Customer Reviews
DVD's According To Me 
2007-08-23
To me this DVD - The Getaway is a classic. It is still a powerful movie, even by today's standards. McQueen and McGraw together were a new breed of Bonnie and Clyde.
Scenes From A Marriage 2007-08-09
This 1972 movie directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Steve McQueen as Doc McCoy and Ali MacGraw as his wife Carol deserves to be seen again and certainly is worth the viewer's time. Based on a novel by Jim Thompson "The Getaway" essentially is the tale of a recently-sprung convict who must perform a bank robbery to pay back a character named Beynon who has pulled strings to spring him. Everything that can go wrong does go wrong in this perfect robbery so we have this genre film that never slows up.
The film, however, is also about a marriage, its ups and downs, what can go wrong, how a cuckolded husband handles his wife's infidelity. etc. Certainly the best thing in the movie is McQueen's usual understated performance. While he is not Marlon Brando, he doesn't have to be. A man of few words, he acts with both his face and body. Initially I thought Ali MacGraw (of "Love Story" fame) was going to be only mildly pretty with a great mane of hair, but she does rise to the occasion and is quite good as the wife who makes the sacrifice of adultery to get her husband out of jail. The scenes between this couple work and sometimes sizzle; the fact that they were having some kind of an affair off-screen during the filming of "The Getaway" probably didn't hurt either. (MacGraw left her husband Robert Evans and married McQueen soon after the completion of the movie.) Sally Struthers has a strange role (the Patricia Hurst syndrome?) as a women who is kidnapped, along with her husband, by one of McCoy's cohorts who double-crosses him and is left for dead by McCoy and his wife. It is never clear whether or not she is brainwashed by her captor although she appears to like her new position in life a lot more than her dire circumstances call for. Then there is the obligatory car chase scene, not as good as the one in "Bullitt" but exciting just the same.
As we would expect from the director of "Straw Dogs" "The Getaway" has enough violence for the most bloodthirsty viewer. This is, after all, a film about a bank robbery. On the other hand, McCoy appears to be a decent man if only left alone, if you disregard his profession. He only kills when absolutely necessary.
The opening scenes from the film that show the frustration and pent-up emotions of prisoners are extremely well done and probably had an influence years later on the makers of the extraordinary prison series "Oz." Finally, the ending of "Getaway" was something totally new for this kind of movie.
The DVD edition has commentary by Peckinpah, McQueen and MacGraw that is worth watching.
Looks much better than the original... still 2007-06-21
This version looks much better than the original DVD. However, it shows it is an old movie and this has much more to do with the original equipment and filming techniques than with digital format. If you are a Steve McQueen fan as I am, do not hesitate. Buy it. If you're not, stick with the old standard or special edition versions.
COOL 2007-06-14
Steve McQueen is the epitomy of cool and this movie proves it.
Getting away with it 2007-05-06
One of the many things that gives 1972's The Getaway the edge over its now almost-forgotten remake is that, unlike Alec Baldwin, Steve McQueen doesn't act like a movie star - he is a movie star. From the days when cool was what you were, not what you wore or owned, the plot itself is nothing special: Steve McQueen's bank robber is sprung from jail to pull a job with wife Ali MacGraw and has to hightail it to Mexico with both the relentless double-crossing Al Lettieri and numerous Texas mobsters in hot pursuit. Like most chase thrillers, you've seen it before: it's what Peckinpah does with it that counts, and Peckinpah does plenty. Most of Peckinpah's usual trademarks can be found in the margins, from children's fascination with violence to the Hellfire and brimstone preacher whose radio sermon goes unheard, and the action scenes are superbly staged - especially the hotel shootout and the lovingly filmed shooting up of a police car - but just as importantly he keeps a clear focus on his characters. The film's emotional terrain is as harsh as the barren landscape the ensuing chase is set against, with the odds on McQueen and MacGraw's marriage making it just as touch-and-go as whether they will make it across the border in one piece, their road to possible marital redemption through ordeal mirrored with the fast-track to Hell that hostage couple Sally Struthers and Jack Dodson take chauffeuring Lettieri's perverse wounded animal on their trail.
It's probably Sam Peckinpah's last truly successful film before self-indulgence, laziness and too much booze and drugs took their toll on his work. True, it's a purely commercial piece that has none of the personal passion that drove The Wild Bunch or The Ballad of Cable Hogue, but it's put together with a level of genuine artistry that's way above the norm for the genre: the editing of the first twenty minutes alone, with its freeze-frames and non-linear structure, is remarkably adventurous and successful. Both perfectly representing the state of mind and frustration and disorientation of McQueen's character in a way that is both complex and yet entirely accessible and transforming what could have been bog-standard exposition into something much more memorable, it's strikingly effective. Far more entertaning than it has any right to be.
(On an incidental note, although Walter Hill claimed that little of his screenplay made it to the screen (the bleak ending of Jim Thompson's novel is replaced by a much sweeter and more optimistic one), it's interesting to note how much of the film he would rework in his own The Driver, from the destruction of a car in a key setpiece to the train sequence with a very (un)lucky bagman.)
Warners' 2.35:1 widescreen DVD is a good transfer, with a brief 'virtual commentary' by Peckinpah and the two stars drawn from radio interviews, a full-length commentary byPeckinpah biographers and the film's strikingly awful original theatrical trailer.
the Getaway 2008-03-15
I always thought this was one of Steve McQueen"s best films and is far better than the remake made later on!Ali Macgraw also gave a fine performance!Sam Peckinpah did a great job directing!
One of the worst movies I have ever seen. Bad tv movie. 
2008-01-01
If you have never seen this movie than don't waste your time. It might have been good in the 70's, but it doesn't hold up over time. This reminds me of a terrible made for TV movie. It's no cool hand Luke.
HD Review. 2007-12-28
The Standard Disc Special Edition is just as good as the HD version of this movie.
The Getaway 2007-12-23
Seems to be o.k . Christmas gift so it has not been opened. Shipped in a timely manner
Endlessly watchable 
2007-09-18
Why? Because its directed by Sam Peckinpah and has a first-rate cast.
Of course Steve McQueen is magnetic in every scene he's in, Ali McGraw is pretty good as well, but the scary Al Lettiri almost steals the film from under their noses as Rudy Butler. You wouldn't want to mix it with this guy.
Its basically a simple heist movie with a few minor variations. Naturally as its Peckinpah there are some superb set pieces that you won't forget quickly.
The extras on this version are an audio commentary from DVD producer Nick Redman and authors Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons and David Weddle. Also a 'Virtual' audio commentary with stills of Steve McQueen, Ali MacGraw and Sam Peckinpah. These are all OK and in some places quite interesting, but the film is the main reason to get this DVD.
