Sam Peckinpah, working from a script by Walter Hill (who would become a director himself), based on Jim Thompson’s novel, is in top form in the action-adventure The Getaway, starring Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw.
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Theatrical release poster
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Our Grade: B (***1/2 out of *****)
The premise–an ex-con and his wife go on the lam after a Texas bank heist–is not particularly exciting, but it’s the execution and mise-en-scene of this thriller that matter, elevating the picture way above its genre trepidations.
Denied parole after four well-behaved years, Doc McCoy (McQueen) sends his wife Carol (MacGraw) to dirty the reputation of politician Jack Benyon (Ben Johnson) in order to get him out of prison.
Carol secures Doc’s freedom on the condition that he does one more bank job for Benyon.
Doc and his accomplices, Rudy (Al Lettieri) and Jackson (Bo Hopkins), get the cash, but Doc then discovers that Rudy plans to keep it all for himself.
Rudy hijacks a veterinarian and his wife (Sally Struthers) to take him to get Doc in El Paso. Meanwhile, Doc and Carol make their own way south with the money, threatening to desert each other before reaching a reconciliation after a harrowing garbage truck episode.
All parties finally meet in El Paso for a shootout, and the happily married old-timer Cowboy (Slim Pickens) helps Doc and Carol have a future.
Peckinpah excels in staging the ultra-violence sequences, just as he did in his 1969 masterful Western, The Wild Bunch.
The narrative is familiar and contrived, and you may argue that the whole film is mechanically put together. The film’s main problem is Ali MacGraw’s poor, frozen performance (in hindsight, even she hated her work).
Moreover, considering the off-screen attraction, the lack of genuine rapport and chemistry between the two stars, even (and especially so) in their erotic encounters, is striking and not easily explainable.
Under his contract with First Artists, McQueen had final cut on The Getaway. When Peckinpah found out, he was upset, feeling that McQueen chose takes that favor his looks: “He chose all these Playboy shots of himself, playing it safe with these pretty-boy shots.”
That said, overall, The Getaway is an entertaining thriller, despite being put-together mechanically, and lacking the singular touch of Peckinpah, who always perceived himself as an artist rather than competent artisan.
MacGraw was quite popular in the early 1970s, after the unexpected commercial success of Love Story in 1970.
As is well known, McQueen and MacGraw fell in love on the set of this movie, and their scandalous affair broke up their respective marriages–and contributed to the movie’s commercial appeal.
Made on a budget of $3.3 million, The Getaway was very popular at the box-office, grossing $36.7 million, making it Peckinpah’s most commercial picture in a career full of disappointments–by his and others standards.
Remake
Stay away from the 1994 remake, poorly directed by Roger Donaldson, and starring another real-life couple at the time, Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger.
Cast:
Steve McQueen as Carter “Doc” McCoy
Ali MacGraw as Carol McCoy
Ben Johnson as Jack Beynon
Sally Struthers as Fran Clinton
Al Lettieri as Rudy Butler
Slim Pickens as Cowboy
Richard Bright as The thief
Jack Dodson as Harold Clinton
Dub Taylor as Laughlin
Bo Hopkins as Frank Jackson
Roy Jenson as Cully
John Bryson as The Accountant (Beynon’s brother)
Credits:
Warner
Directed by Sam Peckinpah
Produced by Mitchell Brower, David Foster
Screenplay by Walter Hill, based on The Getaway by Jim Thompson
Music by Quincy Jones
Cinematography Lucien Ballard
Edited by Robert L. Wolfe
Production companies: First Artists
Solar Productions” David Foster Productions, Tatiana Films
Distributed by National General Pictures
Release date: December 13, 1972
Running time: 122 minutes
Budget $3.3 million
Box office $36.7 million (US)
DVD: May 31, 2005
