The Getaway

Summary

Introduction by scholar Garner Simmons, author of Peckinpah: A Portrait in Montage – The Definitive Edition: 50 Years After “The Wild Bunch” from the Writer Who Knew Him Best:

With the completion of Junior Bonner, Peckinpah was looking for his next project when producer David Foster approached him to direct a Jim Thompson novel titled The Getaway.  Having originally been intended to shoot at Paramount, Steve McQueen would play the lead, Doc McCoy, an ex-con who is set up to rob a small bank in rural Texas as part of a swindle that goes bad.  Ali MacGraw, then the girlfriend of Paramount’s Robert Evans, was cast as McQueen’s wife, Carol. Ironically, Peckinpah had attempted to acquire the rights to the book a decade earlier without success. Excited by the prospect of finally getting to direct it now, Peckinpah agreed, and Foster commissioned screenwriter Walter Hill to write the script. Once again, Peckinpah cast the balance of the picture using actors he had trusted and worked with before – Ben Johnson, Bo Hopkins, Slim Pickens, Dub Taylor – as well as a number of non-actors with interesting faces whom the director felt would add a greater sense of realism to the picture. Among these were John Bryson, the award-winning Time-Life photographer and Tom Runyon, whose restaurant in the Malibu Mountains, The Old Place, was a favorite haunt of Peckinpah’s.  Al Lettieri would play McQueen’s nemesis, Rudy. Drawing on his experience working on Don Siegel’s 1954 Riot in Cell Block Eleven, Peckinpah set the opening scenes of the film in Huntsville Prison, placing McQueen among real inmates.  The bulk of the film would be a prolonged chase across Texas as the bandit couple flee both the law and the criminals they have double-crossed.  One of Peckinpah’s biggest box office successes, it helped reestablish his reputation as an action director.

Review

Steve McQueen and Sam Peckinpah had just worked together on the great family drama Junior Bonner, which unfortunately had not been a big success at the box office. When Peckinpah was given the chance to direct a film adaptation of noir legend Jim Thompson’s novel The Getaway, Sam took the opportunity to work again with McQueen. The film paired McQueen with Ali MacGraw who had made herself a household name acting opposite Ryan O’Neal in the smash hit film Love Story. MacGraw had married studio head Robert Evans and he made the mistake of giving his wife the opportunity to act opposite the recently divorced McQueen. The chemistry between the two actors proved to be too much and soon Evans found himself divorced and MacGraw and McQueen were soon married. The pairing of the two bankable stars proved to be a good formula for a box office success and the film did 36.7 million dollars off of a modest 3.3 million dollar budget. The film proved to studio heads that Peckinpah was still capable of making money with his films and it could not have happened at a better time for the director. This film made it possible for Peckinpah to secure the financing he needed for the troubled Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

As the film begins, Doc McCoy (Steve McQueen) is denied parole at his hearing. He asks that his wife Carol (Ali MacGraw) go to see Jack Binion (Ben Johnson.) She does as he asks. When Doc is released, a car pulls up to let him know that he will see Mr. Binian the day after tomorrow. She picks him up from the prison. They take a little while to get back into the grind of things because he has been in for a couple years, but  the relationship comes back together. He meets up with Jack (Ben Johnson) who got the parole board decision reversed. He has a job for Doc – a bank robbery. He also has two associates to assist him Rudy Butler and Frank Jackson (Al Lettieri and Bo Hopkins.) When they pull off the robbery, all goes according to plan until Frank kills a guard from the bank. Doc goes out the back door to Carol with the money and they head towards the meeting spot. Rudy and Frank leave the bank through the front, and Rudy kills Frank on the drive. At the meeting spot, Rudy attempts to murder Doc, but Doc wounds him. He flees with the cash and Carol and goes to visit Jack. He lays out the cash, but Jack has planned to have Carol kill him. Instead, Carol kills Jack. They find themselves on the run with the cash trying to get to Mexico before the authorities or Rudy catch up to them. Meanwhile, Rudy kidnaps a doctor and his wife Fran (Sally Struthers) to take along with him on his way towards El Paso.

When I first saw The Getaway I was a little bit underwhelmed because I think I had built the film up too much in my mind based on the pedigree of everyone involved.  Jim Thompson is one of my favorite novelists and the idea of one of my favorite directors adapting him (from a screenplay by the amazing Walter Hill) with Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw in the lead roles made me a little too excited. My initial expectations had probably been too lofty. I was happy to revisit the film with different expectations on the second viewing and I found that the film improved in my estimation a lot. This is not uncommon with Sam’s films which seem to grow better the more times they are viewed. 

