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in Film History Part 1 |
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in Film History Part 1 |
The films with car chases are marked by this icon:  are the films that "The Greatest Films" site has selected as the 100 Greatest Films |
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(chronological, by film title) - Part 1 Introduction | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |
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Film Title and Description of Chase
(or Rescue) Scene
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Example
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Great Train Robbery (1903) Edwin S. Porter's early silent western classic, with fourteen primitive scenes, comprised a narrative story with multiple plot lines. It contained prototypical elements that have been repeatedly copied by almost every western - a train holdup with six-shooters, a daring robbery accompanied by violence and death, a hastily-assembled posse's chase on horseback after the fleeing bandits, and the apprehension of the desperadoes after a showdown in the woods. |
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The Birth of a Nation (1915) D.W. Griffith's monumental technical masterpiece of epic film-making (although decidedly racist) included an exciting conclusion involving the KKK's rescue to restore order. The Klan on horseback were summoned, assembled and gathered for reinforcement. Ben Cameron (Henry Walthall), "the Little Colonel", led the Klan to the rescue of white womanhood, white honor, and white glory, in a 'head-on' tracking shot. It was an intense, action-packed, stupendous, last-minute rescue finale, a thrilling climax - interweaving the siege on the cabin, the chaos in Piedmont, Elsie Stoneman's (Lillian Gish) fate at the hands of Silas Lynch (George Siegmann), and the onrushing rescue by the Klan. During the rescue, the most famous sequence in the film, excitement was heightened by shots of the Klan alternating with shots of the endangered Elsie - the film exhibited masterful parallel editing. |
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Down East (1920) This film was memorable for the last minute, climactic rescue scene in which David Bartlett (Richard Barthelmess) chased after cast-out love interest Anna Moore (Lillian Gish) who had fled into a blinding snowstorm. She fainted on one of the ice floes in the midst of an icy river, with her hand trailing into the freezing water. As the ice thawed the next morning and broke apart ("the great ice-break"), her lifeless form was caught unconscious on moving ice-floes and was swept downstream toward a precipitous waterfall. David nimbly jumped from ice block to ice block to try to reach her before the ice jam gave way - rushing to the falls. As Anna regained consciousness, but started to sink into the frigid water at the edge of the falls, David scooped her up and saved her, running perilously upstream on unstable blocks of ice to reach the shore. |
 
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The General (1927) This chase comedy was written and directed by Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman, and filmed with a huge budget for its time ($400,000). It was memorable for its strong story-line of a single, brave, but foolish Southern Confederate train engineer Johnnie (Buster Keaton) doggedly in pursuit of his passionately-loved locomotive ("The General") and the blue-coated spies who had stolen it, AND the woman he loved. Each half of the film was predominantly composed of two train chases over the same territory. Each scene in the chase of the first half had a counterpart in the film's second half. In the first chase, Johnnie pursued his stolen locomotive taken to the North by the Union forces. In the second half, the Union spies chased Johnnie in his re-possessed General back to the South. The film concluded with a climactic battle at a river gorge, with the dramatic crash of the pursuit train into the Rock River in the film's most spectacular scene. |
  
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The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) This film has one of the greatest rescues ever made, deformed bellringer of Notre Dame Quasimodo's (Charles Laughton) rescue of condemned gypsy girl Esmeralda (Maureen O'Hara) by swinging down on a rope from the cathedral, followed by his cry of "Sanctuary! Sanctuary!" |
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Stagecoach (1939) The John Ford western had a spectacular, climactic hair-raising, dangerous stunt (a horse-leap and coach-slide) during the stagecoach chase across the alkali flat by Apache Indians. One of the Apaches (Enos Yakima Canutt, a famed stuntman) leapt from his mount alongside the moving stage onto the galloping lead horses of the stagecoach's team (a stagecoach wass pulled by three pairs of horses: the lead, the swing, and the wheel teams). As he tried to grab the reins of the lead horse to control the stagecoach, Ringo (John Wayne) shot at him with his rifle from over Buck's shoulder. The Apache was struck and fell down among many sets of thundering hooves. He hung onto the rig's shaft or tongue (the projection on the bottom front of the wagon that connected the vehicle to the horses) while dragging along the ground. Then, after being shot a second time, the Apache warrior let go and slid between the wheels of the moving coach - the six horses and the stage's carriage rolled right over his prone body. [The camera panned back to show that it wasn't a stunt dummy - the wounded Indian rolled aside and climbed slowly to his knees.] |
  
