Not in Chicago.
^This. Back in Chicago people would use them as porches.
… and apparently New York City…
OK, that’s a late feature of them. But external stairs were installed earlier.
I saw that in college and recently rewatched it now that I know San Francisco, and I went huh? I did find the route of the chase online (different one from yours.)
There was an indie film called Dumbarton Bridge after the bridge I used to commute over every weekday. That movie also had car rides jumping all over the Bay Area shot to shot. Not linking to it because not worth watching.
Building Fire Safety Sketch Fire Escapes 1912 - (ctgpublishing.com)
It’s possible that they became more common in the mid 20th century, as the first generation rusted out and were replaced. I don’t have information on that. But the drop down ladders were iconic already in the 70’s.
Per the article I linked to, external wooden fire escapes were used in New York from the 1860s. It was in 1911 that it was mandated that they be wrought iron and attached well.
The '70s were a relatively liberal era in the USSR (heavy emphasis on the “relatively”), and Eldar Ryazanov was a prolific director well known for satirizing certain elements of Soviet life. The Irony of Fate was actually based on a true story (or so I’ve been told).
Ryazanov had an office in the building where I worked back in the '90s. I would see him occasionally in the elevator going upstairs. He was fond of wearing bib overalls.
He had a stable of favorite actors he liked working with. One of them, Liya Akhedzhakova, also worked in the same building. She would act in the floor show at the annual New Year’s party playing characters like a Carol Burnett-type charwoman, and she was hilarious!
See, I wouldn’t call the 70s “mid century”; I’d call that “late century.”
It might be limited to three stories or lower, but in Chicago at least through the 1990’s and possibly to this day buildings still have wooden “fire escapes” - back stairs that functioned mainly for access, but also as an escape route and back porch. Many were actually built large enough to be function as actual porches, but they weren’t private, they all linked together via a stairway to ground level.
You can see a taller building in the background with a metal fire escaped attached to the side of the building.
When I lived in Washington DC I lived in a three-story building with back stairs like that.
A famous photo:
I’ve seen porches like this in Toronto too. Parts of Due South were filmed with such neighborhoods filling in for Chicago.
And I wouldn’t call 1912 “late century” 
As seen in films like The Crazies (original and remake), The Andromeda Strain, Outbreak, 28 Weeks Later, The Stand, and various others, was there a point where COVID-19 could have been contained by thousands of soldiers in MOPP4 gear, flamethrowers, fuel-air bombs and possibly a nuclear weapon?
Well, lung cancer is far more important than the party. 
Probably. But unless you want WW-III the same day, it’d be on the Chinese to have surrounded and destroyed Wuhan. It’d also have had to be about 3 months before anyone actually noticed something unusual was going on in Wuhan.
Lots of buildings of the same era in St. Louis are the same way. 3 story brick apartments with the wooden communal back porches/stairs. Taller structures with the exterior steel fire escape ladders are also common.
Seems to have been a standard design technique from maybe the 1880s to the 1940s.
Long time ago my folks lived in a different sate than I do. My Dad, who was 91 at the time, had gone to the Dr. for a routine appointment.
I asked how it went and he said “The Doctor said I can buy green bananas”.
… Or an enormous glass penis. Yeccch! 
I’m sure gunshots have been covered ad nauseum already, but when I see a good guy get shot in the chest in a TV show or movie, especially an older one, I pay attention to which side of the chest they got shot. If it’s the right side, they have a 99% chance of recovery. If it’s the left side, they almost certainly will only have a minute or two to gasp out goodbyes before they die.
They might be saved if they happen to store any object in their breast pocket. Like he would have been killed if that pack of gum in his pocket hadn’t stopped that 20mm armor-piercing round.
Oh, another one thanks to a reference to a cheezy action movie with some decent starpower (held back by Steven Segall):
No matter how bad-ass you think you are, unless you are a rated, certified pilot, familiar with that airframe, you are not stepping up to the flight deck to safely land a jumbo jet when the pilot & co-pilot are incapacitated.
I have a limited modicum of aeronautical knowledge and time in the right seat, and am positive that even with my limited experience, I’d only be smearing flaming wreckage of what’s left of a Cessna 152 across a runway.
Tripler
Okay, I’ll give myself a little “Cessna” credit: it’d be one hell of a bumpy landing.