April 8, 2026

McQueen & Peckinpah’s Explosive Crime Classic – The Getaway (1972)

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In this episode of the Cinematic Flashback Podcast, we take a high-speed ride through The Getaway, the gritty 1972 crime thriller directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw, alongside standout performances from Al Lettieri, Ben Johnson, Sally Struthers, and Slim Pickens.

What starts as a classic bank heist quickly spirals into a tense, character-driven story about loyalty, betrayal, and survival. As Doc McCoy and his wife Carol race across Texas toward the Mexican border, they’re pursued not just by the law—but by double-crosses, shifting alliances, and their own fractured relationship.

We break down:

Producer David Foster’s role in getting the film made and how McQueen’s final cut influenced key decisions
How The Getaway mixes a traditional heist setup with a story about a strained marriage
The contrast between Doc & Carol and Rudy & Fran, and how those relationships play off each other
Quincy Jones’s soundtrack and how it shapes the tone of the film
Peckinpah’s directing style—especially the use of slow motion—and whether it works for us
Where the film fits alongside other 1970s crime movies and why it’s still worth watching

Along the way, we explore how this film fits into the broader landscape of 1970s filmmaking—alongside directors like William Friedkin, Robert Altman, and Hal Ashby—and ask the ultimate question:

Does The Getaway still groove through the decades… or has it lost its beat?

Whether you're a longtime fan of 70s cinema, a lover of heist films, or discovering this classic for the first time, this episode dives into one of the decade’s most intense and memorable thrillers.

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WEBVTT

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Hello, doc, I'm.

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Sorry, good opinion, Tell him I'm for sale?

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Is pray?

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Do it?

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Now?

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Welcome to the Cinematic Flashback Podcast. Get ready to hop

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into the wayback machine as we journey through the wild, bold,

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and unforgettable films of the nineteen seventies. Each episode, we

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break down a classic movie or a forgotten jim, seeing

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how it performed then and now, and wrapping things up

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by asking did it group through the decades or did

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it lose its feet? I am your host, Chuck Bryant,

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and today we are reviewing Sam Peckinpau's nineteen seventy two

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film The Getaway, starring Steve McQueen and Ali McGrath, a

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film that starts off as a heist but ends up

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as marriage counseling, aiding and embetting me. Today he is

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my partner in crime, Matt Sargent. Are you ready for

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our prime wave month?

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I am, but frankly I'd rather have some good Texas barbecue,

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but maybe not ribs.

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Ay.

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Look, just don't start throwing ribs at the back of

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my head while I'm trying to drive, and We're going

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to be just fine. Okay. Back in the summer of

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twenty twenty four, when I was dreaming up a seventies

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movies podcast, The Getaway was one of the ten films

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that I had identified as wanting to cover. I had

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first read about this film in the Tarantino book Cinema Speculation.

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To be perfectly honest, if I was going to make

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a Mount Rushmore of new Hollywood film directors that we

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have covered so far to date, that Mount Rushmore would

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include Freedkin hal ashby Robert Altman, and joining that group

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has to be Sam Peckinpah and.

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The Words are one of my favorite Canadian fishing podcasts

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one hundred percent. This is another of the great things

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about doing this podcast. I had heard of this film

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and maybe seen a few scenes, but I had not

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seen it, and it was a treat. I certainly have

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heard of Peck and Pah and glancing at his filmography,

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what a powerhouse. He really was a prolific writer and director.

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I think it would be awesome if our listeners might

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post a comment on whatever platform they're using, letting us

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know what directors and actors' faces should be carved on

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their personal Mount Rushmore.

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Well, speaking of our listeners, Matt who is talking to us.

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Today today we get word from Digital time Lord giving

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us his review and also giving us five stars, and

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I quote, I'm a big fan of seventies film. This

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podcast hits the sweet spot. Looking forward to future episodes.

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Thanks Digital, I can call you Digital? Can I? Hey, kids,

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be like Digital time Lord and spread the good word

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about us in seventies movies. They are fun to discover

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or rediscover and after you're done sending out mass mailings

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to all your relatives and friends us a review. They

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really do mean the world to us, and we read

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each and every one. They mean a ton to us.

