The Getaway (1972 film)

Director Sam Peckinpah on the set of The Wild Bunch (1969)

Steve McQueen had been encouraging his publicist David Foster to enter the film industry for years, as a producer.[6] His first attempt was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), with McQueen starring alongside Paul Newman, but 20th Century Fox, particularly its president, Richard D. Zanuck, did not want Foster as part of the deal. Rather, Zanuck hired producer Paul Monash since he was the studio's profit maker, resulting in McQueen's departure from the project, which then fell apart.[7] While McQueen was making Le Mans (1971) Foster acquired the rights to Jim Thompson's crime novel The Getaway. Foster sent McQueen a copy of the book urging him to do it. The actor was looking for a "good/bad guy" role and saw these qualities in the novel's protagonist, Doc McCoy.[7]

Foster looked for a director and Peter Bogdanovich came to his attention.[8] Bogdanovich's agent, Jeff Berg, set up a special screening of his client's soon-to-be released The Last Picture Show (1971) for Foster with McQueen in attendance. They loved it and met with the director and a deal was reached.[8] However, Warner Bros. approached Bogdanovich with an offer to direct What's Up, Doc? (1972), starring Barbra Streisand, with the stipulation that he had to start right away. The director wanted to do both, but the studio refused. When McQueen heard this, he became upset and told Bogdanovich that he was going to get someone else to direct The Getaway.[9]

McQueen had recently worked with director Sam Peckinpah on Junior Bonner (1972) and enjoyed the experience,[9] but the film proved to be unsuccessful. He said: "Out of all my movies, Junior Bonner did not make one cent. In fact, it lost money."[6] McQueen recommended that Foster approach Peckinpah. Like McQueen, Peckinpah was in need of a box office hit and accepted immediately. The filmmaker had read the novel when it was originally published and had talked to Thompson about making a film adaptation when he was starting out as a director.[9]

At the time, Peckinpah wanted to make Emperor of the North Pole (1973), a story set during the Great Depression about a brakeman obsessed with keeping homeless people off his train.[10] The film's producer made a deal with Paramount Pictures' production chief Robert Evans, allowing Peckinpah to do his personal project if he first directed The Getaway. The director was soon dismissed from Emperor and told that Paramount was not making The Getaway.[10]

A conflict arose with Paramount over the film's budget.[11] Foster had thirty days to set up a new deal with another studio, or Paramount would own the exclusive rights. He was inundated with offers and accepted one from First Artists Group, because McQueen would receive no upfront salary, just ten percent of the gross receipts from the first dollar taken in on the film. This would become very profitable if the film was a box office hit.[11]

Jim Thompson was hired by Foster and McQueen to adapt his novel. He worked on the screenplay for four months, changing some of the scenes and episodes in his novel.[12] Thompson's script included the borderline surrealistic ending from his novel featuring El Rey, an imaginary Mexican town filled with criminals. McQueen objected to the depressing ending and Thompson was replaced by screenwriter Walter Hill.[12] Hill had been recommended by Polly Platt, Bogdanovich's wife, who was then still attached to direct; Platt had been impressed by Hill's work on Hickey & Boggs (1972). Hill said Bogdanovich wanted to turn the material into a more Hitchcock-type thriller, but he had only written the first twenty-five pages when McQueen fired the director. Hill finished the script in six weeks, then Peckinpah came on board.[13]

Peckinpah read Hill's draft, and the screenwriter remembered that he made few changes: "We made it non-period and added a little more action."[14] On Thompson's novel, Hill said:

I didn't think you could do Thompson's novel. I thought you had to make it more of a genre film. Thompson's novel is strange and paranoid, has this fabulous ending in an imaginary city in Mexico, criminals who bought their freedom by living in this kingdom. It's a strange book. It's written in the fifties, takes place in the fifties, but it is really a thirties story. I did not believe that if you faithfully adapted the novel the movie would get made, or that McQueen would get the part. There was a brutal nature to Doc McCoy that was in the book that I thought you weren't going to be able to go that far and get the movie made. I found myself in this strange position, trying to make it less violent.[15]

Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw

When Bogdanovich was to direct, he intended to cast Cybill Shepherd, his then girlfriend, in the role of Carol. As soon as Peckinpah came on to direct, he wanted to cast Stella Stevens with whom he had worked on The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), with Angie Dickinson and Dyan Cannon as possible alternatives. Foster suggested Ali MacGraw, a much in-demand actress after the commercial success of Love Story (1970).[14] She was married to Robert Evans, who wanted her to avoid being typecast in preppy roles, and set up a meeting for her with Foster, McQueen, and Peckinpah about the film.[16] According to Foster, she was scared of McQueen and Peckinpah because they had reputations as "wild, two-fisted, beer guzzlers".[16] McQueen and MacGraw experienced a strong instant attraction. "He was recently separated and free" she said, "and I was scared of my overwhelming attraction to him."[16]

Peckinpah originally wanted actor Jack Palance to play the role of Rudy Butler but could not afford his salary.[17] Impressed by his performance in The Panic in Needle Park (1971), Hill recommended Richard Bright.[18] Bright had worked with McQueen fourteen years before, but he did not have the threatening physique that McQueen pictured for Butler because the two men were the same height. Due to his friendship with Bright, Peckinpah cast him as the con man.[18] Al Lettieri was brought to Peckinpah's attention for the role of Butler by producer Albert S. Ruddy, who was working with the actor on The Godfather (1972). Like Peckinpah, Lettieri was a heavy drinker which caused problems while filming due to his unpredictable behavior.[17]

