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Gone in sixty seconds (1974)
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Gone in 60 Seconds is a 1974 American action film written, directed, produced by, and starring H.B. 'Toby' Halicki. It centers on a group of car thieves and the 48 cars they must steal in a matter of days. The film is famous for having wrecked and destroyed 93 cars in a 34-minute car chase scene
Gone in 60 Seconds was classified as an independent film — H. B. Halicki wrote, starred, directed, produced and even did his own stuntwork in the film, which, at the time, was phenomenal. In a contemporary context, however, the portions of the film preceding the chase sequences are seen as typical of a badly acted 70s movie. Halicki employed family and friends (instead of professional actors) to play parts in his movie to keep the budget low. Therefore, the acting is somewhat substandard when compared to other films of the time. The characters depicted as being members of the emergency services were actual police officers, firemen, or paramedics. The then-mayor of Carson, California, Sak Yamamoto, also appeared as himself.
All of the police cars damaged in the film, as well as the garbage truck that overturns, three fire trucks, two waiting for the cars to clear, and another one stopping to put out a fire, were bought at city auction by Halicki in 1972, for an average price of $200 each. They sat in an empty lot for over a year until production on the movie began in 1973. The fire trucks seen on the Vincent Thomas Bridge during the main chase were real Long Beach FD units on their way to an emergency call. The "crash" staged for the film was blocking both lanes and they could not get past until the cars were cleared. Halicki asked the camera crew to film them in case he found a place and time to fit the shots into the movie.
There was no official script, apart from several pages outlining main dialog sequences. Much of the action/dialog was improvised and ad-libbed by the cast and crew as they went along. This caused many problems for the editor, Warner E. Leighton, who never knew what footage was being dumped on him or where in the movie it belonged. In the DVD audio commentary, he described the script for the construction site scenes of the main pursuit as a piece of cardboard with a circle on it. Halicki pointed at it and said, "That's the dust bowl. We went around it twice. There's your script."
The pursuit is the longest car chase (34 minutes) in movie history and takes Pace through five cities as he attempts to lose police. Nearly every civilian vehicle seen in close proximity to the main chase (especially in downtown Long Beach) was owned by Halicki. This resulted in several of them being seen multiple times in the 34-minute sequence. The second "Eleanor" that Maindrian steals from the car wash, and the white Ford that he and Stanley spend much of their time in, are visible parked in one street that Maindrian turns onto before hitting the boat in Long Beach. The white Ford also shows up in many other shots
The workshop scenes at Chase Research were filmed at Halicki's real-life workshop, and occasionally filming would stop for several days so he could repair cars to earn money and continue production.
The car that flips during the earlier night-time chase in Torrance was overturned by six men lifting it up from one side. The film was later skip-framed to create the desired effect.
The garbage truck that overturns when two police cars smash into the side of it was pulled over at the precise moment the cars hit by two tow trucks. Cables can be seen attached to the top of the garbage truck as it topples.
To achieve the effect of cars sliding into each other when hit by the patrol car at Moran Cadillac, the filmmakers put oil under the tires of the first car to help it slide. According to the commentary track on the DVD only the first two Cadillacs in the row were owned by the film company. When it came time to do the stunt, the oil trick worked too well and many of the agency's own Cadillacs that were for sale were badly damaged. Halicki had to purchase all of them.
The jump scene at the end of the chase is notable and set the standards for a number of subsequent pictures. Acting as the climax to the lengthy chase sequence, the jump manages to achieve a height of 30' over a 128' in distance — a feat which would not be easily replicable without the use of modern CGI. Halicki compacted ten vertebrae performing this jump. The injury was not very serious, although according to director of photography Jack Vacek, Halicki never walked the same again.
In one scene at the construction area where the Mustang has been surrounded, a patrol car roars up a hill in pursuit and overturns. This was a real accident, and the officer inside was nearly crushed when the siren "can" on the roof caved the roof in. The scene was left in.
J.C. Agajanian Jr., who plays a detective in the roadblock sequence at Torrance Mazda Agency, was almost killed when the stunt with "Eleanor" went wrong and the Mustang slammed into his unmarked police car, which he was standing behind.
The scene where the Mustang tags a car on the highway and spins into a telephone pole at 100 mph was a real accident. Halicki was badly hurt and filming was stopped while he recovered. According to people on the set, after the mishap the first thing that Halicki said when he regained consciousness was "Did we get coverage?" Likewise, the scene in which a train derailment is observed in the film was not part of the original shooting script but it is in fact a real train that derailed and when Halicki heard about this he wanted to incorporate it into the film.
With the exception of a few extras, the bulk of the by-standers in the movie are the general public going about their business. This caused several incidents where people assumed a real police pursuit was in progress, with many trying to help the accident "victims." In the scene at the Carson Street off-ramp where the two cars collide after Maindrian drives against traffic, a pedestrian can be seen in the background shouting angrily at the passing police cars for not stopping to help the occupants. Much of the crowd at the gas station where Harold Smith is pulled over after the night-time Torrance chase were part of a real biker gang, who verbally abused the police officers "arresting" the actor and demanding they leave him alone.
Ronald Halicki, the director's real-life brother and Corlis Pace in the film, operated the crane that lifted "Jill," the red Challenger, to its fate in the car-crusher at the junkyard
Toby Halicki was killed while filming a stunt for the sequel, Gone in 60 Seconds 2. Production began with filming the final chase sequence with only a few lines of dialog and a few parts of the chase sequence filmed before his death. Preparing for the most dramatic stunt sequence in the film, during which a 160-foot-tall (49 m) water tower would suddenly topple, a cable attached to the tower snapped. The cable sheared off a telephone pole, which fell on and instantly killed him.
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