Movie Trailers

• Directors: Peter Yates
• Producers: Philip D Antoni, Robert E Relyea
• Writers: Novel, Robert L Fish, Screenplay, Alan Trustman, Harry Kleiner
• Genres: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
• Actors: Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Jacqueline Bisset, James Hagan

Ambitious politician Walter Chalmers (Robert Vaughn), is holding a Senate subcommittee hearing in San Francisco on Organized Crime in America. Hoping that by bringing down mobster Pete Ross (Vic Tayback) with the aid of key witness Johnny Ross, Pete’s brother, Chalmers’ political standing might improve. The story takes place the weekend before the hearing, from Friday night (during the opening credits) to Sunday night.

Following the theft of $2,000,000, and his escape to San Francisco, Johnny (actually Albert Renick) (played by Felice Orlandi) is placed in the San Francisco Police Department’s protective custody for the weekend. Chalmers requests Lieutenant Frank Bullitt’s (Steve McQueen) unit to guard him.

Bullitt, Sergeant Delgetti (Don Gordon) and Detective Carl Stanton (Justin Tarr), give Ross around-the-clock protection at the Hotel Daniels, a cheap flophouse near the Embarcadero Freeway. Before Ross enters the hotel, he makes several phone calls. Late Saturday night, while Stanton is guarding him, the desk clerk calls and says Chalmers and a friend are seeking Ross. Stanton calls Bullitt, who tells him not to let them in, as Chalmers would not show up at 1:00 in the morning. Meanwhile, Ross takes the security chain off the door. Suddenly, a pair of hitmen, Mike (Paul Genge) and Phil (played by stunt driver Bill Hickman), burst into the room and shoot both Inspector Stanton and Ross, seriously wounding them both.

…

Bullitt returns home to find Cathy asleep. He enters the bathroom to wash his hands and looks into the mirror, quietly contemplating his future. The final shot lingers on Bullitt’s gun and bullets.

• Directors: William Friedkin
• Producers: Philip D Antoni
• Writers: Novel, Robin Moore, Screenplay, Ernest Tidyman
• Genres: Action, Crime, Thriller
• Actors: Gene Hackman, Fernando Rey, Roy Scheider, Tony Lo Bianco

The film revolves around the smuggling of narcotics between Marseilles, France and New York City. The film opens in Marseilles with a policeman staking out Alain Charnier, a French criminal who ostensibly works as a former stevedore-turned-shipping executive but is in fact involved in smuggling heroin from France to the United States. The French policeman is eventually killed by Charnier’s henchman, Pierre Nicoli.

In the US, detectives James “Popeye” Doyle and Buddy “Cloudy” Russo are also performing an undercover stakeout out of their precinct in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, with Doyle dressed as Santa Claus and Russo pretending to be a hot dog stand vendor. After seeing a drug transaction take place in the bar, Russo goes in to make an arrest and the suspect they are waiting for makes a break for it with the detectives pursuing him on foot. After catching up with their suspect and delivering a severe beating after the suspect cuts Russo on the arm with a knife, the detectives aggressively interrogate the man and eventually force him to reveal where his “connection” is based.

After Russo’s arm injury is treated, Doyle convinces him to go out for a drink. At the nightclub they go to, Doyle becomes interested in two people: Salvatore “Sal” Boca and his beautiful young wife, Angie, who are lavishly entertaining several known Mob members involved in narcotics. Doyle persuades his partner to come along as they tail the couple; several scenes are shown establishing the fact that although the Bocas run a modest newsstand diner, their extravagant lifestyle includes nearly nightly trips to several nightclubs, as well as driving several different new cars, which indicates they may be involved in some sort of criminal activity. Eventually there is a link established between the Bocas and well-to-do lawyer Joel Weinstock, who is rumored to have extensive connections in the narcotics underworld (in a voice over exchange Popeye and Cloudy allude to a drug shipment from Mexico bankrolled by Weinstock).

…

Title cards before the closing credits note that of the people arrested and tried, only Joel Weinstock and Angie Boca got away without any prison time while the case against Weinstock was dismissed, and Angie received a suspended sentence. Alain Charnier was never found or tried in America. It also states that both Doyle and Russo were transferred out of the narcotics division.