Principal photography on The Getaway began in Huntsville, Texas, on February 7, 1972. Peckinpah shot the opening prison scenes at the Huntsville Penitentiary, with McQueen surrounded by actual convicts.[19] Other shooting locations included Texas towns such as San Marcos,[20] San Antonio,[21] and El Paso.[22]

McQueen and MacGraw began an affair during production.[23] She would eventually leave her husband Evans and become McQueen's second wife. Foster was worried that their relationship could have a potentially negative impact on the film by causing a scandal.[24] MacGraw got her start as a model, and her inexperience as an actress was evident on the set as she struggled with the role.[25] According to Foster, the actress and Peckinpah got along well, but she was not happy with her performance: "After we had completed The Getaway and I looked at what I had done in it, I hated my own performance. I liked the picture, but I despised my own work."[22]

Peckinpah's intake of alcohol increased dramatically while making The Getaway, and he was fond of saying, "I can't direct when I'm sober."[26] He and McQueen got into occasional heated arguments during filming. The director recalled one such incident on the first day of rehearsal in San Marcos: "Steve and I had been discussing some point on which we disagreed, so he picked up this bottle of champagne and threw it at me. I saw it coming and ducked. And Steve just laughed."[27] McQueen had a knack with props, especially the weapons he used in the film. Hill remembered, "You can see Steve's military training in his films. He was so brisk and confident in the way he handled the guns."[28] It was McQueen's idea to have his character shoot and blow up a squad car in the scene where Doc holds two police officers at gunpoint.[28]

Under his contract with First Artists, McQueen had final cut privileges on The Getaway. When Peckinpah found out, he was upset. Richard Bright said that McQueen chose takes that "made him look good" and Peckinpah felt that the actor had played it safe: "He chose all these Playboy shots of himself. He's playing it safe with these pretty-boy shots."[22]

Peckinpah's longtime composer and collaborator Jerry Fielding was commissioned to score The Getaway. He had worked previously with the director on Noon Wine (1966), The Wild Bunch (1969), Straw Dogs (1970), and Junior Bonner. After the film's second preview screening, McQueen was unhappy with the music and used his clout to hire Quincy Jones to rescore the film.[22] Jones's music had a jazzier edge and featured harmonica solos by Toots Thielemans and vocals by Don Elliott, both of whom had been his associates.[29] Peckinpah was unhappy with this action and took out a full-page ad in Daily Variety on November 17, 1972, which included a letter he had written to Fielding thanking him for his work. Fielding would work with Peckinpah on two more films, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) and The Killer Elite (1975).[30] Jones was nominated for a Golden Globe award for his original score.[31]

There were two preview screenings for The Getaway: a lackluster one in San Francisco and an enthusiastic one in San Jose, California.[32] In the second week of January 1973, the film grossed an estimated $874,000 in thirty-nine locations in the United States. It also peaked on Variety's box office chart.[3] The film had grossed $18,943,592 by the end of 1973,[33] and went on to become the seventh highest-grossing film of the year. Its North American rentals for that year were $17,500,000.[34] On a production budget of $3,352,254,[2][3] the film grossed $36,734,619 in the US alone.[4]

Walter Hill later recalled:

I thought of the films I wrote, I thought it was far and away the best one, and most interesting. I thought Sam did a few things while shooting that were terrific. (...) It was not reviewed very well, but a huge hit. Biggest hit Sam ever had. (...) He would always say we did this one for the money which is one of those kind of half truths. (...) He was well paid and the movie made a lot of money and the fact it was about the only film where his points meant anything; he took a fair amount of money out, too. After all the disappointment and heartbreak of all these films he had never gotten any reward or been well paid, meant a lot to him.[15]

Warner Home Video released a two-disc DVD version of The Getaway on November 19, 1997, presented in widescreen and pan and scan. Warner released the film again on DVD as part of The Essential Steve McQueen Collection seven-disc box set on May 31, 2005, followed by an HD DVD and a Blu-ray version on February 27, 2007.[35] Special features include audio commentary by Peckinpah's biographers and documentarians Nick Redman, Garner Simmons, David Weddle, and Paul Seydor and a 12-minute "virtual" commentary by Peckinpah, McQueen and MacGraw. There is also a featurette entitled Main Title 1M1 Jerry Fielding, Sam Peckinpah & The Getaway which includes interviews with composer Jerry Fielding's wife and two daughters, and Peckinpah's assistant.[36]

• Eliot, Marc (2011). Steve McQueen: A Biography. New York: Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-84513-744-1.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Sandford, Christopher (2003). McQueen: The Biography. New York: Taylor Trade Publishing. ISBN 978-0-87833-307-3.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Simmons, Garner (1982). Peckinpah, A Portrait in Montage. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-87910-273-9.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Terrill, Marshall (1993). Steve McQueen: Portrait of an American Rebel. Plexus. ISBN 978-1-55611-414-4.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Weddle, David (1994). If They Move...Kill 'Em! The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 978-0-8021-3776-0.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)