Classic Film Review: Sam Peckinpah's The Getaway

If you're browsing through the "classics" section of your local video store looking for an alternative to the current avalanche of cookie-cutter Hollywood schlock, don't pass by Sam Peckinpah's The Getaway, because this film has something for everyone. Those looking for a little Saturday-night excitement will enjoy the film's taut action, potboiling suspense, and unique on-location realism. More serious film buffs will regale themselves in the film's rich cinematography, its connection to literary tradition, and its contribution to film history as a stylized progenitor of a film genre that took the depiction of violence to a new and disturbingly graphic level.

The film is both a love-on-the run epic in the tradition of Badlands and Bonnie and Clyde, and an edge-of-your-seat heist story that has the viewer rooting for bad guys (there are no good guys in this one…) throughout a series of thrilling chases; shoot-outs; and complex double and triple crosses. The opening sequences are shot on location in Texas' infamous Huntsville prison where master thief Doc McCoy (Steve McQueen) has been doing time for the previous four years.

His young and exceptionally beautiful wife (Ali McGraw) cuts a deal with an unscrupulous warden/political boss (Ben Johnson) to facilitate her husband's release. In addition to McGraw providing certain favors of a personal nature to the warden, the deal commits the incarcerated Doc to robbing a local bank owned by the warden's brother upon his release. Along the way he finds out he's been duped by the warden, betrayed by his wife, and marked as a fall guy by his co-conspirators. He ends up fleeing across West Texas with the loot; trying to rebuild his relationship with his wife while lawmen, psychopathic killers, and Texas-style gangsters pursue him to a bloody showdown at the Mexican border crossing in El Paso.

Performances by all players are believable and finely delivered. A young Sally Struthers makes a good showing in her film debut as a veterinarian's wife who becomes romantically entangled with a neurotic killer (Al Lettieri) who has double-crossed Doc-only to be triple-crossed in return-and who tracks Doc across a stunningly-filmed Southwestern landscape. In real life Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw had been married less than a year when the film was shot and have no trouble bringing appropriate "sparks" in their screen portrayals of the married couple.

In one scene, a roadside argument erupts into violence, and the emotional intensity between the two comes across as chillingly real-the slaps across the face delivered by McQueen to his real-life, and screen, wife will have you wincing and wondering why she didn't call the police from the film set!

The cinematography and location shooting is dazzling. The West Texas countryside that we have seen as a backdrop for countless westerns comes alive again through Peckinpah's choice of scenes, attention to color and creative staging. The opening sequences, shot inside the walls of Huntsville prison, are haunting and unforgettable. The seemingly innocuous town of El Paso, when viewed through the lens of Peckinpah, and supported by the poignant soundtrack of Quincy Jones, takes on an air of intrigue and excitement that rivals more cinema-friendly cities like New Orleans, Paris or San Francisco. Lastly, the nail-biting excitement of chase scenes and shoot-outs, coupled with tender-but-steamy love scenes, and explorations of the dark fringes of human nature help this tale to unravel with heart-pounding intensity. You won't be stopping this movie in mid-stream to cook some popcorn.

Critics view Peckinpah's overarching contribution to film history as a more realistic depiction of violence whereby bloodless deaths as portrayed in previous decades of film gave way to more accurate presentations of gore. Steven Prince, in his book Screening Violence (2000) calls this view "wrongheaded," and counters that Peckinpah stylized the depiction of violence through the use of "aesthetic montage." The Getaway, as a logical extension of previous Peckinpah efforts (The Wild Bunch and Ride the High Country) gives strong testimony to this point. In the film Peckinpah utilizes three types of montage construction: the slow motion shot cut into the body of a normal-tempo sequence; multiple action shots; and psychological and poetic montages that give the viewer insight into the motivations of the characters. This inventive use of the camera makes The Getaway a "must see" for the serious student of art or film history.

Likewise, Jim Thompson's novel from which the screenplay is crafted provides a provocative and chilling tale that is explores some unsettling themes and reaches deep into the psyche of the characters. The script's story line is identical to that in the book, as is most of the dialogue. Thompson, whom the Washington Post describes as "the literary offspring of an ungodly union between Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Cornell Woolrich," is well regarded in literary circles, as one of the progenitors of the "psychological thriller," and The Getaway is his most accessible work of this genre.

So, when you enter the "classics" section of the video store, pass by The Godfather trilogy, the Hitchcock films, and the Biblical epics. Dig a little deeper and find The Getaway; you won't be disappointed. This one will keep you closer to the edge of your seat than any recent Hollywood blockbuster, and provide easily as much artistic stimulation and food for thought as any French film noir classic.