THE GETAWAY

US, 1972, 126 minutes, Colour.
Steve McQueen?, Ali McGraw?, Ben Johnson, Al Lettieri, Sally Struthers, Slim Pickens.
Directed by Sam Peckinpah.

The Getaway is another film in Sam Peckinpah's prolific output of the early 70’s. He has been hailed as a prime exponent of the violent western which criticises the myths of the western past and by implication the society that inherits that past as well as prolonging it uncritically today.

Major Dundee, Ride the High Country, The Wild Bunch, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, and Pat Garret and Billy the Kid are his major westerns and comprise a formidable array of insights into the west. Junior Bonner and The Getaway are modern westerns - the rodeo, cowboy life and the violence of a hundred years ago still alive today. Straw Dogs is about an American outside how own violent society confronting this again in his refuge in England. Peckinpah's work has to be considered as an important and influential group of films. The Getaway is a complex part of this work. It shows robbery, murder and violence vividly and then lets the protagonists get away with it. Why?

The screenwriter is Walter Hill who seems fascinated by the escape of those who are violent - his two 1972 screenplays - The Thief Who Came to Dinner and The Mackintosh Man - illustrate this. The Getaway is not necessarily a likeable film, but it is intriguing.

1. Was this a successful and enjoyable crime film?

2. Sam Peckinpah generally makes westerns - was this really a western, set in Texas but in 1970 not 1870? Is the parallel between nineteenth century western and this kind of twentieth century western worth pursuing?

3. Was the violence in this film typical of the U.S.A. in the seventies? Mere the characters in this film of the twentieth century?

4. Where did audience sympathies lie?

5. Were Doc and Carol McCoy? presented as heroes in this film? Should audiences ever identify with criminals as heroes?

6. Comment on the mood of the opening sequences during the credits; the shot of the deer and then the prison life and freedom.

7. Was Doc McCoy? a well-rounded figure in this film - in prison, thinking of Carol, his appearance before the parole board, his work and exercise in prison, his relationship with Jack Beynon, his clashes with and taunts of the warders? Why did Doc go back to crime when he left prison?

8. Carol McCoy? - as a person, as Doc's wife, her relationship with Beynon, her criminal activities? Mas Carol a criminal in her own right or only because of Doc?

9. The robbery - the nature of its planning and execution, its realism, danger, the policeman's reaction, the terror of the people?

10. The robbery and things going wrong - the shooting, risk of violence and death?

11. The elaborate filming of the escape? The plan and its execution? The extravagance of the explosions to distract the police. Is this grand planning of robberies with such consequences also of a criminal nature? Does the film imply this?

12. Rudy - as a character, as a criminal? The shootout with Doc - the comment on the morality of each of them?

13. Jack Beynon - the uncovering of his plan to get money out of the bank and the use of Doc and Carol as a cover. Beynon as a person, as a rich citizen with political influence? His relationship with Carol when Doc was in prison? The choice that Carol made to shoot Doc or Beynon. Why did she shoot Beynon? Were you disgusted with this?

14. Rudy and his relentless pursuit of the money. Rudy and his menacing of Fran and Harold? The reaction of Fran and Harold - fear, fascination, sexual? How did the film make visual moral comment on the relationship between Rudy and Fran? The contrast between Rudy and Harold? The impact of the sequences in the car when they were pursuing Doc and Carol? The tying up of Harold and his humiliation? The moral comment implied in Harold hanging himself? The indifferent reaction of Fran?

15. Did the audience understand Doc and Carol better during the pursuit? The car, suspense at the station, the children on the train - the shootings and recognition of Doc, the fact that he was recognised and pursued by the children?

16. The shooting in the town and driving back in the bus? How well was this done? Were you glad that they were getting away?

17. The work of the police in the pursuit of the criminals? The prompt notification of television and radio people that they were trying to make a getaway?

18. Doc and Carol in the garbage - symbolism? Moral comment?

19. The symbolism of the seedy hotel where the final shootout came? The proprietor, his fear and betrayal?

20. The impact of the final shootout - Fran's fear, death of Rudy, death of the Beynon gang? Where did your sympathies lie at this stage - did you want Doc and Carol to get away?


21. How did you feel at the final getaway - were you glad that they escaped to Mexico?

22. The old man with the truck - his attitude to criminals, to the police, his acceptance of their money? The moral comment there?

23. What future did Doc and Carol have together?

24. What contribution to our understanding of the American way of life did this film give, e.g. Texas, the violent traditions of the west, and continuation of these traditions into the present?