Friday, October 7, 2011

1972 - THE GETAWAY, slick, commercial product from Peckinpah


Steve McQueen is super cool criminal Doc McCoy who along with his wife played by super non actress Ali McGraw, rob a bank and are chased by the police and a bunch of crooks.


This is probably the most impersonal project Peckinpah ever worked on, a big empty commercial film with almost no interest.  Peckinpah made some bad films like The Killer Elite, Convoy and The Osterman Weekend but at least they had something to them.  The Getaway is just a very slick piece of junk that almost any journeyman could have made.  The slo-mo action scenes are well done as usual but add nothing to the film other than they look neat.


Sam Peckinpah was not exactly known for his enlightened approach to women in his films, but The Getaway is a low point in it's portrayal of women as either useless appendages to men or worthless little tramps.  The Sally Struthers character in particular is pretty awful to watch.  Ali McGraw is a complete failure as an actor and struggles to register any kind of emotion.


Clearly a film made to make money and help keep the star and director bankable in  Hollywood,  The Getaway is a very depressing film to watch.

122 minutes.

1 comment:

Peter L. Winkler said...

Excellent review. You summed up The Getaway perfectly.