Movie Night with Urbaniak: Bullitt
I’ve been on a bit of a Steve McQueen kick here at chez Wadpaw: a couple of weeks ago urbaniak and I watched the 1968 Thomas Crown Affair and the other night I finally got around to the 1958 Blob.
One of the chief pleasures of The Blob is to watch Steve McQueen before he really became Steve McQueen. He’s still susceptible to direction, and tries to "help" scenes along by adding gestures and expressions for emphasis. Luckily, he learned to stop doing that really fast. The camera loves to look at him, and the less he does the more power he has as a performer. Urbaniak and I spent a portion of Bullitt comparing him to leading men of our time: who among our contemporaries possesses McQueen’s seemingly effortless magnetism and composure? Who today is as comfortable in his skin as McQueen is here?