Steve McQueen in "Bullitt" (1968)

This is a first rate detective thriller which stacks up quite well compared to Clint Eastwood in "Dirty Harry", which came out three years later.  It is fascinating as a kind of sixties time capsule.  There is for example Robert Duvall in a small part as a taxi driver and Jacqueline Bisset as Bullitt's wife.  There is Robert Vaughn, looking like an earlier day Matthew Broderick, and most famous as TV's  Man from UNCLE who plays an officious asshole politician.  There is of course Steve McQueen who plays the hard-bitten police detective in one of the most beautiful cities on the planet, San Francisco. 

Bullitt's long suffering mustang

And there is the memorable chase scene through the vertical grid of the city, which forces a grid on terrain that should never have had a grid imposed on it.  

Two interesting things about the airport scenes too, there's some guy smoking a cigarette while waiting to  board the aircraft, and when the bad guy is cornered in the back of the aircraft and jumps to the tarmac  he pulls out a gun to fire at Bullitt.   I mean who would smoke anywhere in an airport and most obviously in line to get on a plane, and who would just happen to have his shoulder holstered pistol carried around as nonchalantly as if one were carrying an i-phone on board.  Things have changed certainly.

Vaughn and McQueen

Like most detective stories, the plot is confusing, did not make sense, or maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention.  There were loose threads of narrative that one would hope to tie together but never are.  The whole reason Bullitt was involved in this matter was to help ensure the safety of a government witness against the mob.  Frank Chalmers (Robert Vaughn) wishes to use the man as a surprise witness in the senate hearing in San Francisco the following Monday.  All Bullitt has to do is ensure his safety for the weekend.  Unfortunately somehow the hit men track the witness down and break into the the room, shooting the police detective and the government witness.  

The bad guys

One wonders why if they didn't have time to finish the job there in the seedy hotel, why did they think they would have time to do the job in the hospital later?  Obviously because otherwise there would have been no story.   Bad guys in general are notoriously bad shots, even with a pump action shotgun.  Later they prove they are not very good at safe driving either.  

I won't say anything more about the story other than to say that it it was a great film and held my interest easily throughout.  The fact that Bullitt was a married man with a loving wife (Jacqueline Bisset no less)

and we see a lot of her made me think she was doomed.  In an action film, whenever a man has a happy married relationship with a woman she is doomed.  Well almost always.    Watch the film.