I'm with you on "Ronin" as well. That chase scene is what I used to sell seeing the movie to many of my co-workers after I took it in at the theaters.
When it comes to chase scenes, my personal all-time fave is from another Frankenheimer work, "The Seven-Ups". The scene begins with Roy Scheider's partner (Ken Kercheval, of "Dallas" fame) being murdered by a hit man in the trunk of a car. The hit man's getaway driver is visibly repulsed by the act but, once h=behind the wheel and driving, he's at ease in his element. The hit man, on the other hand, after shooting a cop several times in cold blood, is cringing at every high-speed maneuver. And the chase itself includes a moment when the getaway driver intentionally steers down a street full of schoolchildren at recess. Still makes me jump, just thinking about it. "If all the world's a stage and all the people merely players, who in bloody hell hired the director?" -- Charles L Grant http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQUxw9aUVik To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com From: keithbjohn...@comcast.net Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 02:20:00 +0000 Subject: Re: [scifinoir2] Great Action Flicks on TCM Tonight Watching it now. I was just telling my wife jubilantly, "they just don't film movies like this anymore!" Nowadays director would have twenty thousand camera angles, and you'd never be able to follow the action. This thing is fast-paced and exciting as hell, but I can take it all in. Speaking of great car chase scenes, another all-time one is from "Ronin", one of my fav films. And I also love the classic pursuit of Batman's car in "Batman Begins". ----- Original Message ----- From: "Martin Baxter" <truthseeker...@hotmail.com> To: "SciFiNoir2" <scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Saturday, February 6, 2010 9:01:42 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: RE: [scifinoir2] Great Action Flicks on TCM Tonight I'm there right now, waiting for that chase scene, Keith. "Bonnie and Clyde" I'll be passing on, as it aired just last month. "The French Connection", though, is a must, particularly since I picked up a bit of trivia about Gene Hackman's performance in it. In the scene where he roughs up the suspect, Hackman nearly quit the movie. An ardent liberal, he almost couldn't bring himself to do the scene. "If all the world's a stage and all the people merely players, who in bloody hell hired the director?" -- Charles L Grant http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQUxw9aUVik To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com From: keithbjohn...@comcast.net Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 01:57:57 +0000 Subject: [scifinoir2] Great Action Flicks on TCM Tonight http://www.tcm.com/2010/31Days/index.jsp You know what? Forget SyFy Originals. Forget the eleventy-millionth airing of "Caprica". Blow off Lifetime Movies. Turner Classic Movies is airing a great block of films tonight. Starting at 8 pm EST, we have Steve McQueen in "Bullitt", with the man-of-few-words McQueen, and one of the great car chases of all time. That's followed at 10 pm by "The French Connection", with a typically intense Gene Hackman in one of the other great car chases of all time. And then, at midnight, it's "Bonnie and Clyde", Warren Beatty's violent New Hollywood tale of the famous robbers. The movies are part of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", a month long airing of Oscar-wnning and -nominated films done every year. This is a great time to catch up on some of the best films of all time, from "Casablanca" to "Citizen Kane", from "Some Like it Hot", to "Cabin in the Sky". The good thing about TCM is that in addition to showing Oscar-nominated films, this being Black History Month, they also show a lot of classic Black film dating back to the '20s. Ethel Waters in "Cabin in the Sky" is just one example. It's about the only place I've seen this and many other of those films from that time. Gonna be a long fun night! Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft’s powerful SPAM protection. Sign up now. _________________________________________________________________ Your E-mail and More On-the-Go. Get Windows Live Hotmail Free. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/201469229/direct/01/