The UK Press Associate has named the main car chase in the original Italian Job as the best ever.
>In a survey of more than 3,000 people at cinema website www.pearlanddean.com, The Italian Job was named as having the best car chase of all time with a massive 25% of the vote.
>The pursuit follows three Mini Coopers around the streets of Turin, Italy, at break-neck speed.
In second place with 16% is The Blues Brothers car chase, famed for its car pile-up climax.
>Minis featured again with The Bourne Identity in third place, with 15% of the vote. The stunts were carried out on the streets of Paris.
+ Italian job ‘best movie car chase’ / UK Press Association
Frankly, I love the original, but as far as car chases, they should break them into two categories. Fun Fantasy chases like the “Italian Job” I & II, “The Blues Brothers”, “Gone in Sixty Seconds”, etc., an admittedly larger category, but essentially harmless; and the Hard Core chases, like “Ronin”, “The Bourne Identity” series, “French Connection”, “Le Casse” and the true greatest chase film ever, bar none: “Bullitt”.
There should also be a category for the existential chase/escape films with long journeys in vehicles as vehicles for the plot, like “Le Weekend”, or “Ice Cold In Alex”, which have an awful lot to say about the relationships we have with the internal combustion engine.
Italian Job I- yes, great scenes.
The car “chase” in Italian Job II however was pathetic! The engines on the sound track rev through the gears while the drivers keep both hands on the wheels- they’re not shifting…? (But they LOOK good!)
And if you get beyond all the fancy rapid-shot-changes, the cars are only doing about 25 mph there. All the drama is cinema-trick.
One of my favorite car chases is in a Peter Sellers Movie- in the fog- I believe it was “After The Fox”- where the cars all eventually end up in a massive off-screen crash of epic proportions…
And it wasn’t trick effects before? Keystone Cops chases weren’t much different in the silent days. At least there was almost no CG in the IJII chase. Very few chases have truly synchronized sounds, they’re mostly visuals and sound effects – a gag rarely uses the real sounds, post-production is cheaper. Looks count for more in film anyway, it’s the best way to keep butts in the seats for the Studios. “Bullitt” had a very synced track, even with the studio effects added, but in todays world, computerized effects’ll be the way we’ll see and hear car chases for ever more, and I bet they get more synched-in.
I’m not surprised the UK Press Association would pick this…to choose otherwise would be heresy!! Still…I do love Minis sliding on slippery floors!!
I find the car chase scenes in the Bourne Identity to be very annoying. The camera work is so frantic and shaky. Of course that’s how they intend it to be, I’m sure to make it more exciting, but it gives me a headache, and makes it hard to tell whats happening.
My favorite isn’t exacly a chase but a real life insane speed run through Paris called Rendezvous.
click the link below to read about it. You’ll have to find the actual video yourself though.
<a href="http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2005/Rendezvous.shtml" rel="nofollow ugc">http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2005/Rendezvous.shtml</a>
Ah, the Daimler-Benz Ferrari film! All is not what it seems, all the time.
I thought it was strange that only one of the three cars in “2” was an “S”.
Hey Jim W do you mean the film “return of the Pink Panther” where a pile up occurs in the main street of the village?
Greg, I think you are correct so I’m gonna check my dvd and see how many S cars were used in IJ2.
And what about Stella’s drive in her old Classic Mini Cooper and the handbrake parking manoeuvre.
Do the “Dukes of Hazzard” qualify for jumps and chases?
And may I add… that “Goodbye Pork Pie” is missing from the line up. The Blondini gang drive through the streets of Wellington NZ, persued by the cops, thru Malls, and the Railway Station, and end up driving into a railway wagon while on the move – now that’s classy!
I think the most exciting and authentic car chase scenes with a MINI were in the 1st Bourne movie with Matt Damon driving his girlfriend’s vintage MINI down stairways, on sidewalks, through parking garages and especially those extremely narrow alleyways; places where no other car could follow (including a new MINI), so it took a motorcycle to keep up with him. It was more about quick reflexes, surprise manuevering and pushing the car to it’s limits. I also distinctly remember the crunching noise it made during some of his downshifts; it sounded exactly like my first car, a 1961 Austin Mini 850.
<strong>1. BULLIT</strong>
<strong>2. ITALIAN JOB 1</strong>
<strong>3. BOURNE 1</strong>
<strong>4. RONIN</strong>
<strong>5. TRANSPORTER 1</strong>
<strong>6. VANISHING POINT</strong>
<strong>7. FRENCH CONNECTION 1</strong>
<strong>8. SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT 1</strong> ..yes, I know, I know but ya gotta love it.
<strong>9. DIRTY MARRY CRAZY LARRY</strong>
<strong>1O. MAD MAX/ROAD WARRIOR 1</strong>
<strong>11. DUEL</strong>
<strong>12. THE HUNTER</strong> that scene in the parking garage is priceless!
Can’t put Rendezvous here, it’s not a chase.
RB
Merde… I forgot one other Steve McQueen film…
<strong>THE GETAWAY</strong>
BTW, My wife worked at Paramount for 25 years a a SignWriter/On camera graphics boss. She told me the 3 cars in the LA subway scene were electric because of pollution and fire concerns.
can we consider McQueen’s LeMans a “chase”? like a 24 hour chase? porsche vs. ferrari?
Yes the 3 cars used in the subway scene (Italian Job II) were indeed electric because of carbon monoxide concerns on an enclosed space.
Yes the red MCS was the only “S” in “2”. the white and blue ones were R50s.
Anyone see “Transporter 2”? GREAT flick! Very entertaining and amazingly ridiculous chase scenes.
She worked on the movie. We were back in Naples Florida when it [Italian Job 2] came out picking up my 2002 MCS.
One of the most underrated chase scenes is in Bruce Willis’ STRIKING DISTANCE … saw it only once about 10 years ago, but I still remember it.
There’s something special about IJ1 and Bourne Identity 1 car chase regarding how hard the Minis were pushed in their runs. The movie Gumball Rally (which was more of race) has to be considered with the Cobra used through the famous canal in L.A. which was copied again in Gone in 60 seconds.
I just watched the car chase in “Italian Job 1” for the first time on youtube, and I thought it was pretty lame. Also, it didn’t make any sense to push all three MINI’s over the cliff at the end, and then have the jerk driving the truck hang it up over the cliff. I say Bourne 1 is definitely the most exciting movie car chase with a MINI, and may even be the best “car chase” period.
Yeah I agree that while indeed iconic IJ 1 is over rated.
Then there are those that watch “Casablanca”, or “Citizen Kane” and wonder why they have all these clichés that sound like the latest hack job with explosions and impossible CG that are current in the multiplexes, where others see the real genius of the seminal films that all others merely copy, and not always too well. Sigh.
Pretty Interesting
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<p>@<a href="#comment-232032" rel="nofollow">SFRedMCc</a>:</p>
<p>Hi do you no the track name playing in the bourne identity red mini car chase?</p>