The photo panorama at left offers proof that Cavendish could be extended from St. James to that weird little street below the hill (Pullman). It shows two responsible-men driving muscle cars in a very safe and respectful manner down the hill.
It's a scene from a 1976-shot Italian film Una Magnum Special par Tony Saitta or Shadows in an Empty Room, as it was called in English.
The Julienne car-eography has been described as one of the greatest car chase scenes ever but I don't know why because it's pretty much the way I always drive.
So as we know, Cavendish was supposed to get extended to the north but Cote St. Lunatic has blocked that exquisite plan that would allow drivers to get to Ikea more easily.
If they were to respect motorists they could allow people to get from the Angrignon Mall to Ikea in just a few minutes, especially if you drive the clever way these gentlemen are rolling.
The film was shot around the time of the Olympics and I'm told that the city had been tossing landfill over the edge as St Jacques was being widened at that time. (My father owned property on the cliff at the time.)
Stuart Whitman, plays a cop alongside partner John Saxon. Martin Landau and Carole Laure starred in the film, while Tisa Farrow has a role as a imperiled blind girl.
The car chase scene was organized by European racer Remy Julienne, who is now 84.
Julienne choreographed chase scenes for The Italian Job, some Bond films and even recently the Da Vinci code.
Check out this car chase he directed in Greece.
Everybody I just mentioned is still alive at the time of this writing.
AWESOME!
ReplyDelete-Kevin
Should have been done in the fifties, with speed posted at 60 MPH thru the Rose Bowl parking lot.
ReplyDeleteMerci.
There already is a paved road going to the bottom of the escarpement just to the east of Cavendish, we used to race go-carts down it during the 1950's.
ReplyDeleteWhat I simply love about it is that the streets are not even in sequence. One second they are on Hôtel-de-Ville, before entering the Rose Bowl parking lot.
ReplyDeleteMany different neighbourhoods. This fulfills many an adolescent fantasy.
ReplyDeleteThere actually is a real road going down the Falaise Saint-Jacques, a couple of hundred feet east of Rose Bowl. Just east of the Auto Radio and Korean karaoke strip mall, just west of Somerled Auto Repair. There is a locked fence. The land belongs to the City. Rather than go straight down the hill like in the film, this old road is in the form of an "S".
Before Applebaum's minions decided that the Falaise was too dangerous for anyone to have access to, the City spent over a million dollars installing a footpath (for the summer, to become a x-country ski path in winter)to make th falaise a publc access service. The City's right-of-way would have been a major way of servicing it.
Presumably when the former Turcot Yards territory is fully developed, there will be more pressure put to bear on linking it up with lower NDG.
ReplyDeleteEither that, or at least clear-cut a proper lookout from so-called "Belevedere" Terry Fox Park.
Currently, one can only see southwards over the precipice during the winter when the scrub-brush leaves are gone.
I have to drive like that just to get to Nuns Island every night. I have to try the hill behind the Rose Bowl. That will be a time saver Yes Siree Bob.
ReplyDeleteAnyone seen a video on how-to pimp my Kia to make it look like the General Lee.
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Hmmmm. I had never seen that film before, and it is wonderful!!
ReplyDeleteBack in the day this is somewhat similar to the way Diamond, LaSalle, Veterans, etc. taxi drivers operated in Montreal in the era of big cars.
It would be fun to see the 'Rose Bowl Connector' during rush hour!
The old paved road descending to Turcot Yards below Rose Bowl, shown in the film, once accessed a CNR railway shop located below then-Upper Lachine Rd. opposite the City Yards.
When the CNR abandoned Turcot yard around 1959, moving to the then-new Montreal Yard out on then-2-17, the City of Montreal used this steep little road to truck snow from snow blowers down to the old railway yard for dumping.
( At that time there was also a private road for MTC buses along the north side of the semi-dormant Lachine Canal from Cote St. Paul to Lachine/Ville St. Pierre which replaced the old Lachine streetcar line which, in it's day, ran parallel to the-then CNR Main line north of Canadian Car and Foundry buildings. There was a gate house part way along to prevent motorists using the canal-edge road as a thruway.
The old Can Car Brills use to just huff and puff along there, audible from the top of the Turcot escarpment. )
We used to ride our bikes down the steep road from time to time and roam the old CNR yard, full of steam locomotives for scrapping at a special location near the old Train crew resthouse east towards St. Remi, the CNR coal chute and the CNR 52-stall roundhouse.
The resthouse was arsoned in late 1961 or early 1962, leaving a huge plume of smoke over whole area.
Often, rather than ride our bikes, as we could not cross all the yard tracks easily with them, we would take the 106 Upper Lachine autobus from Harley and Elmhurst and get off just past Rose Bowl, or go thru to St. Remi, and wander at our leisure.
How would motorists get back up to Rose Bowl in the film?
Possibly the preciptous downhill route over the edge could be used for the Montreal Taxi Chauffeurs Association hill climb trials??
The taxi that gets the fare from Turcot Yard to Rose Bowl first, uphill, gets the Trophy?
Loved the film!
Thank You.
Montreal's answer to the Steve McQueen Bullitt chase! (The SF streets all out of sequence there, too.)
ReplyDeleteSomehow "Le Falaise" doesn't sound quite as quaint as "The Bluff"--which is apparently what it had been called generations ago.
ReplyDeleteHowdy!
ReplyDeleteAnd you missed the Transvestite fight from the same film...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfntyB7V08I
Howdy!
ReplyDeleteAnd the full 9:42 version with Japanese subtitles!
Nice. Thanks Chris. Do you have a link to the Japanese version and can anybody tell where that building was where they shot the tranny scene?
ReplyDeleteI recall another Italian film shot in Montreal the same year. Saw it at least twice on late night TV, a guy is roaming around Upper Belmont or some place and goes to a game at the Montreal Forum and they show an actual game in progress. Can't recall much more than that.
Howdy!
ReplyDeleteOoops, my bad...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-mGNk9lLuE
COMMENT FROM SETH
ReplyDeleteI recognized this guy's eyebrows from your clip.
At 3:10, the fire hydrant appears to be made of wood.
A 3:29 clip, that's a long trailer.
Yes, disjointed as in to where they were going, but that is fictional license. Westbound on Dorchester in front of the Carrefour Dorchester Apartment Hotel...before heading north on St-Laurent by La Presse...then down St-Dominique by the Hotel des Arts (you have to be pretty crap hotel to be kicked out of EconoLodge!)...and finally, through the old A&W Drive-In to get to the Rose Bowl.
ReplyDeleteThose sub-titles at the end of the clip are in Greek once. Love the Man and his World signs (think it's University heading away from downtown)
ReplyDeleteThere's a short clip going up Park Avenue and then back down (but they didn't turn around) near the monument, and even a tiny piece featuring the Pine-Park Interchange, now long gone thank goodness. It then cuts to a sequence near the silos under the Bonaventsure,,,
ReplyDelete