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The
Bank Dick (1940) 
This W.C. Fields film concluded with a memorable, zany slapstick, getaway
car chase scene, reminiscent of the silent Mack Sennett Keystone Kops
films. Egbert Sousè (Fields) was taken as hostage by a bank robber,
used as a shield, and forced to drive a getaway car. Following in three
other chase cars through the city and country were the local police, the
bank president, and a representative from the movie company. It was a
superbly-timed chase - the cars zoomed and circled around, barely avoiding
crashing into each other or other obstacles in the path. The getaway car
careened through streets, over ditches (over the heads of ditchdiggers),
around curves and up a mountainside, missing collisions at every turn
with the pursuit vehicles. An unruffled Sousè gave non-chalant
comments about the traffic and scenery. As his car started to fall apart,
he joked: "The resale value of this car is going to be nil after you get
over this trip." When asked by the thug in the back seat to give him the
wheel, Egbert matter-of-factly pulled it off the steering column and gave
it to him. When the rear tires started falling off, he calmly stated:
"That's what I thought - going to be very dangerous." The robber
was struck by the bough of a tree as he stood up and the car came to rest
at the edge of a steep precipice. Sousè mumbled: "Have to take
the boat from here on anyway." The unconscious thief was apprehended,
and Sousè was a hero once again for thwarting another heist. |
 
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The Fast and the Furious (1955)
The title rights to this film were used for the 'remake' sequel - The Fast and the Furious (2001). |
 
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Ben-Hur (1959) The film has been most heralded for its classic, memorable and spectacular 11-minute chariot race scene around a central divider strip composed of three statues thirty feet high, and grandstands on all sides, rising five stories high. The battle between the competitors was highlighted by a series of close-ups of the action. One by one, Messala (Stephen Boyd) eliminated the other drivers in the ferocious race, shattering their chariots. The climactic ending to the race occurred when the chariots of arch-rivals Messala and Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston), in hateful rivalry toward each other, ran neck-and-neck and slashed at each other. At one point, Ben-Hur's horses jumped over a crashed chariot, throwing the hero (stuntman Joe Canutt, son of famed stuntman Yakima Canutt) high into the air, yet he landed on his feet. Messala tried to destroy Ben-Hur's chariot by moving close with the blades, but as the wheels locked and he lost one of his wheels, Messala's chariot was splintered. He was dragged by his own team, then trampled, and run over by other teams of horses. Defeated, he was left bloody in the dirt, his body broken and horribly injured. |
 
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| The Great Escape (1963) With Allied POW loner "Cooler King" Hilts' (Steve McQueen, but performed by stuntman Bud Elkins) exciting attempt to escape from the Nazi prison camp as he vaulted a stolen German motorcycle over a six-foot barbed-wire prison fence at the Swiss border, among other stunts, such as Hendley (James Garner) and Blythe (Donald Pleasence) jumping from a moving train. |
 
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Bullitt (1968) |
 
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The Italian Job (1969) |
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| The Love Bug (1969)
The first Herbie film, starring the self-aware, intelligent Volkswagon
Beetle named "Herbie" who became a race car. The famous car
would star in four theatrical, chase-filled sequels (the last starring
Lindsay Lohan in Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005)) and a TV series. |
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| On Her Majesty's Secret
Service (1969) With a famous ski chase, in which Bond (George Lazenby) was chased by a multitude of machine-gun wielding thugs on skies and snowmobiles down snowy, icy streets and through the middle of a stock car race. [This would be reprised in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).] |
 
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Greatest Classic Chase (or Rescue) Scenes in Film History
(chronological, by film title) - Part 1
Introduction | Part
1 | Part 2 | Part
3 | Part 4
Introduction: Although there are many different kinds of chase (or rescue) film scenes, the most frequent type of film chase is the car chase. It is almost always
between a protagonist/hero (or criminal) and the police (or authority
figures), with more than a few vehicles involved in the most spectacular
examples. The fast-moving scenes of the car chase, typically found in 