The Getaway (1972) - McQueen/Peckinpah hit the bank with unrefined thriller

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A hilarious poster for Sam Peckinpah's The Getaway, which signals two immortal qualities above all else: Sex and violence

Our anti-hero robber "Doc" McCoy is let out of the can for good behavior after a stint for armed robbery. On the outside he and his lady immediately begin plotting a new robbery. - Which goes completely awry...!

 

The Getaway is written by Walter Hill (The Warriors (1979)), adapting Jim Thompson's (The Kill-Off (1957)) same-titled 1958 novel, and directed by great Californian filmmaker Sam Peckinpah (The Deadly Companions (1961)).

Steve McQueen (The Reivers (1969)) kills at random and beats love interest Ali McGraw (Players (1979)), yet this is still a classic for many people. His character isn't very charismatic or exciting, although he does have a certain sex appeal, which is probably the reason for the celebration. Besides this Peckinpah utilizes his usual stylistic effects; slow-motion shoot-ups and focus on form over substance.

The car chase in The Getaway is surprisingly short. The film is a bit overlong and disappointing.

 

Related posts:

Sam Peckinpah: The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970) - A manly respite with Robards and Peckinpah  

The Deadly Companions (1961) - Peckinpah's debut is a tough, great, suspense-filled western 

Watch a 3-minute clip from the film here

 

Cost: 3.3 mil. $

Box office: 18.9 mil. $ (North America alone)

= Huge hit (returned 5.72 times its cost domestically alone)

[The Getaway was released 16 December (Italy) and runs 122 minutes. Peter Bogdanovich was hired to direct the film, but McQueen fired him upon learning that he was more interested in comedy What's Up, Doc? (1972). Peckinpah was instead hired, fresh from his flop with McQueen, Junior Bonner (1972), as well as Paramount boss Robert Evans' wife, model-turned-actress McGraw. McQueen worked for 10 % of the gross, which accumulated to at least 1.8 mil. $. Shooting took place in Texas and Arizona from February - April 1972. McGraw and McQueen had an affair on the production, which led to McGraw leaving husband Evans and marrying McQueen. She later said she "hated" her performance in the film. Of McQueen's final-cut privilege, Peckinpah said that he was "playing it safe with these pretty-boy shots." McQueen was unhappy with Peckinpah's regular composer Jerry Fielding and instead got Quincy Jones hired to make a jazzy score, angering Peckinpah further. Sources say the film earned rentals of 18 mil. $ in North America and a 18.9 mil. $ gross domestically, becoming the year's 8th highest-grossing film in North America. The-Numbers have an unsupported claim that it made 36.7 mil. $ domestically. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe. Roger Ebert gave it a 2/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. A flop remake was made with same title by Roger Donaldson in 1994 starring Alec Baldwin and Kim Bassinger. Peckinpah returned with Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973). McQueen returned in Papillon (1973); MacGraw in Convoy (1978). The Getaway is fresh at 86 % with a 6.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Getaway?

The Great Escape (1963) - Sturges' further manly exploits in war-adventure classic

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An elaborate, dramatically drawn and painted poster for John Sturges' The Great Escape, which effectively screws up expectations

The [in fact far from] true story of the ambitious escape mission from German POW camp Stalag Luft III during WWII by mainly English and American officers.

The Great Escape is written by W.R. Burnett (Sergeants 3 (1962)) and James Clavell (Five Gates to Hell (1959)), adapting the same-titled 1950 book by a survivor of the camp, Paul Brickhill (The Dam Busters (1951)), and directed by John Sturges (The Man Who Dared (1946)).
Compared to some of the other great prison escape films, I don't count The Great Escape among the most suspenseful, and the filmmakers' multi-character approach carries a large part of the guilt for this. Even so this popular classic is ripe with beautiful images, (cinematography by Daniel L. Fapp (A New Kind of Love (1963))) and in the very manly cast especially Richard Attenborough (Secret Flight (1946)) is in top shape in it.

