yates and McQueen were trying to make a statement on race.  But it did strike me that for a film made in 1968, the surgeon was African-American and treated with respect. And though Dr. Willard is the only African-American character in Bullitt, we see people of all colors in the crowds at the San Francisco Airport.  The 1950s San Francisco of Vertigo might have been all-white, but that’s definitely not the city Yates and McQueen show us a decade later.  Good for them!

A last thought I had involves Steve McQueen himself.  Is there really anyone like him today?  The only two I can think of are Tom Cruise and George Clooney, and in neither case does the shoe fit completely.  I thought Cruise because of his insistence on doing his own stunts, just as McQueen wanted to drive all the time.  And Clooney because….well, as Danny Ocean in Ocean’s 11, he just looks cool.  I love Ocean’s 11, and Clooney looks absolutely cool in that film.  But I don’t know if he brings the cool consistently like McQueen.  There’s a reason my friends and I constantly quote dialogue from Ocean’s back and forth; it’s got some of the most memorable, if not always witty, lines out there.  But that’s not Steve McQueen.  There’s not a memorable line from Bullitt that stays with me.  Rather, it’s the visuals.  Yes, it’s cars.  But it’s also the bumper sticker on Chalmer’s limo.  And it’s every look on McQueen’s face.  The bare minimum.  Lose the dialogue and let the image tell the story.

It’s fascinating to me the films McQueen passed up.  Around the same time as Bullitt, he had been offered the role of the Sundance Kid, in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  It’s impossible for me to picture McQueen in that role, and not just because its so identifiable with Robert Redford.  We all love the banter between Paul Newman and Robert Redford, and the sense that Redford as Sundance is the junior in the partnership.  It always seems like Newman is the one in charge.  Maybe because he was older?  And there’s a lot of mirth between the two.  Who can forget Sundance’s refusal to jump because he can’t swim.  It’s funny, and it fits the tone that George Roy Hill and screenwriter William Goldman put out there.  I can’t imagine that working the same with Steve McQueen as Sundance.  First off, can you see him as the junior partner to Paul Newman?  I can’t, and I love Paul Newman.  Cool Hand Luke is a spectacular performance.  But it’s hard for me to see McQueen deferring to Newman.  And the notion of Sundance as a a bit of a goof?  That worked great for Redford; I have a very hard time seeing McQueen play it that way.  Plus, he’s just not going to go for the dialogue.  Whereas Redford can sarcastically ask Newman if he used enough dynamite, after the express car is blown to bits, I don’t see McQueen doing so.  In fact, I don’t think McQueen would’ve said anything.  His look would’ve done the talking.  You put Steve McQueen in Butch Cassidy and William Goldman is going to have to completely rewrite the script.  Or deal with McQueen rewriting it for him.  And by rewrite I mean crossing out line after line.

The other notable role McQueen passed on was Dirty Harry.  This one is a no-brainer.  He had already made that film.  It was called Bullitt.  Seriously.  Harry Callahan is a San Francisco police detective who plays by his own rules.  Callahan is a more cynical and definitely more sarcastic version of Frank Bullitt.  Whereas Bullitt is world-weary, Callahan might be a sociopath.  Bullitt maybe disgusted with his life (we’re left to interpret) after gunning down the real Ross.  Callahan revels in the mess he lives in….nay, thrives in it.  And that’s why it’s impossible to see McQueen as Dirty Harry, at least the way Clint Eastwood BEAUTIFULLY played it.

Take a look at this picture.

If you are anything like me, you hear that voice.  “I know what you’re thinking, did he fire 6 shots or only 5?”  It’s iconic, it’s brilliant, it’s one of the greatest 4 minute sequences in action cinema history.  I love everything about it.   But if I put a picture of Steve McQueen up from Bullitt, I can’t imagine any dialogue coming to mind.  I can only think of lines because I just saw the film.  I haven’t seen Dirty Harry in probably close to 20 years.  But man…I can remember most every single world from that INCREDIBLE sequence.  In those 4 minutes, Eastwood completely shed the “Man with No Name” from Spaghetti Westerns and was now an unforgettable new role.  McQueen is also unforgettable as Lt. Frank Bullitt, but it’s not because of any line.  He was perfect in that role, just as Eastwood was for Callahan.  You put Eastwood in Bullitt and McQueen in Dirty Harry; neither film works….at least not as perfectly as they do with their respective leading men.

Like I said at the beginning, there are actors who have become brands, known for their image more than any one particular  film.  And you could argue Steve McQueen is the biggest brand of all of them.  A quick check of iTunes will show you, Sheryl Crow is not the only artist to write a song using his name.  His choice of shades, Persol, markets a line that bears his name.  TAG Heuer markets his watch.  And then there’s this: Ford has a 2019 Mustang called the Bullitt, channeling that incredible muscle car of 1968 for today.  Is there any other actor who, nearly 40 years after his death, has such strong advertising possibility?  That’s because Steve McQueen is more than an actor, he’s an ideal, an image, a brand.  He didn’t die young like James Dean, or die right as he was becoming big, like Bruce Lee (dead by the time Enter the Dragon played in the U.S.).  McQueen gave us a great body of work, but it’s only two decades long.  He’s dead at age 50 in 1980.  Unlike Paul Newman, Robert Redford, or Clint Eastwood, we never saw McQueen get old.  Would he have become a director like Eastwood or Redford?  Would he, like Robert DeNiro, decide to change it up in later years and switch to comedy?  Impossible to say.  But I think that’s why the brand of Steve McQueen has endured so strong.  We never saw him playing against type.  He never took a role that mocked his image for laughs.  He remains, like the San Francisco of 1968 in Bullitt, frozen in time.  And frozen in greatness.  Again, I haven’t seen his whole filmography, but from where I stand, there’s not a groaner film where you wish McQueen had said no.  There’s just a legacy of cool.  And of greatness.

I don’t know if Bullitt will be on the big screen near you, but if it is, don’t miss it.  If you’re like me, your image of Steve McQueen is more the idea of cool.  He’s definitely that.  And he was probably never cooler than Bullitt.  Yes, the car chase is worth the price of admission all by itself.  But say you want to know what makes Steve McQueen the King of Cool?  You want to introduce yourself or someone else into the mystique of Steve McQueen?  It’s Bullitt.  Everything that makes him the King of Cool, from wardrobe to look, setting to car….everything that defines Steve McQueen (or at least the brand), you’ve got it in Bullitt.  He was the King of Cool, and never did his crown glitter more than in 1968.  But as for a throne….well, I guess you’ll find that behind the wheels of a ’68 Ford Mustang.

Love live the King!!!