The Silver Screen Oasis

I thought the crazy cars zipping around with actors in costume in The Pink Panther was hilarious. Especially the Blake Edwards touch where some local fellow is nonplussed at all the shenanigans. I also enjoyed the scene in A New Kind of Love where Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward are having a heated discussion on some French country road, and have several near misses. But my favorite is probably Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn on the motor scooter in Roman Holiday.

Anyone else have a favorite chase scene?

Definitely not a comedy, but the entire "chickie run" scene in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE--from the moment Natalie Wood screams "Start your engines!" to the point where James Dean and Corey Allen race headlong in their stolen hot rods toward the edge of Miller's Bluff and the tragically explosive "climax" that concludes it--still remains one of the most exciting and sexually charged scenes in American movies. Whew. I think I'm gonna have to step out onto the porch and have a smoke...

The whole gang of professors going out to Jersey on the garbage truck in BALL OF FIRE.

The big chase at the end of "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break" has always been a favorite of mine, starting from the moment that Fields thinks the large woman seeking a cab for the maternity hospital is pregnant and needs to get there as fast as possible (she is actually just visiting someone there.)

I guess it always surprises me, since I never thought they had big car chases in movies before "Bullitt."

These are all great moments. I thought about the Rebel Without A Cause scene, too, but I vacillated at the last moment about where to post this thread idea. I'd love to hear about anyone's favorite chase scene.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World seems like a gigantic car chase. I loved it, and the professors in Ball of Fire were precious. All those highly educated men, and all dedicated to doing the right thing no matter what.

And W.C. Fields films always seemed to have some car/jalopy business going for them. I also haven't seem many Sennett comedies, but I would imagine there is plenty of "vehicular" hilarity there, also.

SueSue wrote: "I'd love to hear about anyone's favorite chase scene."

As for an actual chase scene, my personal favorite appears in the awesome 1985 film TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. directed by William Friedkin who also delivered the spectacular chase scene in THE FRENCH CONNECTION fourteen years earlier. But he truly outdid himself in this later film with a terrifying, pulsepounding chase which includes a sequence that has the participants tearing down an L.A. freeway AGAINST the traffic at rush hour! This film stars William L. Petersen (CSI television show) as an obsessed Treasury cop going up against Willem Dafore as a brilliant, psychotic counterfeiter. For anyone who has never seen it (and has a passion for great crime films), this one is not to be missed! The faint of heart should take note: it is exceptionally violent, contains an abundance of profanity and a fair amount of R-rated sexual content.

For comedy, I have to say the Bob Hope/Hedy Lamarr chase scene with her driving the fire truck and him hanging off of the extended ladder going through some keystone kop trickery in My Favorite Spy.

Anne

Dewey1960 wrote:SueSue wrote: "I'd love to hear about anyone's favorite chase scene."

As for an actual chase scene, my personal favorite appears in the awesome 1985 film TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. directed by William Friedkin ...

Dewey;
Next time you see that one, stay to the end and watch the closing credits.
SCREEN AFTER SCREEN AFTER SCREEN of stunt drivers' names! Those crane shots of the against-traffic freeway chase, showing all those cars stretching out of sight must have made that one very expensive sequence.

My favorite chase sequence is in the origional 1974 version of 'Gone In 60
Seconds'. (I don't recognize a single name in the cast list, but Nicolas
Cage did a remake in 2000.) The last 40 minutes is pure chase, as the
car-thief protagonist attempts to evade both the police and the
gang that does't want him to quit the business. More stunt than plot, but
within it's amblitions, very good.