2004 Movie Titles
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2004 Movie Titles
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Starsky & Hutch
Starring: Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Calvin Broadus, Fred Williamson, Vince Vaughn
Directed by: Todd Phillips
Screenplay by: Steve Long, John O'Brien, Todd Phillips
Release Date: March 5th, 2004
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for drug content, adult situations, partial nudity, language, violence.
Box Office: $88,237,754 (US total)
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
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Tagline: They're the man.
Detective David Starsky is the most dedicated undercover cop working the mean streets of Bay City, California. Maniacally devoted to his job, when he's on duty no crime goes unpunished--and he's always on duty. And that's a good thing, because he has some metaphorically big shoes to fill: his mother was a legend on the force, one of the best cops in the history of Bay City.
But while his mom stuck with the same partner throughout her entire career, due to his extremely zealous brand of police work, Starsky burns through partners faster than his beloved Gran Torino goes through spark plugs. Detective Ken "Hutch" Hutchinson is having career issues of his own--he's a good cop, but his hazardously laidback personality and desire for a quick buck don't always get the job done. He has excellent instincts, he just needs a little bit of focus to keep him on the admittedly less profitable side of the law.
Exasperated Bay City Police Captain Dobey has found the perfect solution for two of his biggest problems: pair up Starsky and Hutch and put them out on the streets. As soon as the two mismatched crime fighters unhappily begin their first day on the beat as a team, a "floater" turns up on the Bay City coastline. With the help of Hutch's dynamite, street-savvy informant Huggy Bear, the two begin to unravel the mysterious murder case.
Investigating their first clue, the boys meet Staci and Holly, of the Bay City Cheerleaders, who are more than eager to help--in any way they can. All signs seem to point at wealthy businessman Reese Feldman, but Starsky and Hutch just can't seem to make a case against him. Unbeknownst to them, Feldman has cooked up a plan to foil the DEA and is plotting the biggest and most lucrative drug deal of his career. The unlikely duo will use their canniest undercover skills, hardcore street smarts and striking good looks to solve the crime and make sure the criminal does the time.
In Starsky & Hutch, the origins of the charismatic crime-fighting duo David Starsky and Ken "Hutch" Hutchinson are explored when these undercover Bay City detectives are partnered for their very first assignment. Ben Stiller plays the tightly wound Detective David Starsky who is thrown together with Owen Wilso's easygoing Detective Ken Hutchinson on a high-stakes case. Platinum-selling rapper and actor Snoop Dogg plays their savvy street informant Huggy Bear. Vince Vaughn also joins the cast as Reese Feldman, a smooth-talking entrepreneur with an eye towards the future.
Detective David Starsky (Ben Stiller) is the most dedicated undercover cop working the mean streets of Bay City, California. Maniacally devoted to his job, when he's on duty no crime goes unpunished - and he's always on duty. And that's a good thing, because he has some metaphorically big shoes to fill: his mother was a legend on the force, one of the best cops in the history of Bay City. But while his mom stuck with the same partner throughout her entire career, due to his extremely zealous brand of police work, Starsky burns through partners faster than his beloved Gran Torino goes through spark plugs.
Detective Ken "Hutch" Hutchinson (Owen Wilson) is having career issues of his own - he's a good cop, but his hazardously laidback personality and desire for a quick buck don't always get the job done. He has excellent instincts, he just needs a little bit of focus to keep him on the admittedly less profitable side of the law. Exasperated Bay City Police Captain Dobey (Fred Williamson) has found the perfect solution for two of his biggest problems: pair up Starsky and Hutch and put them out on the streets.
As soon as the two mismatched crime fighters unhappily begin their first day on the beat as a team, a "floater" turns up on the Bay City coastline. With the help of Hutch's dynamite, street-savvy informant Huggy Bear (Snoop Dogg), the two begin to unravel the mysterious murder case. Investigating their first clue, the boys meet Staci (Carmen Electra) and Holly (Amy Smart), Bay City Cheerleaders who are more than eager to help - in any way they can.
All signs seem to point at wealthy businessman Reese Feldman (Vince Vaughn), but Starsky and Hutch just can't seem to make a case against him. Unbeknownst to them, Feldman has cooked up a plan to foil the DEA and is plotting the biggest and most lucrative drug deal of his career.
