Bullitt - Plot

Plot

Ambitious politician Walter Chalmers (Robert Vaughn) is holding a Senate subcommittee hearing in San Francisco on organized crime in America. To improve his political standing, Chalmers hopes to bring down Chicago mobster Pete Ross (Vic Tayback) with the aid of key witness Johnny Ross (Pat Renella), Pete's brother. Bullitt takes place the weekend before the hearing, from Friday night (during the opening credits) to Sunday night.

Following his theft of $2,000,000 in mob money and subsequent escape from Chicago to San Francisco, Johnny is placed in the San Francisco Police Department's protective custody for the weekend. Chalmers requests Lieutenant Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen) to guard him.

Bullitt, Sergeant Delgetti (Don Gordon) and Detective Carl Stanton (Carl Reindel), give Ross around-the-clock protection at the Hotel Daniels, a cheap flophouse near the Embarcadero Freeway. Late Saturday night Ross inexplicably unchains the hotel room door; before Stanton can react; a pair of hitmen (Paul Genge and Bill Hickman) burst into the room and shoot Stanton and Ross, seriously wounding both.

Bullitt wants to investigate the shooting, while an upset Chalmers attempts to place blame on to Bullitt and the department. After Bullitt thwarts another assassination attempt by Genge, Ross dies of his wounds. Bullitt suppresses this news, sneaking the man's body out of the hospital.

Chalmers arrives at the hospital on Sunday morning and is angered Ross has disappeared and Bullitt, admitting he has Ross, will not reveal his location.

Bullitt reconstructs Ross's movements, finding the cab driver Weissberg (Robert Duvall) who brought him to the hotel. He is told by the cabbie that Ross had made both a local and long distance call from a pay phone before he came to the hotel. Records reveal the local was to a hotel south of San Francisco. Bullitt picks up his 1968 Ford Mustang GT and sees he is being tailed by the hitmen. He turns the tables and follows them, resulting in a protracted, highly dangerous car chase that ends with the hitmen dying in a fiery crash. Back at the police station Bullitt is given until Monday morning to follow his remaining lead.

With the help of his girlfriend Cathy (Jacqueline Bisset) Bullitt heads to the hotel Ross called, where he finds a woman registered under the name Dorothy Simmons (Brandy Carroll) murdered. Cathy wanders into the scene and is disturbed, shortly expressing her fear to Bullitt that he is becoming as cold and unfeeling as the criminals he chases.

The dead woman’s luggage yields a pair of empty passport and airline ticket folders, brochures from a Chicago travel agency for a Rome vacation, and a pair of travelers checks books denominated in thousands signed by a Dorothy and Albert Rennick. Bullitt tells Delgetti to contact Immigration Service in Chicago and obtain the photos their passports were issued under.

Chalmers arrives at the morgue, demanding from Bullitt a signed admission that Ross died while in his custody. Bullitt demurs, and when the faxed copy of the Rennicks' passport photos arrives Chalmers is shown to have sent the police to protect the wrong man. The Ross brothers (Johnny and Peter) set Albert Rennick up in order to be killed as "Johnny Ross" so the real Ross could escape the mob. Johnny then killed Dorothy Rennick to silence her.

At the airport a search of the Rome flight passenger list reveals no Ross or Rennick. Bullitt guesses that Ross has booked a reservation on another international flight leaving about the same time. He discovers the real Johnny Ross on a non-stop to London booked at the last minute using an exchanged ticket to Rome. Chalmers makes one last attempt to use Ross for his own ends, which Bullitt angrily rejects before going after Ross. A chase across the busy runways of San Francisco Airport ensues, with Bullitt eventually shooting and killing Ross after chasing him back into the terminal. Bullitt then returns home to a sleeping Cathy. After taking off his gun and placing it on a table he looks at himself in the bathroom mirror and seems troubled by what he sees looking back at him.