Related posts:

John Sturges:  The Eagle Has Landed (1976) - Sturges' enjoyable, last man's adventure
Chino/Valdez, Il Mezzosangue/Valdez the Half BreedThe Valdez Horses (1973) - Bronson is his own man only in Sturges' good spaghetti western

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 3.8-4 mil. $ (different accounts)
Box office: In excess of 11.9 mil. $
= Uncertain - but at least a box office success and more likely a big hit (returned at least 2.92 times its cost in North America alone)
[The Great Escape premiered 20 June (London) and runs 172 minutes. Brickhill played a minor part in the escape mission in the Stalag Luft III camp but lived to tell the story: 50 allied airmen were executed as punishment for the escape, which only succeeded in getting 3 free; two Norwegians and one Dutch. The book had first been adapted for TV in 1951. Many in the star-studded cast had served in the war, including Attenborough, Charles Bronson and Donald Pleasance (who actually spent a year captured in the German Stalag Luft I POW camp); James Garner (The Pink Jungle (1968)) served in the Korean War. Shooting took place from June - October 1962 in Germany. Steve McQueen (The Reivers (1969)) did his own driving in the film's famous climactic motorcycle chase, except for the jump stunt, which was performed by stuntman Bud Ekins. The film changes the actual history on several fronts, making composite characters of altered nationalities and changing many facts surrounding the escape. It was the year's 10th highest rental grossing title in North America and likely similarly popular internationally, although gross numbers are regrettably not reported online. It was nominated for an Oscar: Best Editing, lost to How the West Was Won. It was also nominated for a Golden Globe and won a National Board of Review award, among other honors. It has been re-released many times, recently a 2019 re-release in the UK grossed the film another 227k $. An unofficial TV movie sequel was made; The Great Escape II: The Untold Story (1988). IMDb's users have voted the film in at #137 on the site's Top 250, sitting between Howl's Moving Castle (2004) and All about Eve (1950). Sturges returned with The Satan Bug (1965). McQueen returned in Soldier in the Rain (1963)); Garner in The Thrill of It All (1963)); and Attenborough in The Third Secret (1964). The Great Escape is certified fresh at 94 % with an 8.27/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Great Escape?

Papillon (1973) or, Devil's Island Indeed

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The intense, beautifully painted poster for Franklin J. Schaffner's Papillon

Papillon is quite a movie.
At 151 minutes, it is an epic length prison escape movie based on the bestselling autobiography by Henri Charrière. It takes place in exotic, cruel settings and stars two of the biggest stars of its day, Steve McQueen (The Great Escape (1963)) and Dustin Hoffman (Straw Dogs (1971)). Furthermore, it's a great picture!
It is the story of 'Papillon' [French for butterfly], an - according to himself - innocent man accused of murder, who is to be punished by his motherland, France, in its penal colony on Devil's Island in French Guiana, off the North Atlantic coast of South America. Already on the strenuous boat journey there, the entrepreneurial Papillon fixes his mind on escape and makes a good ally in Louis Dega, a man very much his opposite, who is guilty of counterfeiting and has money with him.
The story then proceeds with its ups and downs for our two heroes. More intimate knowledge of their lives before their sentences isn't really necessary for the tale, which is one of survival and struggle for freedom. Also absent in Papillon: Women. Almost completely. Whether it makes the film a 'man's movie', I can't say, but I didn't miss them. - Another great epic, David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) also nearly doesn't have any women in it, (only those few lookers that the studio forced into it, as I recall.)

Steve McQueen in perhaps his career's finest performance, as Franklin J. Schaffner's Papillon

Steve McQueen is awesome in the title role, which might be his best performance period. He goes all-in in an incredibly demanding and exhausting part that includes scenes depicting the man's two years (!!!) in solitary confinement (including 6 months in total darkness), which McQueen does brilliantly. And Hoffman is perfect in the more cerebral, cautious part as Dega.
Adding to the intense inherent interest that the film has going for it is the fact that it was shot on locations in Spain, Jamaica and Hawaii. Tropical beasts, elaborate, nail-biting escapes, lunacy, executions, extreme exertion, leprosy and so much more all make the film a very rich experience.
It ends in SPOILER a legendary cliff-jumping scene, shot off the cliffs of Maui, which McQueen insisted on performing himself and later called "one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life", - the man was indeed a wildcat and a daredevil.