The unlikely duo will use their canniest undercover skills, hardcore street smarts and striking good looks to solve the crime and make sure the criminal does the time. Because, as David Starsky says, "In Bay City, when you cross the line, your n*ts are mine."
About the Production
From September 1975 to August 1979, Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul starred in the wildly popular buddy-cop television drama Starsky & Hutch as detectives Dave Starsky and Ken "Hutch" Hutchinson. Not only did they trounce criminals on the seamy streets of Bay City every week, more importantly, they looked good doing it. They had the clothes, they had the hair and they had the car: Starsky's beloved red and white striped Ford Gran Torino.
Starsky & Hutch presented a groundbreaking portrayal of cops they didn't always follow the rules, using unorthodox methods to solve the toughest of crimes. Perhaps most unorthodox was the detectives' association with Huggy Bear, an ultra hip, jive talking, streetwise informant played by Antonio Fargas, who walked the fine line between crooked and righteous. The relationship between the two detectives was unique in that they didn't take themselves too seriously and shared a sense of humor that was notably absent from such earlier police dramas as Dragnet and Adam-12. The fresh mix of gritty crime drama and occasional tongue-in-cheek moments propelled Starsky & Hutch to extremely high ratings over its entire run. Although it went off the air in 1979, the show still maintains a large following.
In 1998, producers Alan Riche and Tony Ludwig hit upon the idea to remake the hit cop drama as a feature film comedy. "I was a fan of the show," Riche recalls. "I thought it had heart and soul, and it was very much of the time it wasn't fluff. I always liked the relationship between Starsky and Hutch and felt that it could translate into a movie relationship. It's classic movie yin-yang: you?ve got crazy and intense Starsky and more laconic, laid back Hutch. Each has value in terms of their own persona, but put them together and one plus one equals three you really enjoy hanging out with these guys."
The producers soon found that the show's creator William Blinn held the motion picture rights. Blinn had been contacted in the past to bring the show to the big screen but had never been inclined to do it. "It wasn't until I met with Alan and Tony that it seemed to take on some reality," he says. "Their enthusiasm really turned me around." Blinn felt they had a fresh perspective and was eager to work with them.
Riche and Ludwig went into partnership with Blinn and took the project to Warner Bros. Pictures, where producer Akiva Goldsman became involved. "The funny thing about Starsky & Hutch is that like a lot of the TV shows from when I was a child, it evoked a set of memories that are different than what you might feel today if you watched the show," muses Goldsman. "Whatever Starsky & Hutch engendered in our imagination when we were kids was sufficiently delicious that you look back on it and you think, Wow, they were kind of funny and serious at the same time and they were really kind of cool.? There's a genuineness to their friendship, which we're definitely screwing around with in a good way in this movie."
When Ben Stiller heard that Warner Bros. Pictures owned the rights to the iconic TV show, he made it known that he wanted the chance to play Detective Dave Starsky, and along with his producing partner Stuart Cornfeld, quickly became a welcome addition to the project. "I used to play Starsky & Hutch when I was a kid," explains Stiller, "so I thought, why not do it as an adult? I mean, there are actually a lot of reasons why you shouldn?t do it as an adult, but I chose to ignore them and go forward with the project."
"It amazes me how much Ben is truly reminiscent of Paul Glaser," Riche marvels. "He is a very dedicated artist, and he had this amazing passion to do Starsky. So we were lucky that we got Ben, and from there found the right director and the right partner in Owen."
The filmmakers and Stiller then began their search for the right director to helm the project. In looking for someone who could mine the comedy in what was initially a straightforward cop show, Stiller looked to director Todd Phillips. Fresh off his success with the teen comedy Road Trip, Phillips was just beginning work on the midlife crisis frat boy tale Old School. Phillips had been recommended to Stiller for several films and both men jumped at the opportunity to work together.
Stiller appreciated Phillips' take on the project. "Todd looked at it as if it were the failed pilot for Starsky & Hutch, and wanted to shoot it in the way that you would have done a real TV movie in the 70s. We wanted to play it straight and just let the irony of thirty years later be what it is. This movie is referencing a show that was such a phenomenon when it was on the air, and we aren't trying to spoof it or parody it in any way. We?re not trying to say, 'hey, look how goofy the 70s were.?"
