The Getaway (1972)

Plot of The Getaway: Doc McCoy has had his parole request rejected for the fourth time, but he gets his young wife Carol to visit parole official Jack Benyon, telling her to do what ever is necessary to get him out. Benyon requires his to mastermind a robbery of a local bank with two henchmen, Rudy and Frank. Doc is released and carries out the robbery but Frank kills a guard and is killed in turn by Rudy. Later Rudy and Doc shoot it out leaving Rudy apparently dead, but having been protected by a bullet proof vest apart from one hit in the shoulder. There are more problems, particularly when Carol kills Benyon unable to explain the fact that she has slept with him. Rudy meanwhile has taken a vet and his wife hostage so that he can have his would treated, but the wife and he end up making a couple and the vet hangs himself. Doc is identified on the news and as a result there is a shoot out in a town street, he and Carol getting away and making for the rendezvous in the Laughlin Hotel, but so are Rudy and the vet’s wife, Fran, and a posse from Benyon’s office. It will not end well.

Content: Both Carol and Fran are occasionally semi-naked and at one point Carol and Doc plunge into a river resulting in a bit of a wet tee-shirt event. Some drinking and maybe a bit of smoking. No drug taking. Scenes in the jail as Doc becomes more and more distressed by the routine. The robbery is arranged and carried out. Doc has planned everything but still the security guard dies. But they get away in a car chase. A couple of times Carol and Doc avoid the police by becoming passengers on buses. A con man manages to steal the bag containing the $500,000 from Carol but Doc gets it back, becoming identified due to the event. As a result he has to shoot his way out of trouble and he and Carol end up being trapped in a rubbish collecting wagon.

A View: The critics were not keen in this outing, describing it as a by the numbers heist film, but the general public took a different view. It had a budget of $3.3 million and returned $36.7 million, a success by any form of reckoning. Even today it rolls along. McQueen and MacGraw make an attractive couple. Indeed MacGraw was to ditch her then husband and marry McQueen. So no problem with their chemistry. And as it turns out I have become a bit of a Walter Hill fan. He is still with us, just a bit older than me. So definitely a watch if this review has tickled your fancy.

Fun Fact: Steve McQueen had the say on the final cut, so was said by Sam Peckinpah to have just chosen the Playboy pictures, the ones that made him look good..