Steve McQueen built a persona on doing less than anyone else in the frame. He counted his lines, cut them where possible, and understood that in a two-shot the actor who moves least draws the eye. It made him difficult to work with and extremely effective on screen.
The Great Escape, Bullitt, The Thomas Crown Affair and The Getaway are the star vehicles, and the Bullitt car chase, which he drove substantially himself, changed what an action sequence was expected to be.
Papillon and The Sand Pebbles show a wider range than the persona allowed, and the latter earned his only Academy Award nomination.
He was a serious motorcycle and car racer, competing at professional level, and died at fifty from mesothelioma likely contracted from asbestos in racing equipment.
Charles BronsonThe Magnificent Seven (1960) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Kurosawa's Seven Samurai relocated to the Mexican border, shortened by an hour, and improved in one specific way. Every gunman gets an introduction that is also an…
Don GordonFranklin Schaffner's 1973 Henri Charriere memoir. Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman.
Aneta CorsautThe Blob exists in two memorable versions. Irvin Yeaworth directed the 1958 original.
Faye DunawayThe Towering Inferno is the best disaster film of the 1970s and the model against which every subsequent disaster film has been measured. John Guillermin directed the dramatic scenes and Irwin Allen directed the action sequences.
Charles BronsonJohn Sturges's perfect ensemble war film. Steve McQueen and the legendary cast.
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