Friday, November 8, 2024

The Getaway (The Original)

The Getaway (1972)

Runtime: 123 minutes

Directed by: Sam Peckinpah

Starring: Steve McQueen, Ali MacGraw, Ben Johnson, Sally Struthers, Al Lettieri

From: National General Pictures

RIP Quincy Jones

Throughout November I’ll be catching up and tipping my cap to several people that have passed away in the past few months. What a life Jones had. Jazz musician, arranger, conductor, producer (including Thriller), was the driving force behind We Are the World, created several film scores, was an activist, and much, much more. Several of the movies he did the music for has already been seen & reviewed by me, but this hadn’t. 

It’s a movie w/ a rocky production history, mainly due to creative differences between star Steve McQueen and several people. Peter Bogdanovich was originally going to direct but that changed and instead Sam Peckinpah earned that honor. Jerry Fielding was the first to do the score; Ol’ Steve eventually became unhappy with it so Quincy stepped in w/ his neat harmonica-based music instead. McQueen the person I’m not always certain about, although McQueen the actor I do enjoy. Then again, several other people in this production did have their flaws and I won’t damn them for that.

It's funny, you’d think I’d have watch this long ago: a movie w/ McQueen, Ben Johnson, & Al Lettieri involving both a heist & people on the run, and it has several talents behind the camera. It turned out to be a swell time. McQueen is in the slammer for armed robbery. He’s only let out on parole because Johnson is on the board and an evil SOB who wants him to rob a bank. The heist itself wasn’t the fanciest but it still got the job done. Of course, things go awry and the lead couple are on the run.

The Getaway was in fact another enjoyable 70’s action-thriller; many of those are my jam. It’s not a surprise that McQueen and Ali MacGraw would soon marry after meeting each other on set given their chemistry, although the union wouldn’t last. To me it does make a certain crude line from the Rolling Stones song Star Star funny now that I’ve seen them in a film together; that song is certainly the most vulgar the band ever did that was released on an album instead of a bootleg.

Anyhow, this Texas tale uses its setting well, whether it was the countryside, the small towns, or the big cities. The critics of the time usually didn’t like the film but since 1972 it’s found better appreciation. It was a nice way to tip my cap to the late Quincy Jones. Now, it’s a grim movie (with the expected Peckinpah violence) where the leads aren’t always sympathetic, to say the least. That’s why even if the resolution was dark, I still laughed that out of nowhere, a supporting character was CUCKOLDED by his wife. From Wikipedia, I learned that this was a detail in the original Jim Thompson novel and wasn’t invented for the screenplay by Walter Hill.

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