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We just really like doing it, and we like to

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see that people enjoy the podcast and then hopefully enjoy

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the films, because that's really what we're about is we're

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trying to point out some real, hopefully usually winners from

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a bygone era, the nineteen seventies.

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Yeah, as Matt just said, we enjoy reading your feedback

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and sharing them in each of our episodes. Today we

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are talking about The Getaway, But before we dive in,

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I want to start talking about Rogers and Cohen. Matt,

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have you ever heard of them before?

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I can't say that I have.

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Well, you remember how back in early Hollywood, actors and

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actresses were promoted almost exclusively by the film studio.

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Right, yeah, I sure, the golden age of Hollywood, or

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what we would call quote unquote the system, right exactly right.

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In nineteen fifty this is where Henry C. Rogers and

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Warren Owen come in. They opened a marketing and public

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relations firm, and the firm became known for representing talent

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outside of the traditional studio system. Enter David Foster. Foster

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was a graduate of US's Film School in nineteen fifty three,

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and he began a career as a publicist with Rogers

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and Cohen.

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David Foster the producer of The Getaway.

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But he wasn't a producer yet, so among his clients

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was Peter Sellers, Sonny and Cher, Shirley McLain, and Steve McQueen.

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So he was McQueen's publicist.

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And Steve McQueen thought that Foster should be a producer

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more so than a publicist, and that led him. Foster

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to become a partner with Alan Foster, Ingersoll and Weber,

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where he produced his first film, McCabe and Missus Miller

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from nineteen seventy one. Go back to our review of

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that film from season one, and you might recognize other

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films he produced, including The Thing, Short Circuit, Running Scared,

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Short Circuit Number two, and the nineteen ninety four remake

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of The Getaway starring Alec Baldwin and Kim Bassenger.

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Tie this back to The Getaway.

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Okay, So Foster has secured the rights to Jim Thompson's

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nineteen fifty eight novel and convinced McQueen to take the

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lead role of Carter Doc McCoy, who is a criminal,

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but one that you know the audience could root for.

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So with McQueen on board, they got the studio backing,

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got a director, and were ready to go. That is

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until McQueen let them go. That other director was Peter Bogdanovich.

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What did he do well?

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While they were getting ready to begin to get Away,

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Bogdanovich was approached by Warner Brothers to direct What's Up Doc?

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With Barbara streisand but there was a stipulation he needed

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to start work on that right away. Well, Peter wanted

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to do both films and that just wasn't gonna work.

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So Bogdanovitch was out and replaced with Sam Peckhampah, who

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had previously worked with McQueen on the film Junior Bonner.

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But that wasn't the only change, you see. Jim Thompson,

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the author of The Getaway, had been hired to write

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the screenplay. But there was beef once again with you

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guessed at McQueen and will exit Jim Thompson and enter

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Walter Hill. He was still writing screenplays. He would go

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on to direct films like The Warriors, Southern Comfort, Forty

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eight Hours, and many more. But I wanted to bring

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up Hill because he would go on to found Brandywine Productions.

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Brandywine would go on to produce The Alien Franchise and

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the World's Most Perfect Seful Aliens.

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According to Matt, the only.

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Thread that was still hanging out was casting the role

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of Doc's wife, Carol McCoy so Bogdanovich. He was dating

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Sybil Shepherd at the time. Maybe a romance had started

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during the filming of The Last Picture Show, and Peckinpah

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wanted to cast Stella stevens Now. I heard that name,

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and I remembered it from somewhere, and I had to

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look it up. She played the wife of Ernest Borgnine's

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character in the Poseidon venture and if she wasn't available,

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then someone like an Angie Dickinson or maybe a Diane

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Cannon could fill that role. But ultimately David Foster suggested

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Ali McGraw, who was very much in demand after the

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commercial success of Love Story, and with that they were

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ready to film The Getaway.

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Was sure you were going to end up leading us

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with a link to Star Trek.

