Bullitt

Bullitt (1968)

38 mistakes

(10 votes)

Continuity mistake: Steve McQueen passes the same green Volkswagen at least three times while chasing the black Dodge Charger R/T. This is due to the same downhill portion being shown to us from multiple angles to artificially extend the length of the scene.

Other mistake: During the big chase scene, a car hits a camera right after it passes a blue '68 GTO.

Plot hole: The movie is based on one huge plot hole: if it wasn't for the "professional" hitman's sloppy work, Bullitt and his team wouldn't have been needed for much. The hitman enters the hotel room, wounds the policeman, then shoots the target with one shotgun blast to his upper left shoulder area. Any hitman worth his fee knows that this is not likely to be an immediately fatal wound. The hitman had a pump shotgun and should have finished the job right then and there. Surely he had more than two shells. Instead, he sees the target is slumped unconscious, then leaves the hotel room without checking to see that his victim really is dead. Nothing seems to be immediately threatening the hit team, though. The hitman spends the rest of his life trying to finish his job and pays the ultimate price for being lazy.

Continuity mistake: Bullitt runs the Charger off the road into the gas station. The station explodes...Right? Not quite.... The Charger runs off the road, passes BEHIND the gas station; you can see the dust trail rising; and boom, the station explodes on cue.

Continuity mistake: The gray-haired hitman enters the hospital in the dead of night. He ends up being chased through the building by Bullitt for about 10, maybe 20 minutes. But when he safely flees the hospital, we see plenty of bright, morning sunshine.

Visible crew/equipment: As Eddy stands up to go out of Enrico's restaurant with Bullitt, look at the only window that is in the shot. A short male with black hair gets past the crowd-control policeman (in a white helmet) on the sidewalk. The cop reaches out to stop him, but it is too late. The walkie-talkie in the cop's hand has a long antenna. It's quick, subtle and quite humourous.

Continuity mistake: There are three different views of the strangled Mrs. Rennick. 1. Cathy looks down on the body on the floor, after entering the room and leaving the door wide open - notice between the victim's face and left hand that there is nothing on the carpet. A policeman moves his shoes enough to be seen close by her hand, too. 2. A flat black object appears beside the victim's face. The black shoes are now missing. 3. The last view shows a close-up of the object and a clear view towards the door. A policeman and Cathy should both be seen in this view, but they are missing and the door is now closed. (Don't confuse this dark object with her fat, round hair curlers. They are noticeably different lengths and shapes.)

Deliberate mistake: When Bullitt enters the hotel room to do a Recki, we see photos of the injured man on the wall. From this we can conclude one of two actions. 1: The ambulance crew took so long to arrive, the police had plenty of time to take a variety of photos from many angles. 2: The police did not let the medics in until they had taken their photos of a man who was in need of immediate medical attention. Wouldn't the injured man rather have his wounds seen to first than his photo taken?

Continuity mistake: During the chase scene, mainly in the city, the shadows are inconsistent. For example, at the beginning of the chase, Bullitt makes a 180 turn and climbs a short hill, losing the Charger. When the Charger is climbing the hill, the street is in bright mid-day sunlight. After a cut to show the driver's face, the next view of the street shows the houses and street in very different lighting. This is not the only example that shows different shadows, either.

Bullitt mistake picture

Continuity mistake: During the chase, when Bill Hickman drives the Charger into the residential area, as he loses Bullitt he comes to a distinctive intersection: he first looks right, then left. As he looks left, the first view of the sky shows it is half full of light clouds. A moment later, when the car drives on, the sky is completely clear of clouds. There are other shots showing even heavy clouds/blue sky, too.

Continuity mistake: Changing speed: in two shots of the Mustang during the last of the chase scene, the car's speed changes. As the camera pans with Bullitt's car, passing the gas station on the highway, we see the first explosions, and his car seems to be going about 30-35 MPH. Then, as the car skids across the median into the ditch, the Mustang looks as if it was initially going at least 50% faster.

Factual error: When the hitman shoots the Mustang's windshield, the damage is not consistent with a shotgun blast at close range. The windscreen is actually hit in two separated areas. Winchester would be very unhappy if their guns really shot like this.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: It's fairly realistic for a shotgun blast to be scattered like the one to the Mustang's windshield. Shotguns throw a loose pattern that is often random in their impact.

