A bank robber's wife makes a deal to have her husband released from prison.
After the rugged rodeo drama JUNIOR BONNER, the impetuous Sam Peckinpah reteamed with Steve McQueen for this down-and-dirty heist picture. McQueen stars with his soon-to-be real-life bride Ali McGraw (with whom he fell in love during the film's production) as the beautiful, but dangerous, married couple Doc and Carol McCoy. After being released from prison--for reasons Doc would rather not acknowledge--Doc shacks up in a hotel with Carol to plot a small-town bank robbery. Of course, the heist doesn't go as smoothly as planned, resulting in an action-packed journey that sends the lovers on a reckless romp through the beautiful Texas landscape.
Peckinpah's big screen adaptation of Jim Thompson's novel features the trademark qualities that helped to make him such an alternately reviled and revered figure: namely, his vision of a world in which even the good guys are bad guys. Lucien Ballard's gorgeous cinematography contrasts wonderfully with the gritty subject matter, lifting the potentially standard picture to a more artistic plateau. The chemistry between the incomparably cool McQueen and the magnetic McGraw also confirms THE GETAWAY's status as a defining film of the genre.
Theatrical release: December 13, 1972
Shot on location in various Texas locations.
Peckinpah, who died in 1984, is well known for making some of the most controversial films of the late 1960s and 1970s. However, he began putting his imprint on the film world a decade earlier as the dialogue director for many of Donald Siegel's films, the first of which was 1954's RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11. While working with Siegel, Peckinpah was a jack-of-all-trades who wrote screenplays (including 1956's INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS), and also learned to direct action films.
THE GETAWAY was remade in 1984 with husband-and-wife team Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger.
Getaway Quotes/Excerpts:
"'The Getaway' was my first attempt at satire, badly done." -- SAM PECKINPAH
Getaway Reviews:
Ranked #5 in Uncut's Best DVDs Of 2005 -- "Sam Peckinpah's most ferociously entertaining film."
-- Uncut Staff, Uncut
4 stars out of 5 -- "Peckinpah's testosterone-fueled actioner stars McQueen as an ex-con..."-- David Richardson, Ultimate DVD
Customer Getaway Reviews Customer Getaway DVD Reviews
Average Rating: (4.3 out of 5 stars)
Full blown action! We're in a tight spot now! What a great action film. Steve McQueen is tough and determined to overcome a corrupt prison official and backstabbing accomplices.
He's always in a tight spot and must consistently blast his way out of them with his trusty 12 gauge shotgun! Submitted by rockinsteady (alvin, tx, usa) Was This Review Helpful? YesNo
Original is Best I liked Getaway with Mc Queen and MacGraw because of its "down- to-earthiness"(unlike the 1994 remake)-the mixture of occasional violence(Mc Coy slapping the missus around,oops!/shotgun blazing against police property and later nasty men with stetsons and sunglasses in a hotel)and unconscious good humour(Mc Coy trusts in God on the back of dollar bills/ both Mc Coy and wife dumped literally onto a dump-a hidden message,eh?)plus other incidents(retrieving the bag of loot on the train etc).While Mc Queens performance in Getaway is not on the same level as that in Sand Pebbles and Papillon (for which he was criminally overlooked for an Oscar ), he still carries the movie with both action and words. Submitted by Dale Barakat (Ngaruawahia, New Zealand) Was This Review Helpful? YesNo 0 of 1 found this helpful.
THIS FILM GAVE ME TEENAGE WOOD Sally Struthers plays the wife of a veternarian (forget his name but he's one of the characters from Andy of Mayberry.)
The scene where the bad guy is doing the veternarians wife while he's tied up at the foot of the bed is hilarious, in a somewhat sadistic, Peckinpaw sort of way.
Submitted by rambrat (San Francisco, Ca) Was This Review Helpful? YesNo This review is for a different format.
Have you seen this movie?
Getaway DVD
Getaway DVD Features
Region [unknown] Keep Case Widescreen - 2.39 Audio: Mono 1.0 French Additional Release Material: Documentary Audio Commentary Trailers: Theatrical Trailer
Full blown action! We're in a tight spot now!
THIS FILM GAVE ME TEENAGE WOOD
Share this Product