Monday, June 15, 2009

The Duke, Speed Demon

Just over a year ago, back when I was writing my latest history of San Francisco, I went searching online for the famous car chase scene from Steve McQueen’s 1968 movie thriller, Bullitt. (I embedded that video clip here.)

For the sake of comparison, I decided more recently to look for another film chase sequence that I remembered well: John Wayne’s careening through Seattle in the 1974 crime drama McQ. You can watch that video below. It takes fewer liberties with Seattle geography than Bullitt did with the heights and sights of San Francisco, but there’s a lot of running around in circles, and at least one glaring continuity problem. Still, it’s a pretty engaging sequence--and it lets you see what Washington’s Emerald City was like before it got to be quite so popular and touristed. Whoever uploaded this McQ clip helpfully labeled some of the places by which Wayne speeds in his 1970 Firebird.

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