Visible crew/equipment: During the chase scene, it is too obvious when the hitman in the Charger is replaced by a dummy. Most of the time, such as when the hitmen lose Bullitt, just before the chase begins, we see the hitman with his right shoulder leaning on the passenger door. When we can see into the Charger, either the actor is leaning against the door or we see the dummy sitting about a third of the way away from the door, too much towards the centre of the car. The dummy doesn't flop well with the motion of the car, either.

Continuity mistake: Bullitt parks the Mustang, and when he goes to interrogate the cabbie, there is dirt on the body of the car, behind the left front wheel. The Mustang is clean in all other views of the car, after this parking lot scene.

Continuity mistake: It's well known that two different '68 Fastback Mustangs were used to film Bullitt. The two cars can be seen by watching for the driver-side mirror. It looks as if the re-enforced stunt car had the mirror. The other car can be seen in the night scene, when Bullitt rushes to his shot partner, at the hotel. That car has no mirror on the door.

Continuity mistake: During the famous chase scene, most shots of the Charger show its rearview mirror where it normally should be, attached on its arm, above the windscreen. At the point when the Charger crests the "stepped" hill, though, the hitman briefly flashes his left hand in front of the camera lens, but there is no mirror. The mirror was obviously removed to improve the view.

Continuity mistake: Gunshot windshield: the hitman shoots the Mustang's windshield with a shotgun blast. The passenger-side of the glass is now damaged. In the very next cut, the camera has a straight view through the Mustang, showing the passenger side of the windscreen is not yet damaged.

Continuity mistake: During the operation room scene, Dr. Willard's forehead is visibly sweaty. A moment later, his forehead is not sweaty, but he has his forehead wiped anyway.

Bullitt mistake picture

Other mistake: Just before the Charger crashes, a tow bar connecting both vehicles is visible on the Mustang's front bumper.

Continuity mistake: When Bullitt parks his car at the carwash, the front wheels are turned sharply to the left. When Bullitt approaches his car, after he finishes with the cabbie, the wheels are in a neutral position (straight).

Chalmers: Ross.
Bennet: Albert Edward Renick, used car salesman, Chicago.
Chalmers: Who's Renick?
Bullitt: He was the man who was shot in the Hotel Daniels. You sent us to guard the wrong man, Mr. Chalmers.

David George

More quotes from Bullitt

Trivia: In the restaurant scene near the beginning of the film, the actor playing the waiter accidentally flips the corner of the menu in Steve McQueen's eye, but it was left in the finished film.

More trivia for Bullitt

Question: What character did the actor John Aprea play in the movie? The credits at the end lists him as 'The Killer', but who did he kill? He wasn't one of the two hit men at the hotel.

Answer: Notice: Aprea is credited as "Killer", not "The Killer." I think this confuses reviewers, as they assume he must be one of the hit men. However, the hit men are credited as "Phil" (Bill Hickman) and "Mike" (Paul Genge). Genge is much older than Aprea and Aprea does not look like the grey-haired hit man, as another contributor has pointed out already. There is no other killer in the plot. Perhaps Aprea's scenes were cut.

Answer: The doctor that alerts Bullitt that the grey-haired hitman is in the hospital looks like Aprea. He calls himself Dr. Kenner, and that character is uncredited. Maybe "Killer" was supposed to be "Kenner" in the credits?

Answer: Aprea portrays the Organization hood who shoots wildly at Johnny Ross as Ross' car careens out of the parking lot into and down the alley during his getaway in Chicago.

Answer: In a Bullitt movie clip on the Turner Classic Movies (TCM) website, it identifies John Aprea as the killer who goes to the hospital to murder the witness. Bullitt chases him to the basement toward the end of the film.

raywest

The killer that Bullitt chases is Paul gange (listed in the credits in the role of "Mike") despite the TCM website. Aprea is listed in the movie's credits as the killer, but also lists gange as Mike. Look the name up on IMDB and you can see from his photo that he is the guy Bullitt chases. Why John Aprea - at least 20 years younger than the killer in the movie - is credited as the killer, I have no idea. And I have no idea where in the movie Aprea really appeara.

More questions & answers from Bullitt

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.