I really like this movie, but I always laugh my a** off when I hear the sound effects they used during the car chase. So ridiculous! It's as if whoever did it never actually heard a high performance car being driven hard. The funniest thing is that you can tell the Mustang is an automatic, but they use those ridiculous gear shifting sounds. So stupid.
shareThe gear shifting sounds were recorded by having Steve McQueen drive the mustang around a racetrack with the sound recording equipment in the car. Peter Yates experimented with having the windows fully wound up, then wound down before finally deciding that the best sound was recorded with the windows halfway down. Peter Yates has gone on record as saying that he never before met anyone who could do a double declutch racing gear change like Steve could. So the "sound effects" are in fact the real thing.
shareIt's been speculated that the Mustang's sound effects were from an authentic racecar. While possible, since it appears that the Charger's actual sounds were used, I can't see why they wouldn't have done the same with the Mustang.
Coupled with a couple of specific shots of the rear of the Mustang towards the end when they're going up the hill and puffs of blue smoke can be seen coming from the dual exhaust that sync up 'exactly' with the sounds of the double clutch shifts, well, my money would be on the actual car sounds being used.
Of course, the movie won an academy award for editing, so who knows.
I've never noticed that particular detail (about the exhaust), but it would be a testament to the skill of sound effects editors. Even if the sounds heard were derived from recordings of the actual cars used, they would almost certainly have been done separately from the shooting under more controlled conditions and added in post. It would be most unusual to have been otherwise.
Poe! You are...avenged!
Well, if sound was added later, it's easy to see why the movie won an award for editing. There are two puffs of smoke coming from the Mustang's tailpipes almost simultaneously, and they coincide 'exactly' with the sound of the double-clutch. Whoever did the editing was really paying attention.
FWIW, I'm not up on my automotive engineering, but I think the smoke is from the exhaust valve seats degrading. Oil comes through the valve seats when the accelerator is released in anticipation of the next shift. Hence, the accelerator is released 'twice' on a double-clutch, so two puffs of smoke through the exhaust valves.
It should also remove any speculation of at least 'that' Mustang definitely being a manual transmission.
I'm sure I know even less about auto engineering than you do, but I remember coming across something on the 'net some time ago that went into exhaustive (pardon the pun) detail about the specs of the Mustang and the various modifications made to it* prior to shooting. Most of it was lost on me (arcane details about shocks, suspension and such), but there's no question it was a four speed manual.
*There were two, actually (as you might already know), and the modifications made to each were specific to the purposes for which they were used (hill jumps in the city vs high speed on open highway and so forth).
I do know a little something about post production, having worked in it 30+ years ago, and although there were tiny little giveaways here and there (like a recognizable individual sound effect used multiple times, for example), overall it's a pretty spot-on job. I'm sure it was a challenge for the effects editors, but I bet they enjoyed it, too.
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While there were modifications to the Mustangs, it wasn't to racecar lengths, pretty much just typical street racer stuff like headers, different camshaft, straight-thru mufflers, and Goodyear Blue-Streak racing tires. Interestingly, one of the dumber things 'not' done was a change of the carburetor. The guy who usually gets credit for the mods reportedly said he had good luck with stock Autolite carbs on the Fords he worked on and kept it. That one non-mod could go a long way to explaining why the virtually box-stock Charger simply walked away from the Mustang. It was only movie-magic that kept the Mustang anywhere near the Charger. Ford 390 engines were known to be one of the slowest running engines and at the bottom of the musclecar heap during the sixties, anyway, regardless of how extensively they had been modified.
It was so bad that the tires were swapped on the Charger to a smaller size to try and handicap it enough so the Mustang, with its special race tires, could at least legitimately catch up in the corners. It didn't much work and is also very likely the reason the Charger is sliding all over the place.
See? You know tons more about auto engineering than I do!
But, y'know, I've heard that story about the Charger's tires and, while I can't say it isn't true, it doesn't make much sense to me. It not as if Hickman and Ekins and/or McQueen were engaged in an actual race, or that the entire sequence wasn't assembled from choreographed takes that, at the most, probably lasted 30 or fewer seconds. In any take where the Charger appeared to be getting away from the Mustang, Yates need only have gotten the two drivers together afterward and said something like, "Bill, you were too far away from Bud in that take. You guys know what I want. Work it out so Bill rounds the corner no more than three seconds before you do, Bud, and let's take it again."
On a personal note, I owned a '68 Mustang FB (though not a GT) back when this film was still knocking around second-run houses, and a friend had a '68 Charger (not an R/T) which I drove many times. Neither of us was any Hickman or Ekins, but compared to the cornering ability of my light and nimble Mustang, that Dodge handled like a lumbering family sedan.
