The Seven-Ups: More Than a Great Car Chase

Roy Scheider as Manucci.

The late 1960s and early 1970s was a banner period for gritty, urban cop pictures. Philip D'Antoni produced three of the best, which all incidentally featured nail-biting chase sequences: Bullitt, The French Connection, and The Seven-Ups. The least famous of that trio is The Seven-Ups (1973), which serves as a sort of follow-up to The French Connection (1971) and also stars Roy Scheider.

He plays Buddy Manucci, a single-minded detective who heads a secret police unit called the Seven-Ups. He and his three team members focus on mobsters who commit major crimes...and earn sentences of seven years or more. Buddy's success hinges in large part on his childhood friend Vito (Tony Lo Bianco), an undertaker with mob connections who serves as an informant.

Tony Lo Bianco and Scheider.

Vito needs money--a lot of it. His wife may have tuberculosis and his day job isn't paying all the bills. He gleans information from Buddy to hatch a scheme to kidnap notable mob bosses and hold them for ransom. It's a profitable venture until one of the kidnappings results in the death of one of the Seven-Ups and Buddy makes it a personal vendetta to find the killer.

The character of Buddy Manucci is based on real-life NYPD detective Sonny Grosso, who also served as the inspiration for Scheider's character in The French Connection. In a 1971 interview in The New York Times, producer D'Antoni stated that Grosso told him a "weird and fascinating story" that became the basic plot of The Seven-Ups.

Roy Scheider, who always excelled at playing obsessive characters, is convincing as a driven cop willing to cross the line to get the job done (e.g., he withholds oxygen from a severely injured criminal to get information). However, Tony Lo Bianco nearly steals the film as the too-smooth-for-his-own-good Vito. When he uses his wife's illness as justification for his crimes, it's unclear whether he's sincere or just using his family tragedy as an excuse.

A shotgun blasts removes the hood from Scheider's car.

The famous car chase occurs almost an hour into the film and lasts for ten minutes. Unlike Bullitt, there are no muscle cars involved, as Scheider drives a Pontiac Ventura Sprint coupe and the bad guys are in a Pontiac Grand Ville sedan. That doesn't mean there is any less suspense as the cars careen through crowded streets at high-octane speeds. In my opinion, it's the best car chase in movie history. Much of its impact can be attributed to the facial expressions of Scheider and Richard Lynch (as one of the villains). There's a great sequence showing a group of kids playing in the street who scream and scatter as the first car zips through them. They reconvene in the street only to go running for the sidewalks again as Scheider zooms past.

Richard Lynch and Bill Hickman.

Stunt driver extraordinaire Bill Hickman helped choreograph the car chase and also plays the unflappable baddie behind the wheel of the speeding sedan. Hickman also served as a stunt driver in Bullitt and The French Connection. Jerry Greenberg, who won an Oscar for editing The French Connection, likely had a hand in the editing though he's listed solely as an associate producer for The Seven-Ups.

In addition to his producer duties, Philip D'Antoni also directed The Seven-Ups--it was his only directing job. He obviously learned a lot from watching William Friedkin (French Connection) as he makes superb use of his New York locales. The snowy streets, whistling winds, and frosty breaths all contribute to the film's realism. It's a shame that D'Antoni didn't make more gritty action pictures. Instead, he moved to television where he co-created the 1974-76 TV series Movin' On, with Claude Akins and Frank Converse as truckers. He also produced a TV series pilot movie called Mr. Inside/Mr. Outside starring Tony Lo Bianco (again) and Hal Linden as big city cops.

Incidentally, if one of Scheider's Seven-Ups team members looks familiar, then you must have recognized the late Ken Kercheval. He would achieve his biggest success five years later as Cliff Barnes in the long-running Dallas TV series.

The Five Best Car Chase Scenes in Movie History

I admit I’ve undertaken an impossible task—trying to sift through dozens of terrific celluloid car chases to come up with the five all-time best. And, no doubt, some readers will take offense that some splendid car chases were omitted. I know for a fact that my rankings will generate controversy. But differences of opinion are what make movie blog discussions fun…so bring them on! To narrow the scope a little, I’ve included only car chases from action films—no comedies this time out (and I apologize to fans of movies like It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and W. C. Fields’ The Bank Dick ).

1. The Seven-Ups (1973) – Philip D’Antoni¸ who produced Bullitt (1968) and The French Connection (1971), obviously knew a little something about car chases. The Seven-Ups is the only film he directed and its set piece is a New York City high-speed “duel” between a Pontiac Ventura Sprint coupe (driven by good guy Roy Scheider) and a Pontiac Grand Ville (the bad guys). Like Gene Hackman in The French Connection, Scheider does a great job of acting during the scene, pounding on the dashboard and swearing to himself. It’s a thrilling chase, but what sets it apart is the climax devised by stunt man extraordinaire Bill Hickman. Scheider’s Ventura skids under an 18-wheel truck, peeling off the top of the car…but leaving the driver (who ducks down on cue) unscathed.

2. Bullitt (1968) – In 9 minutes and 42 seconds, Bullitt redefined the car chase forever. It can certainly stake its claim as the most influential car chase and I suspect it ranks No. 1 on most lists. The San Francisco locale can’t be beat—helping to create iconic shots of the cars flying over the hills and careening around the tight curves. Director Peter Yates heightens the action with point-of-view and overhead shots. My only quibble: Steve McQueen and the driver of the car he's pursuing are the epitome of cool--so the scene isn’t quite as frantic and tense as the ones in The Seven-Ups and The French Connection. By the way, Bill Hickman drove the Charger.

3. The French Connection (1971) – William Friedkin’s Oscar-winning film featured a chase between a Pontiac LeMans commandeered by Gene Hackman’s police detective and an elevated train containing the baddies. Hackman accents the tenseness of the scene perfectly, pounding on the horn and yelling at pedestrians as he speeds through the streets of Brooklyn, often against oncoming traffic. Friedkin makes terrific use of tracking shots, sometimes showing Hackman zooming underneath the elevated train in a single frame. In addition to reuniting producer D’Antoni and stunt driver Hickman from Bullitt, The French Connection co-starred Roy Scheider and Tony Lo Bianco who would later appear in The Seven-Ups.

4. To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) – Friedkin returned to the car chase with a revved-up sequence in this tale of unethical Treasury agents out to nab big-time counterfeiters at any cost. A young William Petersen played the federal agent who is pursued through Los Angeles. After a gripping chase through parked trucks and tight streets, Petersen finds himself surrounded on all sides but one…which leads down a one-way street. He zooms down the highway against oncoming traffic, resulting in a harrowing scene that momentarily tops a similar one in The French Connection.

5. Ronin (1998) – John Frankenheimer (who directed The French Connection II…interesting how all these films connect in different ways) features a couple of car chases in this espionage thriller. The most famous one, though, pits a BMW 5 Series against a Peugeot 306 as they whisk through the narrow streets of Paris. The scene’s highlights are a nail-biting tunnel sequence and another pursuit down a one-way street.

Honorable mentions: The original Gone in 60 Seconds, Goldfinger (for its gadget-laden Aston-Martin), The Road Warrior, The Italian Job (1969), Vanishing Point, the Bourne movies, and Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry.

All of my top five picks can be viewed on YouTube. So if you don’t remember The Seven-Ups, or haven’t seen the chase scene in awhile, just click here.

Differing opinions about my rankings and omissions are welcomed!