Tagged: Benrus watch
Bullitt’s Navy Suit
Vitals
Steve McQueen as Bullitt (1968).Vitals
Steve McQueen as Lt. Frank Bullitt, maverick SFPD inspector
San Francisco, Spring 1968
Film: Bullitt
Release Date: October 17, 1968
Director: Peter Yates
Costume Designer: Theadora Van Runkle
Tailor: Douglas Hayward
Background
There is little dispute among both film and automobile fans that 1968’s Bullitt features the best car chase scene in movie history. Steve McQueen faces off in a fastback Mustang GT against two hitmen in a black Charger. By now, diehard fans of the film know that the Charger legendarily overtook and outpowered the Mustang during the actual filming, although it was still edited to have McQueen’s driving emerge victorious as the Charger ended up, sadly, in a ball of flame. Continue reading
Bullitt’s Cardigan at the Hospital
Steve McQueen as Bullitt (1968)
Vitals
Steve McQueen as Lt. Frank Bullitt, renegade San Francisco inspector
San Francisco, Spring 1968
Film: Bullitt
Release Date: October 17, 1968
Director: Peter Yates
Costume Designer: Theadora Van Runkle
Background
Steve McQueen’s character in Bullitt is often remembered for two things: his handling of the green fastback Mustang during the car chase and the iconic tweed sport jacket and rollneck jumper he wore. Just before that sequence, we see Lieutenant Bullitt pulling an all-nighter at the hospital after the fatal shooting of the witness his men were protecting.
Our groggy lieutenant arrives at the hospital with a thick, high-fastening cardigan layered over his casual open-neck shirt, trousers, and—of course—his shoulder holster. Continue reading
Bullitt
Steve McQueen’s iconic style in Bullitt was one of my first BAMF Style posts, originally published in October 2012. As my writing style and the information available to me has evolved over the years, this post has been in a state of constant revision and updates, most recently in April 2021.
Steve McQueen as Bullitt (1968).
Vitals
Steve McQueen as Lt. Frank Bullitt, maverick San Francisco inspector
San Francisco, Spring 1968
Film: Bullitt
Release Date: October 17, 1968
Director: Peter Yates
Costume Designer: Theadora Van Runkle
Background
When I originally set out to learn more about Lieutenant Bullitt’s clothing, I came across a blog dedicated to Steve McQueen’s style that instantly made me feel seen with the declaration:
One thing sane people do, as we all know, is spend a good portion of their spare time on eBay searching for a brown tweed jacket a bit like the one in Bullitt.
Thanks to movies like The Great Escape, The Cincinnati Kid, and The Thomas Crown Affair—to name just a few—the Indiana-born McQueen has been firmly established as an icon of tough and timeless style, though its arguably his wardrobe as the eponymous hardworking and hard-driving SFPD detective in Bullitt that’s most singularly responsible for his enduring reputation as the “King of Cool”.
McQueen cycles through three distinct outfits in Bullitt—four, if you count his paisley pajamas—though it’s the tweed jacket, turtleneck, and boots that he wears while speeding his green ’68 Mustang fastback through the sloping streets of San Francisco in pursuit of a villainous black Dodge Charger R/T during the film’s unmatched ten-minute car chase that remains his most famous look. Continue reading