Cold Flash

By J.C.

Cold Fish

THE GETAWAY

Directed by SAM PECKINPAH Screenplay by WALTER HILL

If The Getaway had just rolled off the studio assembly line, the work of a competent craftsman, it could pretty easily have been passed over and forgotten. It is, however, the work of a major American film artist. Sam Peckinpah's 1969 western, The Wild Bunch, looks even at this distance like a great film, and his other movies, from 1961's Ride the High Country to last year's Straw Dogs, form a body of work as substantial as any other contemporary film maker's. Such a director is owed more than a measure of indulgence and loyalty. But in The Getaway, Peckinpah is pushing his privileges too far.

The Getaway is basically a streamlined heist-and-chase movie, but Peckinpah keeps stumbling over his subplots. Moreover, his two stars, Steve McQueen and All MacGraw, are unregenerately narcissistic. They appear as a husband and wife, professional thieves, who knock over a small-town Texas bank and spend the rest of the time speeding across the state to Mexico, pursued by the cops and crews of greedy confederates.

It has lately become Peckinpah's ironic pleasure to refer to himself in interviews as a "whore," and, appropriately, The Getaway works on that same kind of disinterested, mechanical level. There are a great many scenes of action and bloodletting, professionally handled and exciting. But the viewer is always aware that he is being manipulated very coolly and cynically.

The Peckinpah Traveling Repertory is on hand: Ben Johnson, Bo Hopkins, Dub Taylor, Slim Pickens. As usual, their small parts are all nicely etched, and there is a superb bit of character work by Richard Bright as a cheap thief who swipes a suitcase full of loot from Ali MacGraw. Al Lettieri, as a hamhanded, slow-talking killer, and Sally Struthers, as a giggly little moll, both overact, in contrast to McQueen and MacGraw, who do not act at all.

McQueen is primarily a deep-frozen presence, although he handles a variety of guns with impressive familiarity. As a screen personality, MacGraw is abrasive. As a talent, she is embarrassing. Supposedly a scruffy Texas tart. MacGraw appears with a complete designer wardrobe and a set of Seven Sister mannerisms.

Peckinpah seems perfectly aware of all this, but instead of trying to do some thing about it, he puts her down -- lit erally. She and McQueen stow away in a garbage truck and come spilling out in a gush of trash onto the town dump. Peckinpah's chuckling is almost audible.

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