Movie Cliche´s - The Car Chase

[Hemingway Jones]

Bringing back my "Movie Cliche´s" series for a new year.

Ladies and Gentleman, whenever a filmmaker wants to give his film a dose of added excitement he inserts the car chase scene. Sometimes it is necessary to the story, the climax, and other times it is simply shoe-horned in, like the gratuitous car chase in The Rock, but gratuitous or not, I liked it. What's not to like; a Lamborghini chasing an H1 through the streets of San Francisco? My only disappointment was that they didn't go down Lombard Street!

It's difficult not to like car chases.

I leave this thread open to discuss car chases. Do you want to speak about the origins of the car chase scene in Buster Keaton films or the Keystone Cops or some other source? Go right ahead.

Do you want to speak about car chases films of the Golden Era? Please do.

Do you want to simply list your favorite car chases? Absolutely, be my guest, except that I am going to state the two most obvious ones: Bullit and The French Connection. Yes, we know they're great. They set the tone for the modern car chase. Let's dig a little deeper and speak of some others.

I have one and it's one of my favorites in all of film: For Your Eyes Only, Bond and Melina have just left the house where Gonzalez was assassinated, and Bond's Lotus Esprit self-desctructs so they pile into her ridiculous Citroën and race these large Peugeot sedans through the streets and then the woods of Spain. "I love a drive in the country. Don't you?"

I have dominated the conversation long enough; please, tell you your thoughts on the matter.

 

[photobyalan]

I love comedy car chases, like the ones in "What's up, Doc?" and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. For sheer guilty pleasure, the chase through the shopping mall in The Blues Brothers is unequaled. Also from The Blues Brothers, the long, cop-car destroying chase at the end (John Candy: "This is car 55...We're in a truck!").

Of course, the all-time winner has to be the 62-minute chase from Spielberg's made-for-TV classic, Duel.

 

[bingolittle]

from the overlooked movie 'ronin'......audi a8. very large mercedes with other large sedans winding their way through several french cities.....lots of shots from the front fender!.....very fast and stylish movie.....

 

[Feraud]

The Road Warrior!
From the opening to the last scenes this film has some of the grittiest car chases set to film. They are not all long chases nor do they take the viewer through a scenic big city but what they appear to lack in substance make up for it in sheer grit, style and direction. The chases in this film are not cops chasing bad guys but the anti-hero driving to survive.

Most car chases thrill us with the possibliltiy of the danger to pedestrians whether it be the mother pushing a baby cart or speeding through crowded city streets. The Road Warrior thrills us with wide open spaces and car chases pitting man against man.

 

[Hemingway Jones]

.

Ah, yes, mothers pushing baby carriages need to be listed with the men carrying large plates of glass, the break-away parking meters, and the exploding fruit stand as among the clich?©s of the car chase.

 

[MikeBravo]

so, so many

Now that you mention it, there are so many car chases, it must be a genre on it's own.

A few others:

Terminator - a huge semi trailer chasing this little dirt bike. Hilarious

Matrix II - some say a bit long, but not bad


Then there's the car races:

Grease, Rebel without a cause, Italian Job (original is the best imho) ...

 

[up196]

The other cliche

Hem, your thread brought to mind a discussion I had with a friend some years back.

I wonder what movies would be like if, instead of car chases, the cliche that caught on and was over-used was Stubby Kaye and Nat King Cole as roving troubadors singing ballads like they did in Cat Ballou?

Your imagination may now run wild.

 

[J. M. Stovall]

Well, technically the chase scene in The French Connection is an elevated train chase, not a car chase .

What about Smokie and the Bandit, the movie IS a chase scene!

 

[The Wingnut]

The original Gone in 60 Seconds. All of it.

 

[dr greg]

french connections

one of the best city car chases is the one at the start of SUBWAY which starred Chrisophe Lambert before all the women realised he can't act. It does of course owe it all to the original Italian Job, which, like Bullitt, wrote the book.

 

[happyfilmluvguy]

I enjoy the fantasy type car chases, like the ones in the Batman films and others that slip my mind at the moment.

 

[Gray Ghost]

Dukes of Hazzard

My favorite is the biggest car chase scene in history, the entire series of the Dukes of Hazzard. Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane chasing the General Lee through the back woods of Hazzard County. Sometimes, he would even catch the Duke boys. Yeeeeee Haaaahhhhh!!


Gray Ghost

 

[Feraud]

My favorite is the biggest car chase scene in history, the entire series of the Dukes of Hazzard. Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane chasing the General Lee through the back woods of Hazzard County. Sometimes, he would even catch the Duke boys. Yeeeeee Haaaahhhhh!!


Gray Ghost

The awesome contribution of these car chases to the genre was how it would "freeze frame" and go to a commercial! It always kept us kids wondering how the land would turn out!

 

[carebear]

The awesome contribution of these car chases to the genre was how it would "freeze frame" and go to a commercial! It always kept us kids wondering how the land would turn out!

You're forgetting the unique physics it created, which went on to inform most following chase scenes.

No matter how fast you are going on takeoff, the final 2/3's of your time in flight will be spent in slow motion. Normal velocity resumes upon landing.

 

[jamespowers]

You're forgetting the unique physics it created, which went on to inform most following chase scenes.

No matter how fast you are going on takeoff, the final 2/3's of your time in flight will be spent in slow motion. Normal velocity resumes upon landing.

Not to mention that the car keeps going when in reality the wheels are gone and the frame is skidding across the road.
Also my addition would be the Bond film Diamonds are Forever with Sean Connery driving a 71 Mach 1 Mustang on a chase scene through Vegas. Now that's high roller treatment baby.

Regards,

J

 

[scotrace]

Oh yes. Smokey and the Bandit! An excellent chase film. It's the Burt Reynoldsiest of all Burt Reynolds films.

Wow - am I the first Fedora Lounge member to type the words "Burt Reynolds?"

 

[jamespowers]

Wow - am I the first Fedora Lounge member to type the words "Burt Reynolds?"

No. Just the first person to acknowledge that he was in an excellent film outside of Deliverance.
You are the first to use "Reynoldsiest" though. I owe you a cheap cigar for that and a sound effect from You Bet Your Life.

Regards,

J

 

[Quigley Brown]

One film that's kept below the radar is 1978's The Driver with Ryan O'Neal. You may change you mind about Bullitt after watching the chase scenes in this one!

 

[Senator Jack]

One of my favorites is the chase from Billy Wilder's '1...2...3...' The Russians' car simply falls apart as they speed toward Checkpoint Charlie. lol

 

[Haversack]

Also memorable in _1..2..3.._ is the race to Tempelhof with the escutcheon-painter hanging out the car door window while hats are being tried on Pifl and then being thrown out the window.

Another not-exactly-a-chase is the race to the opera house, (really City Hall), across 1970s San Francisco in _Foul Play_.

Haversack.