The Getaway is definitely an interesting action film. Peckinpah makes the film more interesting than the standard heist and chase film by interjecting the very strange and frequently funny relationship between Rudy and Fran. The way in which they interact allows Sam to explore the theme of cockulding that crops up in some of his other films, but is treated comedically here. Al Lettieri is really entertaining in the film acting opposite Sally Struthers. If you think about the way the film turns the victim mentality on its head, which is obviously problematic, Peckinpah could have just been baiting people for the criticism that was unleashed on him with the release of Straw Dogs. For whatever reason, this is dealt with in such a darkly funny way that it did not bother me. The Getaway may be rated PG, but I would argue it is not a film for kids.

When McQueen acted in Junior Bonner he was flexing his acting chops. In The Getaway, McQueen is in full movie star mode and his performance should make fans of his acting in The Thomas Crown Affair happy. The chemistry between McGraw and McQueen is very convincing on film and watching them act with one another is a great match up. I can understand why this pairing would inspire Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin to want to recreate it when they were happily married. The performance that I most enjoyed in the film outside of them was Al Lettieri. He really chewed the scenery in the film and seemed to be having a wicked good time in his role. Ben Johnson is reliably good in the film and Slim Pickens gives a great scene stealing performance in his small but memorable role. The score by Quincy Jones somewhat controversially replaced the score that Jerry Fielding had written. This occurred on Steve McQueen’s request. The score by Quincy Jones is good and works well n the film.

Overall – The Getaway is an iconic film from the Seventies that is not my favorite Peckinpah film but it is still an enjoyable entry in the filmmaker’s canon.

Video

This transfer arrived on Blu-ray as the format was first introduced back in 2007. Apparently this film arrived on Blu-ray the same day that Bullitt received a release on Blu-ray. Warner Bros. did a pretty good job on the transfer with a VC-1 encode in an aspect ratio of 2.38:1. Lucien Ballard’s cinematography looks nice and helps bring to life the Texas scenery. Even though this transfer is older, it still looks pretty good. A 4K remaster would be welcomed, but fans will not be disappointed with how the film looks.

Audio

Warner Bros. provided a Dolby Digital Mono track that sounds okay. There were some times where I had a little trouble making out some of the dialogue and as one can expect the track is not incredibly immersive. It doesn’t sound bad by any means, but there is some room for improvement.

Supplements:

• Commentary by Biographers/Documentarians Nick Redman, Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons and David Weddle: As you have probably gathered, I love these commentary tracks. The most knowledgeable authorities on Peckinpah discuss the film and give great background information on numerous aspects of the production. Commentator Garner Simmons also wrote the introduction attached to this review!
• Main Title 1M1: Jerry Fielding, Sam Peckinpah and The Getaway – This is an interesting piece featuring interviews with Jerry Fielding’s wife and daughter, and Katy Haber.
• 1972 Reel 1 – “Virtual” Audio Commentary – Using audio from a variety of interviews with Sam Peckinpah, Steve McQueen, and Ali McGraw, this is short virtual commentary over the film’s first ten minutes.
• The Bank Robbery Sequence with Jerry Fielding Score – This shows the robbery sequence with Jerry Fielding’s original score, and with full dialogue and effects.
• Jerry Fielding Alternate Score – this isolated track features the abandoned Fielding score without sound effects or dialogue
• Peckinpah Trailer Gallery: Trailers are included for: The Wild Bunch, Ride The High Country, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, The Getaway, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
• Outtakes

Overall Scores:

Video – 4/5

Audio – 3.5/5

Supplements – 3.5/5

Overall – 4/5

The Getaway is one of the best known films made by Sam Peckinpah. While I don’t love this film as much as some of Sam’s other films, it is still a really entertaining film with some great lead performances. Like many of Sam’s films, I find myself liking the film better each time that I watch it. The iconic pairing of Ali MacGraw and Steve McQueen brings a lot of chemistry to the screen and led to the two leads being married afterward. The script by Walter Hill and Sam Peckinpah has a lot of interesting ideas and some great sequences. The Warner Bros. release, while dated somewhat, features good video and decent audio. The supplemental package is attractive. Fans of the film will surely want to add it to their collection, and we can hope that Warner will revisit the film in 4K at some point.