"Basically, I describe it as a romantic comedy between two straight men," quips Phillips. "It sort of follows the beats of a typical romantic comedy in that they don't really get along at first, they start to get along, they break up and then they come back together for a better union than ever. But in this case it's two straight guys going through those same beats." The producers and director then went to work with John O'Brien, a writer who had been developing material for Goldsman's Weed Road Pictures. The essential story and character beats were laid down in a draft that persuaded the studio to "greenlight" the picture.
Phillips then brought in his friend and writing partner Scot Armstrong, who had previously collaborated with the director on Road Trip and Old School. Playing off the original show's lighter moments without losing the dramatic flavor, Phillips and Armstrong were able to develop the idea into a full-fledged action comedy.
With Phillips and Stiller committed to the film, it was not long before Stiller?s friend Owen Wilson was brought onboard in the role of Detective Ken "Hutch" Hutchinson. Starsky & Hutch revolves around the close relationship between its two main characters, so the chemistry between the leads needed to be stellar. Stiller and Wilson had worked together on a number of projects: The Cable Guy, Meet The Parents, The Royal Tenenbaums and the 2001 audience favorite Zoolander, which paired the two as supermodels. Starsky & Hutch re-teams the actors for the sixth time, allowing them to combine their talents and natural chemistry to put a comedic twist on the classic show.
Stiller was extremely enthusiastic about casting Wilson. "It seemed a natural choice because we do have a friendship and the basis of Starsky and Hutch's whole relationship was that they liked and trusted each other. Now, I don't trust Owen not for a second but I do like him and I find him entertaining, so really, minus the trust thing, it's a very similar sort of relationship. And Owen's blonde, too, so that was another factor in the casting."
Producer Stuart Cornfeld explains the mechanics behind the match. "Both of them are really terrific at improvisational comedy, at picking up on what the other one is doing," Cornfeld says of the duo. "Their core creative and comedic energies are very complementary; Ben is extremely present and Owen is the other side of the coin, a little more off in his own world. It's that clash of the guy who's way too there and the guy who's not quite there that's a really good combination. They're both very smart guys and talented writers who have a tremendous amount of respect for each other."
Wilson's explanation of why he was cast exemplifies his compatibility and professional understanding with Stiller. "I think Ben had the idea that I would be good for Hutch because I have blond hair," he recounts. "I don?t think it was anything more complicated than that." Unless you count their excellent working partnership, that is. "When I?m in a scene with Ben I just get a feeling, when we're playing it back and forth, if it's working or not." The actor's comfort and familiarity with the role could also be due to the fact that Wilson watched Starsky & Hutch avidly as a kid. "It was the first show I remember being into it was that, then Magnum P.I. and then Miami Vice."
The original Starsky & Hutch put the "buddy" in the buddy cop genre that was to be emulated time and time again on both the big and small screen through the years, thanks to a relationship between the two leads that rang true with audiences. "I think that part of why the show was so big is that it was closer to reality," says Wilson. "We had some detectives from the L.A.P.D. advising on the movie, and they said that so much of police work is in the camaraderie a big part of your day is devoted to catching criminals, but another part of your day is hanging around and cracking jokes."
Stiller discusses taking the genre full circle. "The buddy cop genre is a little bit tired. But the good news is that with this movie, the buddy cop drama has taken a nap, and has woken up and feels refreshed and ready to spend the rest of the day being a good, happy, refreshed genre. For instance, we have yet to see undercover mimes at a Bat Mitzvah in a buddy cop movie."
In addition to Starsky and Hutch, the television show featured memorable regular character Huggy Bear, the savvy informant who kept the officers up on what was going down. He was very popular on the show and it was clear that the actor updating Huggy had to bring an easygoing charm and laid back sense of humor to the role. Enter platinum-selling rapper and talented actor Snoop Dogg.