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I have nothing on Star Trek this episode. I am sorry.

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I will just say on a personal note, I'm really

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glad they settled on Ali McGraw in this film, and

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she's absolutely stunningly beautiful and really believable as the forlorn

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or left behind wife. I mean, she does a great job,

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so I was super happy about that choice. I think

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we're ready to get into production details of the film,

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but first we need to take a quick break and

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right after that we'll roll right into the trailer. We'll

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be right back.

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As your identification. Get the guns down the street, take

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him over, I lay down the gutter. Here the gutter.

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Maybe we should split.

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Up cut up money with you? Do you mean that?

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Yeah?

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I'm beaning McQueen.

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Draw that Getaway rated, PIGI.

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Welcome back we are in our non spoiler section, so

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let's dive into the production details. The Getaway was released

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in December of nineteen seventy two and distributed by National

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General Pictures. With a running time of one hundred and

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twenty two minutes, It had a budget of around three

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million dollars and grows somewhere in the ballpark of thirty

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six million. It still holds a rating of eighty four

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percent over on Rotten Tomatoes with the critics and eighty

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one percent with the audience. It was directed by Sam

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Peck and Paw and Matt The book I mentioned earliest

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cinema Speculation features Steve McQueen and Sam Peck and Paw

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on the cover. As you may have noticed, Peck and

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Paw has a style I'm putting that in air quotes

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a style for filming violence and earned the nickname Bloody Sam.

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And that style often involves slowing down the camera and

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really focusing on the impact of violence so that it's

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in your face when you're watching that. Peckinpah was so

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embedded in the cultural zeitgeist of the seventies that his

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style was actually being satirized on Saturday Night Live Benny

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Hill and Monty Python. He made films such as The

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Wild Bunch, The Straw Dogs, and Bring Me the Head

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of Alfredo Garcia. Peckh and Pah also directed the nineteen

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seventy eight film Convoy, which might be his messiest film

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and ironically one of his biggest hits. Peckham Pah also

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had a well known reputation with well, let's just say

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for Sam it was after five o'clock somewhere. Here's what

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Sally feel had to say about Peckham.

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Pa And in seventy two, you did, Steve McQueen, Ally McGraw,

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the Getaway I did.

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Can you believe that?

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Thrilling?

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Oh my god? To work with Strother Martin and Dub

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Taylor at Sam peckinpar he was not he was God.

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He could start drinking.

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May he rest in peace, Sama monsieur. He would drink

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from seven o'clock in the morning on the set on

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by ten o'clock he was plastered. My co star Al LATERII,

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the big thug who played the gunman, he was plastered.

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They were both hired n kite. I don't mean to

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offend the viewers, but we would go to screenings at

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night after we finished filming to see the dailies of

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what we had shot a couple days before. That got

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sent to Los Angeles and the film got processed, and

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then it would get sent back down to Texas for

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Sam Peck and pot of view m and he would

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sometimes invite us. Well, he'd been drinking all day by then. Well,

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if he didn't like the way they processed the film,

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he would stand up and urinate on the screen. Oh my,

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it was fascinating, ladies and gentlemen. Fascinating.

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Generally, I'm impressed with both the amount of work he

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did in the quality and also that he really cut

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his teeth on classic westerns. You can certainly see the

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direct reflection of the Western on the Getaway, classic lines

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of Outlaw, his Lady and the posse and bad compatriots

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a little like Eastwood's The Good, Bad and the Ugly,

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or later classic western like Open Range. And I can

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certainly see that in later films. His techniques for showing

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the action, the violence action is definitely, like you said,

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kind of his signature. I will say that some of

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the action scenes in this movie were a little bit

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ridiculous in terms of, you know, the bloods look like

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red paint, and sometimes in slow motion you have to

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be really careful with the technique because you have so

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much of an opportunity to realize it's it's it's fake, right. So,

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other than that, super impressed with the whole body of

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work that Peckinpah had in terms of what I what

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I have seen, and what I looked up when I

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when we started to do this film. So that was

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quite interesting for me to get a better understanding of

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where he was coming from.

