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  • Widescreen 2.35:1
  • 16:9 Enhanced
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The Getaway

Warner Bros./Warner Bros. . R4 . COLOR . 118 mins . M . PAL

  Feature
Contract

While Peckinpah's The Getaway ranks a few notches below The Wild Bunch and Straw Dogs, it delivers enough action set-pieces, flakey characters and cinematic style to keep viewers thoroughly engaged.

One-time husband and wife duo Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw star as fugitives running from a bank robbery sanctioned by corrupt prison officials. Their trip south to impunity in Mexico is marred not only by skirmishes with The Law, but also by emotional tensions between the two lovers.

As in all of Sam Peckinpah's important works, characterisation in The Getaway shares equal time with story and mood setting, which creates lengthy hot and cold threads in the film. Rest assured however that Peckinpah delivers some fine moments of shotgun mayhem, not to mention several classic suspense scenes, such as the bank robbery and bag-snatching sequences. What The Getaway lacks in explosive destruction and death-toll statistics, compared to contemporary examples of the action genre, it more than makes up for with portrayals of real people struggling to overcome realistic obstacles. The fact that this 1972 production has dated is surely a recommendation.

  Video
Contract

Presented in anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen, this PAL DVD release is a pleasure to watch, especially considering the film's vintage. As with all of my PAL DVDs, I had to boost the colour and brightness beyond normal settings, but the end result was smooth, crisp and rock solid. A few stand-out moments include the breakfast scene -- check out the stove shot and McQueen's light blue robe -- and the river cruise lunch date, which features a piercing red boat and interesting compositions.

Dot-crawl, either from the original elements or from the MPEG-2 compression, is almost non-existant. White speckles on the source material often prick the image, but they are not distracting. And as mentioned above, darker scenes such as those in the prison benefit from extra brightness, but these are minor quibbles. Even though I have not seen it, I'd guess that the NTSC version looks the same, without that distinctive, soft yet high-res PAL look. (I associate the NTSC 'look' with acrylic paintings and PAL with oil paintings.)

  Audio
Contract

Background hiss is audible throughout the DD mono track and naturally becomes more noticable during quiet scenes, for example after arriving home from the celebratory swim. Having said that, the dialogue, effects and music are strong and largely distortion-free, if a bit brassy...although I cannot imagine hearing the antiquated Quincey Jones score any other way!

  Extras
Contract

The usual suspects: Cast Notes, Production Info, Reel Recommendations, etc. No trailer.

  Overall  
Contract

Fans of the late, great Sam Peckinpah -- who appears briefly in Republic's Invasion of the Body Snatchers DVD -- have probably snapped up this Warner title already. For others, I recommend borrowing or renting first. The picture quality, with colours looking perhaps intentionally faded due to the locations and print stock, is better than expected, while the monaural sound is merely as you would expect. The lack of extras notwithstanding, this is a good DVD, largely due to its Peckinpah pedigree.


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    • DVD Player:
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    • Speakers:
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    • Audio Cables:
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    • Video Cables:
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