"When we were younger, Huggy Bear was basically the coolest guy on TV," says Phillips. "You didn't see a lot of characters like that on television. Snoop seemed to me to be the logical choice because he is the coolest guy, so we went to him first. He brings a sense of reality to the role and I always feel like comedy plays best in reality."
"Huggy Bear is the player that keeps the streets and the police connected," says Snoop. "He's the only type of character that can venture into all kinds of worlds and come back and remain himself." Snoop sees a correlation between the process behind his onscreen work and the creation of his music. "I approach everything the same way, with a winning attitude. I come in to win, so I felt like they gave me this role because they knew that nobody else could play Huggy Bear."
"Snoop?s perfect as Huggy," says Stiller. "They never really got too much into whether or not Huggy was an actual pimp on the television show, but Snoop takes it to the next level. I think Snoop is on a one-man mission to immortalize the 70s pimp on celluloid, and he's doing an incredible job of it."
"The 70s is the era that I was brought up in, so it?s a great feeling to be able to see it brought back to life again, to be able to flash back to the 70s and add your own flavor to it," muses Snoop. "And for those who weren't around at that time, they?re gonna get a real feeling of what 70s life was all about. It was fly and it was beautiful and I'm glad that these people decided to put this movie out and connect back with it."
It was imperative that Starsky and Hutch face off against an enemy formidable enough to test the strength of their burgeoning partnership. Phillips kept true to the film?s straightforward 70s vibe when concocting his villain. "If you look at movies from the 70s, there?s always the idea of a singular villain as opposed to nowadays where there tends to be a lot of crime syndicates and computer discs and hackers and things that are just so involved you kind of lose sight of what the movie is about, which is really a character comedy."
In the case of Starsky & Hutch, this singular villain is the casually sadistic, Fu-Manchu-sporting wannabe kingpin Reese Feldman, who has hit the narcotics jackpot by developing a strain of cocaine undetectable by taste or smell. In fact, it appears to be artificial sweetener a fact that will come back to haunt coffee-swilling Starsky, but which is also responsible for an astounding moment in disco history.
Versatile actor Vince Vaughn had most recently worked with Todd Phillips on Old School. The director is one of Vaughn?s biggest fans. "As far as Vince being the villain, I always want to work with him, because to me he?s one of the best actors out there right now. He brings so much to it, so I thought, Okay, I'm going to do Starsky & Hutch. Vince can't play Huggy Bearwhere does he fit in?"
Vaughn?s decision to join the cast of Starsky & Hutch as the homicidal drug dealer/charming playboy/devoted father was an easy one, not least of all because of the opportunity it presented to work once again with Phillips. "Todd always sets up an environment where he allows you to contribute and collaborate. He listens to everyone?s ideas and you feel comfortable expressing yourself."
Reese Feldman is the stereotypical "heavy" that plagued the crime fighters on the original show, but Vaughn enjoyed fleshing out the character and giving him a little more depth. "Reese has got a big drug deal going on, a big way to make money that will set his financial future. He?s not really a full-fledged mobster. I think he is enticed by that world but he's still just playing at it. He's getting caught up in the make-believe land and really trying to play the role out."
Juliette Lewis plays Kitty, Reese's devotedly loyal if chronically naïve mistress. While the part was initially a small one, Phillips knew Lewis could take the role and run with it. "When I called her up, there was literally nothing on the page for her character," he says. "But she trusted me to say Don't worry. We'll make it bigger and really turn her into something.?"
Jason Bateman plays Reese's other devotee, right-hand-man Kevin, the science-minded lackey responsible for developing the undetectable narcotic. Bateman feels that a clear dynamic is the key to their successful partnership. "Kevin is basically Reese's bitch," explains the actor. "He yells at me, slaps me around a little bit, throws ashtrays in my face, you know. Which is O.K. because Kevin's just happy to be part of a winning team, so he tries to help out Reese wherever he can. Oftentimes he?s in the way, but he tries like hell. He?ll put on yarmulkes, whatever Reese needs."
"It?s great for the movie to have really good actors, no matter who they are," comments Stiller. "There aren't any cameos that take you out of the movie just for the sake of having people that you know in the film. They're actors who are right for their roles and they all have a certain cache that they bring with them. Jason Bateman is one of the funniest people I've ever met. He has such a cynical, acerbic sense of humor, which I really enjoy. And Juliette took a part that was literally almost nothing in the script and turned it into this funny, stand-out performance."