The details:

Papillon was - undeservedly - only nominated for one Oscar: For Jerry Goldsmith's (Gremlins (1984)) score, which is truly great; restrained, suspense-heightening, classy stuff.
He had worked twice before with Papillon's great director, Franklin J. Schaffner (Planet of the Apes (1968)), - on Apes and Patton (1970), - and that relationship would continue in Islands in the Stream (1977), The Boys From Brazil (1978) and Lionheart (1987). Schaffner also deserved a nomination, in my opinion, for Papillon is an extremely well-held suspense movie with one strong sequence followed by another followed by another. There are also a few dream/hallucination scenes, and at least one of them is very evocative and arresting visually. Only a truly great director could pull all of this off, and Schaffner was that man. 
Another really great and exciting aspect of Papillon is its gay character, played by Robert Deman (Savage Soldier (1971)), whom Papillon utilizes for an escape and brings along. It is a textured and touching role that Deman inhabits with grace and nerve.
Papillon stands as one of the greatest prison escape movies of all time, just below Escape From Alcatraz (1979).

Related review:

Franklin J. Schaffner: The Boys From Brazil (1978), The Last Nazi Command

Watch this long original trailer that includes behind-the-scenes footage

Budget: 13.5 mil. $
Box office: 53.2 mil. $
= Big hit

What do you think of Papillon?
Do you agree that this is Steve McQueen's best performance?

Bullitt (1968) - Yates and McQueen's iconic urban cop thriller

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A gun and turtleneck wearing star Steve McQueen oversees some speeding car action on this ultra-cool poster for Peter Yates' Bullitt

When the mob witness, who San Francisco detective Frank Bullitt is assigned to protect, gets killed, Bullitt is pressured from above. But soon he finds out that the deceased witness wasn't who he appeared to be.

 
Bullitt is written by Harry Kleiner (Cry Tough (1959)) and Alan Trustman (Lady Ice (1973)), adapting Mute Witness (1963) by Robert L. Fish (Always Kill a Stranger (1967)), and directed by Peter Yates (Summer Holiday (1963)).

It is a subtle cop thriller/car movie, mostly because Steve McQueen (The Great Escape (1963)) says very little in the title role.
Argentinian Lalo Schifrin (Mission: Impossible (1996)) made a characteristic, jazzy score, and the film has a car chase scene through San Francisco that is deservedly remembered and hailed as one of the best (and first long, city-spanning car chase scenes) in film history. Bullitt is chased and then chases the bad guys around in his '68 Ford Mustang GT.

There's lots of the highly cinematic Bay area in the film, which ends in the San Francisco Airport. Bullitt encompasses the bright, happening San Francisco that was, not the city that is decaying in human travesty today.
Some scenes of Bullitt appear almost hypnotizing, being so downplayed, - perhaps something to do with Yates' British heritage, - but for my money, I think the film was topped by Clint Eastwood and Don Siegel with the very similar Dirty Harry (1971) just three years later, which somehow feels a lot more like an American movie to me.

 

Related posts:

 

Peter Yates: Top 10: Best cop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

Top 10: Best car chases in movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

 

Watch the original trailer here

Cost: 4 mil. $
Box office; 42.3 mil. $ (North America only)
= Mega-hit (returned at least 10.57 times its cost)

[Bullitt was released 17 October (North America) and runs 113 minutes. McQueen was paid 1 mil. for his performance in the film. Shooting took place from February - May 1968 in California, including in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and in Chicago, Illinois. The film grossed 19 mil. $ in 1968, becoming the year's 4th highest grossing, with a reported 42.5 mil. $ domestic total gross. It is impossible to guess its total world gross, but it may well have crossed 60 mil. $. The film was nominated for 2 Oscars, winning for Best Editing. It lost Best Sound to Oliver!. It was also nominated for 5 BAFTAs. Roger Ebert gave it a 4/4 star review, translating to 2 notches over this one. Yates returned with Koroshi (1968, TV movie) and theatrically with Jack and Mary (1969). McQueen returned with The Reivers (1969). Bullitt is certified fresh at 98 % with a 7.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Bullitt?