Of course, things can always go wrong even under the most carefully planned circumstances, as they famously did for both Hickman and McQueen at the corner of Larkin and Chestnut. But as accidental as what happened was at the time of shooting, there's nothing accidental about those two shots having appeared in the finished film; that was a conscious decision.
It's pretty common for anecdotes to become embellished and grow the older a film gets, until they reach legendary status. I've heard Yates make the now-oft-repeated claim of them reaching 110 mph going down hills in the city, for example, but it defies credibility.
Just as noteworthy, sometimes, are the things that those involved don't say about a film. For instance, there's visible evidence here and there of undercranking (running the camera at a lower speed) to make the cars appear to be going faster than they actually were. But that doesn't make a glamourous story, so nobody talks about it. It's most apparent in the shot from the stationary camera at Filbert for the famous descent of Taylor (shot with no fewer than four cameras, accounting for the multiple appearances of the notorious green VW), as they turn right from University onto Mansell and when the Mustang skids over the median on Guadalupe Parkway and slides toward the ditch, to give three examples.
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Oh, yeah, I have no doubt that the second unit director told Hickman to back off so that whomever was driving the Mustang could keep up. It's pretty apparent in many shots from inside the Charger, too, as the engine just seems to be loafing while the Mustang seems to be screaming.
But Hickman had a reputation for being 'batsh!t crazy' (you probably already know he was in the chase car Ford station wagon that was the first vehicle to come upon James Dean's wrecked Porsche). There's one scene where it's apparent he just couldn't control himself in the Charger. Going down the crooked street (Lombard?), the Mustang is right on the Charger's ass. But once they get out of the curves, the view through the Mustang's windshield makes it apparent that Hickman just left the Mustang in the dust.
Yeah, you can tell the camera looking up Taylor was slightly undercranked simply by watching the one guy who is walking down the sidewalk. It's not real bad, but he's definitely walking faster than you would think is normal. Undercranked cameras are irritating because it's such a cheap trick and usually so obvious. FWIW, ther scenes where it's quite possible the cars were really going. 'that' fast. There's a side view of the Mustang on the highway where it's riding high (cops call it 'getting air'). Those sixties' Mustangs had very poor aerodynamics.
And I know what you mean about comparing the Mustang and Charger. I, too, had a '67 GTA and '68 Roadrunner and, yeah, that Roadrunner didn't exactly handle too well and would simply 'plow' in the corners. Of course, the GTA had radial tires, too, but when it slid, it was controlled with the entire car going sideways.
Undercranking is perhaps the biggest sin in editing chase movies. Undercranking and backprojection was de rigueur up until the end of the 60's. There's nothing in my eyes that dates a movie more than those two. And how the people of the day didn't react on it more than they did boggles my mind, as it looks so completely ridiculous to us. It's even evident in big pictures like the Bond franchise.
And that's what made the chase in "French Connection" so refreshing. That it wasn't undercranked, and that it was evident they actually drove on (seemingly) public roads at that speed. They are evidently trying in this film, but they weren't really there yet. I don't remember if the chase in "Seven-Ups" is undercranked, but I have a definite feeling it wasn't.
And for all the comedic effects of "Blues Brothers" they didn't undercrank the chase in central Chicago, they really drove in excess of about 100 mph on Lower Wacker Drive, and it looks that part even today. It looks inherently life threatingly dangerous above speed limit. And that's what makes it so good.
I don't remember if the chase in "Seven-Ups" is undercranked, but I have a definite feeling it wasn't.
And for all the comedic effects of "Blues Brothers" they didn't undercrank the chase in central Chicago, they really drove in excess of about 100 mph on Lower Wacker Drive, and it looks that part even today. It looks inherently life threatingly dangerous above speed limit. And that's what makes it so good.
...that Roadrunner didn't exactly handle too well and would simply 'plow' in the corners.Yeah, that was pretty much my experience with the Charger. That's interesting about what you note with the GTA; with mine, there was a tendency for the rear end to break away in tight turns, but that was something for which it was easy to compensate.
That's interesting about what you note with the GTA; with mine, there was a tendency for the rear end to break away in tight turns, but that was something for which it was easy to compensate.
Your automotive knowledge left mine in the dust a ways back (mine's still on Columbus Ave trying to get around that taxicab).
I had a friend who, only ten years after Bullitt's release, hired on at WB for a long-term archiving project, which gave him carte blanche access to every document in every file of every department, from call sheets and work orders to invoices and contracts, going back to the company's founding. When I went to work in the business only a couple years later, it soon became clear to me that - irony of ironies - film production companies were generally more slavish about preserving pieces of paper than they were about relatively unimportant things (heavy sarcasm here) like original cut negatives.