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As we discussed earlier, the movie was produced by David Foster.

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The screenplay was by Walter Hill, based on the novel

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by Jim Thompson. Now, the score for The Getaway is

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a Tale We Last told on Chinatown. Composer Jerry field

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wrote a score that ultimately was rejected. Fielding had previously

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worked with Peckham Pah on films such as The Wild

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Bunch and Straw Dogs. However, once the picture was finished,

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Steve McQueen did not like the score and rejected it. Now,

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I'm not going to go into the details of what

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he didn't like about the music. It just did not

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meet the vibe that he was looking for in this film.

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So he reached out to his friend Quincy Jones to

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write a lighter, more jazzier score. Beckham Pah protested, but

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he really couldn't do anything about that. And we're going

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to talk about that in just a few minutes. Personally,

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I am a fan of Quincy Jones, and if that

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name does not connect with you, I will start by

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saying he was an architect of modern music, with a

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career that spanned I don't know seven decades and bridge

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not only the world of jazz, pop, R and B,

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but also a film. He was the producer of to

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of the biggest musical events of the eighties, Michael Jackson's

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thriller and We Are the World. And if I was

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to ask you, Matt, to hum the theme to Sanford's Son,

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you know or you would be humming, you would be

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humming Quincy Jones. And I think that as you hear

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the music in the film, you'll hear that harmonica, which

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he featured heavily in the theme song to Sanford and Son.

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I will always remember Quincy Jones for my second year

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in college, around nineteen eighty one, when my roommate Michael

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introduced me to the album The Dude. I'm sure I

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had heard things before, as you mentioned, but this was

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the first time I associated particular music with the name.

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I enjoyed the score, but as always I leave the

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music stuff mostly to you. Now it's time to talk

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about the cast, and we need to start with the

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two stars of this film, Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw.

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McQueen plays Carter Doc McCoy, a man who is always

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thinking three moves ahead, which makes him compelling but also

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keeps him emotionally guarded for much of the film. The

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careful listener may have noticed that certain directors, writers, and

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composers were removed from this film, with a common denominator

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being Steve McQueen. The reason he had so much say

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in this film is because David Foster had made sure

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that McQueen had final cut privileges in this contract.

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What do you mean by final cut?

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Final cut basically means when the movie is finished, that

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person gets the last word on what audiences see, and

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in the case of The Getaway, it was Steve McQueen.

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It is so rare for an actor to have final cut. Now,

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normally you'll hear the production studio might have final cut,

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and you'll hear stories of like, oh, the studio took

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the film away from the director and made the cut

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and released it, and a director did not get final cut.

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That's what happened with basically mini movies. More often than not,

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you'll hear that a director has final cut, and when

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they don't have final cut, they will release the director's

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cut off his video years later.

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Years later, they'll get there, they will give the studio

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their come up and by doing the director's cut, which

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is usually quite quite good. I am interested that Steve

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McQueen had final cut on this, and I wonder if

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it's a better film because of it. I'll be honest

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with you, My overriding feeling about Steve McQueen on this

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film was he was a pain in the butt to

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work with. Oh yeah, It's like, if you crossed him,

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you were out, you lost your job, your music was replaced.

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It might not have been that the music was that

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bad or different. It might have just been that he

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wanted to give his buddy something. And I'll be honest

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with you, I hate that kind of thing. It seems

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capricious to me.

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Well, McQueen had an image, okay, yeah, and he knew

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what his image was. His image was cool. He was

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such a cool guy. And I'm saying that again with

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air quotes, because that was what he wanted to put

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forward and he was a big star at this moment.

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And you're right. Not only was McQueen challenging to work with,

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he and Peckham Pod just fought like cats and dogs

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on this film. And it just it amazes me when

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you get into the films and you're doing your research

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and you read all of the challenges that happened on

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a film. Man, it's really hard to see how this

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film actually got made.

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Didn't he start a relationship up with Ali McGraw, who

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was at the time married to somebody else?

