Wow. Just saw this flick for the first time. I'm surprised I'd never heard any talk about how amazing the big car chase is. It ranks up there among the greatest.
Sure, BULLITT set the standard, then FRENCH CONNECTION followed. But SEVEN-UPS did a New York car chase equally as intense as FRENCH CONNECTION. Badass.
definitely. The chase is pretty amazing and the lack of music similar to Bullit and The French Connection really makes it exciting. I think the next movie that was influenced by these films is the wonderful Blazing Magnum which stars Stuart Whitman as a tough cop in Montreal. This Italian made 1976 thriller features an amazing chase through the streets of Montreal with lots of crashes and destruction.
shareAbsolutely brilliant car chase. The last time I saw this film was about 4 or 5 yrs ago. I can't really remember the plot etc. but I remember the awesome car chase with Roy Scheider in a Pontiac Ventura and I remember Scheider crashing into the back of a truck. Wicked!
shareYup...and I remember wondering 'what's going on?' with the car chase scenery when I was much younger and seeing this in the 1970's on NYC local TV.
My family always went over the George Washington Bridge to visit relatives and I remember saying "Hey, I know that!!" when they come off the GWB and get on the Palisades Interstate Parkway. But then it switches to the Taconic Parkway across the river in Westchester County (the PIP is Bergen/NJ and Rockland-Orange/NY counties) and I said "Huh? That don't look familiar!"
It's a major glitch, not a tiny error, because to get from the PIP to the Taconic -- even if you were further north where they are somewhat parallel -- would take at least 10 minutes even at chase-speed.
And in fact, to get to the Taconic from right off the GWB is at least a 25-30 minute drive at chase-speed.
I'll have to re-watch it again to gauge the speed of the chase and the time lapse.
I wouldn't go so far as to call it a 'major glitch' just because they chose to make the car chase as visually captivating as possible rather than focus on geographical accuracy. That happens all the time... it's what they call 'movie magic.'
shareVictor, the thing is they didn't need to make the switch -- the PIP and the Taconic are similar in layouts (probably why they thought they could get away with it IF it was intentional; if it wasn't intentional, probably explains the glitch).
In fact, you could have had a truck like that in the movie accidentally getting on the PIP off Route 9W a few miles up north -- it would have worked nicely (in fact, only passenger vehicles are allowed on both the PIP and the Taconic).
I wonder what the producer or editor of the movie has to say about the switch? It doesn't make sense since it's not like they were filming in California and had to use a substitute for the PIP. Switching from the Taconic to the PIP is a 1/2 hour thing. In fact, if you're filming in NY, the PIP is much closer and easier to use. Only way you'd want to use the Taconic was if you lived in Westchester County, got out of bed early, and decided you wanted to film close to home that day and didn't want to drive 30-40 minutes over to the GWB and PIP.
get a life! No one cares!
What the $%*& is a Chinese Downhill?!?
Don't forget Friedkin's chase in TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A.
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Another great car chase film is Walter Hill's classic 'The Driver' (featuring two awesome auto-pursuits) and there is also a cool chase in '48 Hours' when Cates and Hammond exchange bullets with Ganz.
shareJust saw the car chase clip on YouTube. Great camera angles to show the sense of speed and watching the bad guy's huge car wallow around at high speeds was fun to watch as well. The in-car camera angles were perfect and using the guard rail bluring by in the forground made them look like they were going 120mph. Roy's facial reactions to what was going on really gave it a real sense of urgency. High marks.
The end of the chase was a surprise and I'm sure pushed all the right buttons for shock value. It is the only thing that I remember about the movie when I saw it as a kid years ago. Ouch!
Yes, I grew up in Westchester Co (NY) where the Taconic Pkwy is....and live in Northern NJ, where the Palisades Pkwy is. Thw only reason I can think of to use both highways is, where the 2 stunt drivers are "bumping" the cars off of each other, CANNOT be done done or staged on the PIP. The PIP is 2 lanes pretty much the whole way up into Bear Mountain, and the Taconic is 3 lanes, much safer to do the car "bumping" stunt....unless its just insurance issues.
But whatever, it was a great car chase scene, one of the classics
the driver was bill hickman, the same driver of the charger in bullitt
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