Sometimes, Movie Cars Are Wrong For a Reason
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An old college friend stopped in a few weeks ago, and over beers, he started ranting about cars in movies. He had just watched a recent period pic called The Hill about a disabled boy who overcomes adversity to play baseball and, while he liked the film, he was put off by some apparently flagrant mismatches between the 1960s time period and the cars. His rant building steam, Jeff went on: “Somebody needs to tell these directors that if the scene is in 1965 and a guy who is supposed to be somebody pulls up in a shiny ’59 Cadillac, it’s wrong! Back then, nobody drove around in a six-year-old Cadillac if they could afford a new one!”
His point might be picayune and it may only matter to a small minority of the viewing audience—the ones married to spouses who are always shushing them to be quiet and stop going on about that one green Beetle that keeps reappearing in the Bullitt chase sequence—but he’s not wrong. Cars are important to film because they are the one prop that instantly dates a scene. If the cars have high roofs, wheel spats, and bustlebacks, you’re in the 1930s or ’40s; chrome swaddling and tailfins, the 1950s; straight edges, the 1960s; landau tops and pea green paint, the 1970s. Used correctly, old cars efficiently and effectively transport us as well as the characters back in celluloid time. Used badly, and it’s like watching Napoleon pull out an iPhone to find Waterloo. It takes you right out of the moment. People are still complaining about those kit Cobra replicas with the modern mag wheels that appeared in Ford v Ferrari.
I called Jamie Kitman, a man of seemingly a dozen careers, including writing for this magazine as well as running a business that procures cars for film shoots. I asked him why directors often seem to pick the wrong cars. Do they not care or do they just not know any better? A bit of both, was his answer, and money can dictate what four-wheelers get cast. A lot of people involved in production have very strong opinions, and, “some of them know what they’re talking about, some of them don’t,” he said. “And some are constrained budgetarily or logistically, or they’re shooting in a place that doesn’t have a wide supply of cars readily available.”
The better productions can afford to be accurate where cars are concerned, he went on. “I worked on [The Marvelous] Mrs. Maisel, which was all about its cars, and they were pretty sensitive to the cars being right. The propmaster knew enough to know there was a right and a wrong.” However, Kitman often finds himself confronting blunt stereotyping about what a particular era was like (no, not everybody drove triple-tone pastel tailfin cruisers on whitewalls in the ’50s) or a simple lack of knowledge about cars. Once, a producer called Kitman wanting an MG TC for a scene, and Kitman was able to match her up with a car. “Then, three days before the shoot, she called and said, ‘Just checking; it’s an automatic, right?’ And we said no, and she said, ‘Can you find me an automatic one?’ And we said no, automatic MGs didn’t exist in 1948. And she said, ‘Well, can you make it an automatic?’” Of course, said Kitman, if you give me a month and $30,000. “So they said never mind. That’s the sort of thing that happens.”
Kitman can find himself immersed in the details of the characters. “Occasionally you’ll find yourself saying, ‘Based on what you’ve told me about the character, what you’re asking for is completely wrong.’ And they may or may not hear me.” A big challenge is scenes set in Europe but filmed in America. Since the 1970s, the cars imported into the U.S. have tended to be the larger models, not the small hatchbacks that carpet European roads, and “they often have really big bumpers, which is a dead giveaway to the cognoscenti.” So Kitman keeps a ready supply of small, plebeian Euro-gerbils for such scenes, though sourcing right-hand-drivers is always a challenge. “We’ve had double-decker buses towed from the Carolinas to be in TV shows,” he told me.
The takeaway: If car flubs happen on screen, don’t assume it’s just because the director doesn’t know a tailfin from a turbo. Sometimes they can’t afford or can’t find exactly what would be correct. And sometimes, as in the case of Bullitt, Smokey and the Bandit, and a few others, the cars deserve their own Academy Awards.
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Back in the mid 80’s I worked with a fellow that previously worked for an ambulance company, conversation came up about my 5 yr old son was a big fan the 1984 hit movie Ghostbusters,. He says he owned the ambulance used in the movie and had some Polaroids of the car on the movie set.
He said Universal Pictures was searching for a prop vehicle and had called many ambulance companies looking for a ‘59 Caddy ambulance or leads to a vehicle they could use for a movie scene.
He said they picked up and trailered it to and from locations, came back with significant body damage and “fee” wasn’t much to cover damages. I believe he eventually sold off the vehicle shortly after getting it back, probably with some regret now seeing how the original movie is still popular today.
The 1-2 minute scene is where Ray Stantz drives up to the firehouse with siren blaring in a flat black and gray primer sprayed ambulance, “paid $4800, and needs suspension, shocks, brakes, mufflers, wiring…”.