I wish it had occurred to me at the time to ask him pointed questions about the cars used in this film. If it had been ordered, performed, paid for and was on paper anywhere, he could have found it (and would have been happy to show it to me, as he did with many fascinating documents). But it was more fun then to pore over things like acrimonious inter-office memos between the likes of Davis or Cagney and Jack Warner.
Oh, but what the hell: after these many years, I probably wouldn't have remembered what I'd read anyway.
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That's a shame. But then, there probably aren't a whole lot of people all that interested in the intricate details of the Bullitt cars these days, certainly no one in Hollywood (unless if there might be some big money involved in it). The only ones interested are motorhead/car movie OCD-geek types that hang out on the imdb, or possibly someone getting ready for the day (if it ever arrives) that the hoarder with the surviving car decides to part with it and they want to verify authenticity. It's been speculated that, if that car ever does go up for sale at auction, it would easily set an all-time record, certainly for a movie car or Mustang, of any vintage.
That's the thing a lot of movie aficionados don't quite grasp; if it doesn't have to do with making money right now, no one currently in the Hollywood movie industry is really all that interested. Lance Hendrickson was once asked which movie he had been in was his favorite, and his answer was simple and accurate: "The one I'm working on now". That really sums it all up.
It's also worth noting that those making movies aren't particularly interested in accuracy. It's all make-believe, anyway, and it's all about getting a movie made so that, ultimately, it turns a profit. Most movie-goers could really care less about the technical aspects of the Bullitt cars, so not a penny more than necessary was spent on prepping them (probably the real reason the guy prepping the cars used the stock Autolite carb). In fact, McQueen's involvement kept the movie much closer to reality than most movies of the type. The just-released 428 CobraJet engine would have been a whole lot more believable in the Bullitt Mustang (the 1968 428CJ Mustang is, in fact, regarded as one of the fastest production Fords ever built). But it would have been real hard (and expensive) to find one, let alone two, in the proper configuration. So a couple of grungy Highland Green Mustang fastbacks were rounded up.
As evidence of how bad it can be, just watch some of the crap in John Wayne's cop movies, McQ and Brannigan. It was the same with another classic car movie of the era, American Graffiti (although not nearly as bad). George Lucas, when asked about some detail regarding the cars, simply said, "I just wanted them to look and sound right".
Even now, although it's generally accepted that at least one of the Mustangs was a 390 GT (the other was probably a 390, too, but may or may not have had the GT equipment group), the way the Mustang launches and lands over the hills brings even that into question. The front-heavy Charger always lands nose first. Yet the Mustang, with an equally heavy big-block engine, always lands evenly on all four tires, as if it had a lighter engine and the weight was more evenly distributed.
It's arguably the most well-known, factory-produced vehicle still in existence to have appeared in any film. "Hoarder" is a good description. Last I heard (if I recall correctly), he's not even living in the state in which the car is stored. So he doesn't do anything with it and nobody sees it; his purposes and motivations are hard to fathom. Maybe someday, when it's about 70 years old (like the Buick or piano from Casablana), his heirs will realize they're sitting on a pile of money, and it can be publicly seen, if only at auction.
As you've gathered, I'm no gearhead, but I can at least identify this car or that. I remember taking the Universal Studio tour (in the early days before it became part amusement park and part shopping mall), and the guide on the tram, having pointed out where scenes from It's a Mad...Mad World were shot, indicated a couple nearby taxicab-painted cars as having been used in the film.
A snot-nosed 13-year-old near the front (me) piped up and said, "No they weren't. Those are '65 Chevys. The movie was shot in '63, and the cabs in it were '59 Plymouths."
For the rest of the tram ride, she looked as though she'd like to drop me off at the Bates Motel for a shower.
Poe! You are...avenged!
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I've never noticed that particular detail (about the exhaust), but it would be a testament to the skill of sound effects editors.
The skill isn't so much matching the effects, but having an eye to find (and fix) things to match the effects with.I'd argue that it's both. Of course, given the variant time and budget constraints imposed by producers on this film or that, and/or the relative meticulousness of directors, some films evince a tolerance for sloppiness others don't (sound effects originally used for the Bullitt Mustang reused for the Pontiac Ventura in The Seven-Ups, for example, and we've all seen films where the screeching of tires on asphalt incongruously accompany a car skidding around on a dirt road).
That's what real muscle cars sounded like then. Not the kazoo-like buzzing of cars now.
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