Amy Smart and Carmen Electra join the cast as Holly and Staci, two flirtatious Bay City cheerleaders who are attracted to detectives Starsky and Hutch. Smart was eager to re-team with her Road Trip director. "Todd is very involved and he's got a great eye. He's very good at steering people to achieve what he wants. To me, that's what makes a good director someone who knows what they want and knows how to get everybody there. It was a huge pleasure working on this movie."
Electra was equally excited about the opportunity. "This is a movie that I was honestly excited to be in. When I got the script I thought it was hilarious. Knowing that Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson were playing Starsky and Hutch, it was a no-brainer, and when I found out that Todd Phillips was directing ? I?m just a huge fan all around. It was a lot of fun. Ben and Owen are so funny, there are moments when you want to just bust out laughing, but obviously you have to hold it in."
Rounding out the cast is veteran film and television actor and former pro football player Fred "The Hammer" Williamson as Captain Dobey, the detectives' beleaguered, hot tempered boss.
A Funny Film, Period
The bulk of Starsky & Hutch was shot on location, with production moving almost every day. These circumstances offered a creative and logistical challenge for Starsky & Hutch production designer Ed Verreaux. "One of the most difficult aspects of this show was that our Bay City is more fleshed out than the Bay City of the TV show it has a level of mid-70s reality, depth and texture, and we had to create that atmosphere on every location," he comments.
Shooting a period-specific film presents its own unique obstacles to a film crew. Normally, a location shoot on a city street might involve the coordination of a few hundred extras and the orchestration of dozens of cars and busses passing by a challenge in itself. But when the film is set in 1975, those three hundred extras have to be provided with detailed wardrobe, makeup and hair that blends in with the period, and all vehicles must be appropriate to the era. On top of that, attention must be paid to signs, traffic lights and anachronistic background details such as satellite dishes that have to be removed from the frame. All the set dressing must be appropriate, including calendars, artwork, magazines and advertisements. In every respect it?s a more complicated and difficult situation to control.
"The project looks deceptively simple but it's actually one of the hardest things I?ve ever worked on," reveals Verreaux, who has previously designed such artistically demanding films as Mission to Mars, Jurassic Park III and The Scorpion King. "It wasn?t so much about the design, it was about trying to fit all of the pieces of the puzzle together. Finding those things that don't belong no touch tone phones, obviously nothing like cell phones or Evian bottles."
Authenticity was also significant to the production because the filmmakers wanted the film's humor to come from the characters, not from their over-the-top environments. Verreaux relates, "When I first met with Todd, I said that it seemed to me that my job was going to be to create this reality for you and I?m going to do it really straight. I won't try to make everything look funny. I'll just make it look like a real world as best I can, and it will be up to you and your actors to make it funny. You don?t open a funny door, you open a realistic door in a funny way."
A good example is the characters? homes. Rather than serve as jokes themselves, they are indicative of each individual's personality. "Hutch is basically a slob and Starsky is an anal retentive, compulsive guy, but they're both macho in their own way," says Verreaux. "Hutch is a cop who lives on the edge and he's not above taking a bribe and maybe pocketing some money. Starsky, on the other hand, is a second generation officer who's trying to be the best cop ever. His apartment is much cleaner and more orderly, and he has posters from Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry movies on the walls. It still has those browns and beiges' there were some pretty ugly colors that got used in the 70s and we tried to work with some of those."
It was clear to Verreaux that as a wealthy pseudo-underworld crime figure, Reese Feldman would require digs befitting his sense of his own grandeur. "He?s a smarmy yuppie, an upper middle class guy who thinks he can get away with murder. First we were talking about the idea that he lives in a brand new cookie-cutter kind of housing tract estate, but it just seemed like this guy needed to be a little bit larger. We looked in an older area of L.A. and found a house built in the 20s that really looks palatial. It helps inform us as to what Reese's lifestyle is he's supposed to be a big criminal but he?s just a cheesy guy with a lot of money."
