Last week on Fast Film Friday we reviewed ‘Le Mans‘ starring Steve McQueen; the ‘King of Cool’ and paternal grandfather of Lightning McQueen. This week, another McQueen film of the same era. Director Sam Peckinpah’s 1971 movie ‘The Getaway‘.
This movie totally fits with McQueen’s anti-hero, tough guy persona. And hey…this is the guy from ‘Bullitt‘ so you know he’ll be driving like a madman through downtown streets with a ball of flames behind him.
Written by by Walter Hill, who would direct ‘The Driver‘ six years later, ‘The Getaway‘ is a crime thriller / romance. McQueen plays Doc McCoy; a convict in a Texas prison who gets paroled early, so long as he pulls off a bank heist for the corrupt prison warden played by Ben Johnson (not the sprinter from the 1988 Olympics). Waiting for Doc on the ‘outside’ is his long-suffering wife Carol McCoy (played by Ally MacGraw). What Doc doesn’t know is that his wife slept with the warden to get Doc sprung from the clink. Oh no!
Doc McCoy plans the perfect bank robbery, but his partners double-cross him, and Doc has to dole out some 12-gauge justice and take the loot for himself. All this happens in the first 20 minutes and establishes why our hero and heroine are trying to getaway to Mexico. The next hour is non stop car chases, crashes and explosions. McQueen’s cars are absolute tanks compared to modern automobiles. He drives a pale blue 1963 Ford Galaxie 500, a white 1968 Ford Country Squire station wagon (with wood paneling) and later a 1968 Mercury Monterey. These full-frame, rear-wheel-drive, V8-powered cars are monsters; McQueen even crashes one into a house then just turns the ignition key and motors away.
The bad guys drive a comically huge 1972 Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado. Despite the car being only a 2-door convertible, six cowboys drive around in it pursuing our hero…in Cadillac comfort. But they do need to hold onto their Stetsons when the top is down.
This movie has it all; violence, explosions, shotguns and everything great about 70’s action movies. But it also has sexism and misogyny, which brings this twisted love story down a notch. There’s quite a disturbing scene when Doc argues with his wife and he just slaps his woman mercilessly right on the side of the highway in broad daylight. Gosh, the bad old days were really bad.
Great car flick and a good action movie if you just keep in mind that this was a product of its time, and may not hold up when judged by today’s standards. But just remember that the moral of the story is, If you’re on the run to Mexico with a bag full of stolen loot, make sure to drive a full-size American car.
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“But just remember that the moral of the story is, If you’re on the run to Mexico with a bag full of stolen loot, make sure to drive a full-size American car.”
You didn’t say who was driving that superbad station wagon but that’d be my choice for bookin’ it away from the feds, or the mexicans.
That’s the thing about a white station wagon with wood panelling; so vanilla, it flies under the radar. No way the cops at the roadblock will ever think such a suburban-looking couple could be bank robbers!