Baby Driver & its high-octane movie influences

Part I .- No school like the old school

Edgar Wright’s action-packed flick about a young mob driver whose skills behind the wheel are nothing less than spectacular brings some of the best car-chase scenes i have seen in some years; Although the actual vehicles and the chases are not as relevant in Baby Driver’s script as in other movies like “Gone in 60 seconds” (that awesome Shelby Mustang) or “The Fast & The Furious” (Toretto’s Dodge Charger), there’s some awesome filming and editing on this movie that brings to my memory some of the best car-chases in film history.

Since most of us have experienced the motion and sensation of velocity inside a motor vehicle, it’s easy to imagine all the thrills (and risks) we could get from stepping strong on the pedal, maybe we have even tried to imitate some of the crazy stunts we see in these movies and recognize the skills required to do them, or sometimes it’s just the whole destruction extravaganza car-chase scenes bring to movies that make us love them.

Car chases are full of drama; intense emotions flow between the characters who fight for dominion over the story. Either it’s a good guy versus bad guy chase, A heist escape or maybe just repressed anger, fast machines become the channel for movie makers to represent the fierce conflict and vicious dispute in a narrative.

Music plays an essential role on car chases; either by adding color and pace to the scenes or by printing dramatic tones by being absent.

Bullit (1968) - The Trendsetter

Perhaps Bullit bears the quintessential car chase sequence. Police lieutenant Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen) hunts down the bad guys through the narrow and steep streets of San Francisco; It’s a gas-fueled duel between a 68 Ford Mustang (Bullit) and a 68 Dodge Charger for the ages. Absence of music let us focus on the roaring sound of the engines and the wheels screeching, and the exciting but highly dangerous stunts make our hearts pump a little faster than usual.

Bullit would set the standard for a car chase sequence in film history. quick editing cuts, the incidental sound effects and the emblematic scenery would become stereotypes that movies will try to replicate from then on.

The Italian Job (1969) — A britpop-style Mini driving delight

This British film is a comedy/heist mashup in the style of Ocean’s Eleven (1960) and The Pink Panther (1963) with the common brit taste for humor. A small-time crook by the name of Charlie Croker (Michael Caine) plans to steal a 4M valued gold shipment just arrived from China using a clever traffic-jam distraction and three small cars to avoid the cops.

After stealing the gold from the Museo Egizio, the mob drivers take a red, white and blue Mini Cooper S and begin the escapade through the city of Turin to a safe rendezvous on the outskirts.

This car chase is in a league of its own. The three perfectly synchronized Minisdrive through the museum halls, patios, out to the streets while making comic gags on the run. There’s superb craftsmanship on the fact that you get to see cars crashing (not literally) a wedding, driving down stairs, through small crowded corridors, flying through ramps and rooftops, and ending the pursuit on the sewer tunnels of Italy in what sure is one of the best comic car chases ever.

The French Connection (1971) - Chasing trains

In The French Connection, Detective Jimmy Doyle (Gene Hackman) cruises full-speed through the streets of Brooklyn chasing a hijacked elevated train on a 71 Pontiac LeMans in a sequence revered by many as one of the greatest car chases in film history.

This is a “darker” car chase; No fancy muscle cars are involved, no western-esque duel between iron horses; We can feel the danger of driving through crowded streets and there are actual crashes (not really intended, but finally made the final cut) during the sequence. The elevated platform makes the streets even narrower and the absence of music puts us at the middle of the action. The whole idea of chasing a train (whose mechanic advantages against a car are obvious) through the streets of NYC is another staple of car chases in film history.

Duel (1971) — An art piece by a young master of cinema

Duel is a movie about a car-chase. For 90 minutes the viewer is immersed in a road-rage nightmare between a business man (Dennis Weaver) and a crazy truck driver with a temper (Lou Frizzell) pumping rpm’s through the middle of a sunny California desert. Based on a short-story by Richard Matheson and directed by the all-mighty Steven Spielberg, this road battle for who-has-a-bigger-ego contains a plethora of camera angles that would later define the mastery and creativity of the legendary director behind the lens. Despite the minimal resources of the plot (The Mojave desert, a 70 Plymouth Valiant and a Peterbilt 281 tanker truck) Duel is a sweet eye-candy for the car-chase enthusiasts and an early introduction of the capabilities of a young man with a superb career in cinema.

Vanishing Point (1971)- A Mystical four-wheeled Odyssey

You could perceive Vanishing Point as a regular road movie with lots of cat vs mouse chases with a weird ending, but if you look closer this flick has a symbolic and mysterious appeal that targets political, psychological and cultural issues in its story that makes it an underground cult-classic.

Vietnam war veteran and former police officer Kowalski (Barry Newman)currently works as a car delivery driver whose next gig is to take a 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T 440 Magnum from Denver to San Francisco. After making a quick stop at his dealers’ spot to buy some speed, he steps on the gas and begins a journey that will confront him with his inner demons while wreaking havoc all along the southwest highway.

This movie is a game-changer for car chases in film history, the delirious camera angles and the refined screenplay generate the perfect stunts for truly razzle-dazzle scenes, but its the use of music not only as a background but as an accomplished intangible character that really creates a funky and exciting atmosphere to the whole experience, an asset that would be perfected and integrated in Baby Driver a few years later.

The Seven-Ups (1973) - Bullit:Reloaded

After the box-office success of The French Connection, producer Philip D’Antoni came up with the same “cops vs thugs” formula in ’73, only this time he stepped on the directors’ chair to bring this crime-drama flick that, just as his past productions (he also produced Bullit), contains a high-speed car-chase that is raw and violent all along.

D’Antoni “borrows” the hard and fast sequences from his last movies and delivers an intense road duel between a 73' Pontiac Grand Ville driven by the bad guys and a 73' Pontiac Ventura with NYPD cop Buddy Manucci (Roy Scheider) behind the wheel. The chase takes place all around Upper-Manhattan and ends up (in a quite brutal manner) on a New Jersey Parkway.

This car chase is gritty and violent. The gunmen show no compassion driving full-throttle through a closed street full of children and crashing a couple of police patrols that try to get on their way. It’s evident that this chase is a fight to the death when a shotgun makes it’s appearance and the chase ends pretty unfortunate for Detective Manucci.

The whole sequence is well filmed, raising the bar in a kind of mashup between the narrow street chase from The French Connection and the bouncing and flying cars from Bullit while keeping the absence of background music to keep the dramatic tone.

Don’t miss part II ! (coming soon)