"We were very meticulous in a lot of detail with regard to keeping the era intact," says Ludwig, "yet at the same time keeping it very organic to the piece and not making it a movie that is set in some sort of surrealistic 70s world. The movie will just look like it would have if it was made in 1975."
This ethos extended to the film?s wardrobe, as costume designer Louise Mingenbach describes. "Todd was really adamant about matching the costumes to those in the original series. A lot of our process was finding or creating replicas of what they wore."
"We dressed Owen and Ben like the original Starsky and Hutch, and they really got into it," Phillips said. "We stuck very closely to the wardrobe on the original show. We really became sticklers for details. Ben has the same rings and the same cut of the jacket, same jeans and all the same shoes that we remade. We really had fun with it."
The creation of the wardrobe may have been more fun than the wearing of it. "The outfits were definitely tight," Stiller reminisces. "In the early 60s through the 70s everything was tight. But it does give you a snug feeling of being protectedwell taken care of."
Producer Ludwig, who was connected to the television show as a literary agent in the 70s, believes they got it right. "Before we started making the movie, we did some test photos on the beach with Owen and Ben that were exact duplicates of publicity shots that David Soul and Paul Michael Glazer had done for the show in the mid-70s, and the resemblance was astounding. They carry the guns, they wear the clothes, they've got the hair there's Starsky's strident uptight intensity and that laid-back California cool that Hutch has, and yet when they do it as comedy it just blows you away."
"When you watch the original series, it didn't scream '70s,?" Mingenbach asserts. "There was a leisure suit here and there, but overall the colors were muted, and that was Todd's direction to me. It's like when you watch All the President's Men. You hardly know it?s a period film. You're not distracted."
The exception that vividly proves the rule are Snoop's costumes, which were born to distract. Mingenbach designed all of Huggy Bear's ensembles from scratch. "In the series, Huggy Bear wore a bow tie he looked like an ice cream man," she says. "We decked Snoop out completely for every scene; we made a hat, glasses, jewelry and a cane for every outfit. The canes had to be custom-made for him because he is so tall, and we tricked them out with gold or silver plating. It was just an incredible process. I had the most fun with his wardrobe."
Snoop himself was very pleased with Huggy's threads. "I wanted to bring some additive flavors to the Huggy Bear character because I felt like he was sharp on TV, but there were some elements that he was missing. So I wanted to add my flavor to it and make sure it looked all the way fly." The star was more than comfortable in his flashy apparel. "This is normal attire for me, so it?s nothing for me to flex and do what I do. It?s just like working in your regular shirt and your regular clothes."
Strikingly less natural for Snoop was the golf attire he was required to don for an undercover assignment. Undercover operations are an essential aspect of the detectives' MO, and special wardrobe had to be created for the duo, including an uncanny take on Easy Rider and, yes, to outfit them as mimes. Unfortunately for him, Huggy is called to duty as well. "Huggy's a player, so he puts on his golf suit and goes to the course and makes it happen," says Snoop. "I'm not used to wearing tight pants and argyle socks and things of that nature, you dig? But I was with making sure that everybody understands that Huggy is durable and flexible. He?s able to pull that off."
"It?s tougher to do something when you're constructing reality from the ground up," comments Cornfeld on the creation of the film's overall character. "It's a lot of responsibility and a lot of pressure because it's surprising how quickly the eye will go to a detail that's inappropriate. Making a period film is more of a challenge, but it's fun in that you actually get to go to another place while you're making it which is what compels people to make movies in the first place."
The Red Tomato
As ubiquitous on the original show as the main characters, the Torino, dubbed "The Red Tomato" on the television series, added an essential dose of authenticity to the film.
The film?s production required a total of nine Torinos to handle the chase sequences, peel-outs, and all-around snazziness called for in the script, but picture car coordinator Craig Lietzke quickly discovered that none of the original Torinos from the classic television show were available. Luckily, in 1976, Ford produced 1,000 limited edition red and white Starsky & Hutch Gran Torinos.
Lietzke and Transportation Coordinator Jonathan Rosenfeld found two companies, Premiere Studio Rentals and Cinema Vehicle Services, to customize the nine picture cars using tapes of episodes, old photos and model cars as guidelines.