Universal went to great lengths, perhaps little expense to find a proper vehicle for the short “before’ scene to the fully outfitted ECTO-1 and all just for that laugh. Attention to detail is a lost art.
It drives me nuts! A car oriented show like ‘Cars that made America’ shows a Mercury to wrap up the segment about De Lorean’s GTO. The tv show about cleaning old cars cleans a ’49 ford’. I didn’t know that they used 51 ford grills and dasheboards in 49. Ford vs Ferrari uses the same white 62 dodge dart driving by in several scenes from different times.. These things make the whole show illegitimate.
This is not about mismatched cars but is related to car movie gaffes. In the film “A Man And A Woman” a first gen Mustang convertible is being driven by the female lead and the male lead is a passenger. At one point, he wraps his hand around the A pillar. Evidently the partial car they used was without a windshield.
Guys (and girls too), THE BIGGEST MISTAKE in modern movies with old cars is one single thing and it irks me every time I see it. THE OLD CARS ARE TOO SHINY and the bodies are TOO GOOD. What they need to do is spray them with a light coat of dust or something like that.
Re: Mismatch vs picking right car.
About 8 years ago, I owned a very nice ‘64 Corvette with deep ruby red paint, 67 hood, stripes, and flashy wheels. I also had (and still have) a 1968 Camaro RS Convertible – 100% factory, ermine white with tourquise interior. Very sedate, almost bland by comparison.
A music video producer happened to be driving by when the cars were out and wanted to rent a car for a music video. He focused on the Camaro. I kept pressing him— “that one?? are you sure?” I was pushing for the vette… lots of flash!! After about 3 times to convince him the vette was the better car, I gave in. Camaro was it.
Turns out, he knew what he was talking about. Once I saw the finished video, I was like “oooooh, I get it”.
The song is about teenage pregnancy. The vette would have sent a completely wrong image about the girl driving!!
I liked “Driving Miss Daisy” for its cars.
I liked how they showed the passage of time by her son’s Cadillacs becoming newer and newer;
and also how the improvement of his station in life was shown by it culminating with his 1957 Eldorado
Brougham Sedan.
Actually his life culminated with a big 70’s S class Mercedes. I agree with you. The 49 Cadillac Sedanette and the 57 Brougham were also stars in the movie.
I Loved Ford vs. Ferrari except, when the entourage of Ford lawyers were strolling up to the Ferrari headquarters. In front of the building sat a delivery truck. The truck however was a Divco milk truck (1926-1986)
Built in Detroit and were everywhere in the USA during most of the 20th century. I’m fairly certain Divco didn’t export milk truck to Italy in the mid 60’s.
My favorite in many movies is tires squealing like they are on blacktop bur the car is on dirt or gravel.
I always found it curious how the Challenger vanished in Vanishing Point and turned into a Camero and how Gilda didn’t burn herself on the Honda exhaust.
My irritant is when a movie is set in a year and every car is from that year. When you look at photos there are old cars, beaten up cars, but the movie every one is pristine.
Oh and that law that states there must be a 1960’s Mustang in every movie…
Not to break the used car lot spell, but Buick made a smart move supplying Warner Brothers with a fleet of Flintmobiles before the war. You’d have the secretary driving a Special or Super, the harried executive a Century or Roadmaster, and Mr. Big or the mayor a Limited. Yet when Bogie played Mad Dog Earl in High Sierra, he drove a tough little Plymouth coupe pursued by a pack of Buick CHP cars, just as Bogie as Sam Spade always drove a Plymouth coupe, and these were all Warner Brothers flicks with most everyone else driving a Buick.
I love the opening of the film Good Morning Vietnam where as the Jeep drives through traffic with Robin Williams and Forrest Whitaker, a title comes up saying “Saigon 1965”. Just then a 1974 Australian Chrysler Valiant drives past.
In Shawshank, Andy is seen driving a 69 Pontiac convertible after getting all the money. The narrator said the year was 1967.
I also notice the driving scenes with the column shift lever in Park and yes that irks me to no end.
Another oversight that bothers me that isn’t really car related are those scenes in a TV show or movie where the characters are carrying around a coffee cup and they are moving it around in such a manner that if it was filled with liquid, it would be splashing around everywhere. They are obviously empty. For some reason that really gets my goat.
One need not watch a movie to know “automotive incorrectness”! Go to most car shows where there are “restored” vehicles of most makes/models and you are going to find “incorrectness”. Hey–that’s among the people who are supposed to KNOW cars! Not “movie producers’! I’ve had to laugh, and, sometimes, gasp, at the “incorrectness” which I see at the shows.