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Dude, She was actually married to Robert Evans, Hollywood movie

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studio mogul, Robert Evans, who actually wanted her to be

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in this film so that she could she would not

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be typecast as the character from.

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A love story, right.

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Beck and Pop also has a reputae for how he

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handles female actors in a movie. There's actually a book

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written about Sam Peckhampah and the female characters in his westerns. Okay,

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so it's it's a thing. But in this film, with

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this character of Carol McCoy. She has so much agency

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inside this film. Oh yeah, she's controlling her own destiny.

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She makes her own decisions based on how she will

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accomplish the goals of what both her and Doc are

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ultimately trying to do. So I think she was great.

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Now Ultimately she divorced Robert Epens and married Steve McQueen

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and was never heard from again. No, she was in convoy.

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But you know, McGraw was the reason why Roy Scheider

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got the role in Freaking's Sorcerer. Steve McQueen was originally

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cast to play Roy scheider character of Jackie Scanlon, but

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McQueen did not want to go off to the Jungles

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for months on end to film without his wife Ally McGraw,

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and so he wanted Freaking to create a role for her,

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and Freaking said no, and McQueen said, well, I am

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not doing your film. He pulled out, which actually caused

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a couple of the other casted actors to pull out

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as well. But the best part of that was that

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we got Roy Scheider in that role. And I'm telling

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you Roy Scheider was the better choice.

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Yeah, yeah, I would agree. I would agree. You know,

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it's an interesting story. I do. I jest about never

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hearing from Ali McGraw again, but when you see her

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performance in this film and then you realize after that

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she's really I don't think had a ton of roles. Clearly,

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there was probably something some part of the system putting

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the thumb on her career to some extent, even though

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she was married to Steve McQueen, which would have opened

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a lot of doors for you, you know, ultimate Lee Stephen

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Queen passes away, So yeah, I don't know if they

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were even together at that point. Let's move on to

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some other characters. Ben Johnson is Jack. Benyon Johnson makes

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corruption look disturbingly polite as.

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He's eating his lunch on the little boat going down

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the riverwalk in San Antonio, Texas.

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Hilarious. I saw that. I've been on that riverwalk. It's

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the funniest part about it is there's like, if you

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looked at the thing, there's a motor, and then there's

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a couple of people pedaling that thing as well. It

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was hilarious.

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Well you had them, well you had the motor, and

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then you had the introduction of Rudy and Jack and

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they're they're paddling on these like little paddle bikes. Not

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a pedal boat, but a paddle bike. It looked it

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was odd, but anyway.

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I think it was the thing. I bet you they

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put a motor on there, because if I remember, the

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riverwalk is very limited and and everything was on it

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was like they were like push things. There was no motors.

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So my guess is that the production probably threw a

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motor on this thing so they could actually get it

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to move, but typically it was moved by the people pedaling. Okay,

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So he plays a crooked parole board member who works

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out a deal with Carol to get Doc released from prison.

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He also sets up this bank robbery. He previously worked

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with Peckmpah in The Wild Bunch. Ben Johnson won a

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Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Sam the Lion

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in nineteen seventy one's The Last Picture Show.

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Have you seen The Last Picture Show?

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I have not.

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I watched this recently and it's one of those films

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that it's I don't want to say it's a lot

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about nothing, but it has really great performances in it.

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What I wanted to point out about The Last Picture

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Show was the character of Sam the Lion is the

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exact polar opposite of Ben Johnson. Yeah, and I had

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a tough time reconciling that this was the exact same

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actor between the two.

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That means he was a good actor.

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And he's also another one. If you look up his IMDb,

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he has a list a mile long of roles that

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he had played in prior to his passage.

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So, yeah, he was good. He was good. I did

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like him in this.

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The next actor that I wanted to mention was Al Lettieri,

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who played Rudy Butler. He was one of the henchmen

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that's hired by Benyon to rop the bank. Every time

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I think Rudy is on the screen, it's like the

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tension starts to spike up. While researching this, I realized

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that Latiri was actually in one of the biggest films

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of nineteen seventy two, The Godfather. He plays Salatso and

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