Each car had its specific role while shooting. The stars of the group, used in close-ups, are the two picture-perfect suped-up "hero" cars (#1 and #2) with classic 430 horsepower 351 Windsor engines. Then there were two stunt Torinos (#3 and #4), equipped with stock 351 Cleveland engines, that handled the jumps and action-oriented sequences. Another two cars (#5 and #6) were designated "tow cars," used specifically for sequences in which it was necessary to tow the Torino alongside the camera.
Car # 7 was a custom-made "Mic-Rig" car, essentially an insert car with the body of a Torino placed on the frame. The Mic-Rig combines a tow vehicle and insert car into an apparatus that allows filmmakers to shoot fast-moving, complicated stunt driving with the actors in the car. A stunt driver piloting the Mic Rig can take corners, back up, stop and turn at full speed, making it possible to believe that Ben Stiller is actually burning rubber and driving the Torino at breakneck speeds throughout the movie.
Cars #8 and #9 were engineered for a few of the more elaborate stunts ? including a scene in which Starsky expertly pilots the Torino straight into the ocean. Launching a vehicle into the ocean requires extensive alterations to address ecological concerns. "You cannot have any type of fluids in the car," explains Premiere Studio Rentals head Mike Walsh. "So preparation consisted of completely removing the brake systems, brake fluid, the engine, transmission, radiator any type of hazardous material."
Since the tightly-wound Detective Starsky never allows anyone else behind the wheel of his precious Torino, Stiller was required to do much of the driving in the film. He worked long hours with veteran professional stunt driver Corey Eubanks and became very comfortable performing reverse 180s, peel outs and skid stops.
In developing the cars that Stiller would be driving, Walsh followed a very simple rule: "Don't make it too much of a handful. I didn't want to go overboard with the amount of horsepower."
As partner to the obsessively possessive Starsky, Wilson was onboard as passenger during almost every scene in which Stiller drove ? but he doesn't seem to have a high level of confidence in his friend's abilities. "He didn't get good at driving the Torino," the actor explains. "I'm not kidding when I say this?he loves driving the car but he is not a good driver, so it was really scary for me to have to ride shotgun."
To outfit the two main hero cars, Walsh researched and bought all N.O.S. (New Old Stock) parts, snatching up everything eBay had to offer. "Every time somebody would see my user name, they?d just quit bidding, because they knew I was going to bid all the way. I found shifters, consoles, moldings, taillights, emblems, weather stripping, you name it. Since these were the cars that were going to be shot close up, I wanted them to be perfect."
His front-to-back renovations served an important purpose beyond making the Torino cosmetically appropriate. "In our industry, a lot of the vehicles' performance has to depend on effects," Walsh relates. "I wanted the cars to do what they are supposed to do, under their own power, so my biggest decisions were in setting up the car?s performance package. And these cars did everything we wanted them to do."
Walsh soon discovered the large fan base the Torino has inspired worldwide. "I was getting e-mails from all over ? Australia, Germany, England, Japan, Ireland," he recalls. The devil is in the details to these attentive fans, and Walsh honed in on the Torino?s trademark visual components, beginning with the all-important white stripe. "I made probably ten different templates of the stripe before I liked what I saw," he recalls. "We put in more detail than you would usually do on a movie car. But, we knew these cars were a big thing."
Starsky & Hutch producer Alan Riche agrees. "The car is a star. It's one of the truly great cars. I love to listen to it when they start it up. It reminds me of growing up, listening to dual pipes the power of Detroit. It's sexy."
"I was a little worried about getting the sound just right," Walsh reports. "I went through a couple different sets of mufflers and pipes before I got the sound I wanted. In fact, when they were recording the sound for post production, I went out and drove the car and we did reverse 180s and 360s. We rented Agua Dulce Airport and the sound guys were drag racing up and down the runways."
The amount of thought, work and care that went into the cars of Starsky & Hutch reflects the essential role they played in establishing the particular brand of 1970s cool that made the show so popular, and such an icon of the decade itself. Or, as Stiller recalls, "My biggest memory of the series is just that they were two really cool guys who drove a really cool car."
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Amy Smart, Carmen Electra and Owen Wilson in Starsky & Hutch.