...scores a triple play: It's a good character examination, a good relationship study, and a good action flick.
But it's Al Lettieri who practically steals the show from McQueen. Lettieri plays Rudy Butler, one of the people Beynon hires to assist Doc in the robbery. He's a treacherous devil with a mind of his own, a real creep, and tough as nails--the villain who refuses to die. You may remember Lettieri as Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo in "The Godfather." Lettieri had a great time in 1972, and it's a shame he died relatively young, just a few years after he made this movie. He was one of Hollywood's most memorable bad guys.
Anyway, the location shooting in Texas and Quincy Jones's easygoing, jazz-inflected musical score further contribute to the movie's flavor, making Peckinpah's "The Getaway" a standout treat in the genre.
Video:
On the keep case Warner Bros. label the HD-DVD video as "16x9 1.85:1." It's not. The disc preserves most of the film's original 2.35:1 Todd-AO 35 aspect ratio in dimensions that measure approximately 2.20:1 across my screen.
WB's video engineers apparently made a new, high-definition master of "The Getaway" at about the same time made a new master for McQueen's "Bullitt," with both of them looking too dark to admit as much detail as one would like. As with "Bullitt," the filmmakers shot most of "The Getaway" on location, so that may have been partly responsible for the dusky tone. Peckinpah appears to have filmed many of the indoor scenes in natural lighting, and then in outdoor shots he was plagued by a number of overcast days. Nevertheless, most of the movie comes off well enough, slightly better than "Bullitt" does. The 1080 resolution is, as usual, excellent, and when the image is good, it is very, very good, with sparkling whites and intensely deep blacks setting off the rest of the colors, and no actual transfer defects to be seen. Still, a few scenes are softer and fuzzier than others (by HD standards), and you do have to get used to the picture not being quite as brightly lit as you may like.
Audio:
The sound is Dolby Digital Plus 1.0 monaural. Right away, that may scare off a few folks. Don't let it; it's good mono. Indeed, except in a few places where it gets a little too carried away in the upper midrange, it sounds pretty decent. While the dynamic and frequency responses may seem limited by today's measure and there are no surrounds to envelop us in the proceedings, you can't really complain about the audio clarity. The DD+ reproduction is maybe a little bright, but it probably conveys the soundtrack as well as anyone has ever heard it.
Extras:
Foremost among the bonus items we find an audio commentary hosted by Nick Redmon and including analyses of the movie and the director from Peckinpah biographers and authorities Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons, and David Weddle. It can get a bit dry and overly analytical, but for the most part offers a wealth of information. After that is a new, thirty-minute featurette, "Main Title 1M1 Jerry Fielding, Sam Peckinpah and The Getaway," about the movie's score that almost was, with reminiscences about the composer and the director from his family and acquaintances. Then there is a virtual reel-one commentary by Steve McQueen, Ali MacGraw, and Sam Peckinpah; the reel-four bank robbery sequence with an alternate Jerry Fielding score; and Fielding's alternate score for the whole movie (Fielding had done the score for Peckinpah and McQueen's previous movie together, "Junior Bonner").
The bonus items wrap up with a Sam Peckinpah movie trailer gallery that includes "Ride the High Country" (1962), "The Wild Bunch" (1969), "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" (1970), "The Getaway" (1972), and "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" (1973). In addition, there are thirty-three scene selections (but no chapter insert); English, French, and Spanish spoken languages; and English, French, and Spanish subtitles, with English captions for the hearing impaired. As always, Warner Bros. also include bookmarks, a zoom-and-pan feature, an indicator of elapsed time, and an Elite Red HD case.
Parting Thoughts:
"The Getaway" scores a triple play: It's a good character examination, a good relationship study, and a good action flick. It's hard to imagine why anybody would want to watch the newer Baldwin/Basinger version when the original is so readily available, and on HD-DVD.
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[release]20392[/release]