For Ali MacGraw, love means never having to say you're sorry, even when you rob a bank, shoot bad guys, and sleep with a parole board member to spring your husband from jail.
That's some of what Carol McCoy (Ali) does for hubby Doc (Steve McQueen) in "The Getaway", Sam Peckinpah's version of the relationship drama complete with car chases, shoot-em-ups, and tearful reconciliations in junkyards. It's a surprisingly effective film that contrasts the McCoys' troubled union with a seedy, sordid world where life and love are to be had cheap, Texas is one big institutionalized prison, and the only freedom is to be found across the border in Mexico.
For people who don't know Peckinpah films, this is a good one to see either just before or after "The Wild Bunch", with which "Getaway" shares many qualities. Both start with a similar freeze-frame credit sequences, both feature bank jobs gone wrong (and preceded by town parades), both shift back and forth between pursuer and prey, and both have Mexico as a final destination. The difference is that "The Getaway," for all its gritty moments to assure us Sam hasn't gone soft, allows for a sense of hope and future missing from "The Wild Bunch".
Good things about this film include McQueen (along with "Bullitt" his most iconic part), Al Littieri as the psycho Rudy, Sally Struthers as Rudy's all-too-willing hostage Fran, real location shooting by "Wild Bunch" collaborator Lucien Ballard that sets up the film's desperate tone, and a score by Quincy Jones that isn't memorable in itself but effective in the way it sets up the picture. The harmonica work by Toots Theilemans feels in-between two of Q's better scores: "In The Heat Of The Night" and "Sanford And Son".
On the debit side is a script that feels cobbled together, Ben Johnson's too-short supporting work as the menacing shadow-figure Beynon, a plug-ugly supporting cast that makes Dub Taylor look like Rod Taylor, and some oddly flat action sequences. Others also knock MacGraw, but I won't. She adds oodles of sex appeal and plays well off McQueen in the central relationship, compensating for some lame line readings with the way her eyes light up when he punches the gas in their car.
What makes the film work best for me is that it is a Peckinpah movie that doesn't do what you expect from a Peckinpah movie. There's violence and boys-will-be-boys brutality, but the director also plays cagily against your expectations by allowing room for warmth and gentleness. McQueen's cool, but he cares. The real-life romance between McQueen and MacGraw attracted lots of filmgoers in 1972, but the film plays against the actors' hotitude by making them shy and awkward around one another, more worried about what's going on in each other's head than between the sheets.
Peckinpah even has some romantic dialogue, though not exactly Rick and Ilsa:
Him: "You don't like the way things are, I don't like the way things are. Maybe we should split up."
Her: "Well I don't want to."
Later...
Her: "I think if we ever get out of this dump, I'll just split."
Him: "We've made it together so far."
Not Hallmark Channel material, but it displays a deeper emotional investment from Peckinpah in the inner lives of his characters, one recognizable to anyone who has been through a relationship. Beyond the bullets and bloodshed, that's what "The Getaway" is about, and why it works. Love doesn't excuse you from apologizing, but it's nice to know it rewards you for trying.
That's some of what Carol McCoy (Ali) does for hubby Doc (Steve McQueen) in "The Getaway", Sam Peckinpah's version of the relationship drama complete with car chases, shoot-em-ups, and tearful reconciliations in junkyards. It's a surprisingly effective film that contrasts the McCoys' troubled union with a seedy, sordid world where life and love are to be had cheap, Texas is one big institutionalized prison, and the only freedom is to be found across the border in Mexico.
For people who don't know Peckinpah films, this is a good one to see either just before or after "The Wild Bunch", with which "Getaway" shares many qualities. Both start with a similar freeze-frame credit sequences, both feature bank jobs gone wrong (and preceded by town parades), both shift back and forth between pursuer and prey, and both have Mexico as a final destination. The difference is that "The Getaway," for all its gritty moments to assure us Sam hasn't gone soft, allows for a sense of hope and future missing from "The Wild Bunch".
Good things about this film include McQueen (along with "Bullitt" his most iconic part), Al Littieri as the psycho Rudy, Sally Struthers as Rudy's all-too-willing hostage Fran, real location shooting by "Wild Bunch" collaborator Lucien Ballard that sets up the film's desperate tone, and a score by Quincy Jones that isn't memorable in itself but effective in the way it sets up the picture. The harmonica work by Toots Theilemans feels in-between two of Q's better scores: "In The Heat Of The Night" and "Sanford And Son".
On the debit side is a script that feels cobbled together, Ben Johnson's too-short supporting work as the menacing shadow-figure Beynon, a plug-ugly supporting cast that makes Dub Taylor look like Rod Taylor, and some oddly flat action sequences. Others also knock MacGraw, but I won't. She adds oodles of sex appeal and plays well off McQueen in the central relationship, compensating for some lame line readings with the way her eyes light up when he punches the gas in their car.
What makes the film work best for me is that it is a Peckinpah movie that doesn't do what you expect from a Peckinpah movie. There's violence and boys-will-be-boys brutality, but the director also plays cagily against your expectations by allowing room for warmth and gentleness. McQueen's cool, but he cares. The real-life romance between McQueen and MacGraw attracted lots of filmgoers in 1972, but the film plays against the actors' hotitude by making them shy and awkward around one another, more worried about what's going on in each other's head than between the sheets.
Peckinpah even has some romantic dialogue, though not exactly Rick and Ilsa:
Him: "You don't like the way things are, I don't like the way things are. Maybe we should split up."
Her: "Well I don't want to."
Later...
Her: "I think if we ever get out of this dump, I'll just split."
Him: "We've made it together so far."
Not Hallmark Channel material, but it displays a deeper emotional investment from Peckinpah in the inner lives of his characters, one recognizable to anyone who has been through a relationship. Beyond the bullets and bloodshed, that's what "The Getaway" is about, and why it works. Love doesn't excuse you from apologizing, but it's nice to know it rewards you for trying.