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The Getaway
A recently released ex-convict and his loyal wife go on the run after a heist goes wrong.
1972 · Directed by Sam Peckinpah · 123 min · Action · Crime · Drama · Thriller · Screenplay in the scene database · 10 frames
Tagline
It takes two to make it … The big two.
Plot
Four years into his 10-year-sentence for armed robbery, Carter "Doc" McCoy is denied parole from a Texas prison. When his wife Carol visits him, he tells her to make a deal to free him with Jack Beynon, a parole board member and corrupt businessman in San Antonio. Beynon facilitates Doc's parole on the condition that he plan and take part in a bank robbery with two henchmen, Rudy Butler and Frank Jackson. The robbery initially goes as planned, until Frank kills a security guard. Rudy then kills Frank in their car. At the designated meeting place, an old farmyard, Rudy tries to shoot Doc, but Doc anticipates Rudy's double-cross and shoots Rudy several times. Doc and Carol take the $500,000 and flee. Rudy, having secretly worn a bulletproof vest, is only wounded in the shoulder.
When Doc meets with Beynon at his ranch, Carol sneaks in to kill Doc, as per a double-cross Beynon arranged with her. However, Carol draws her gun on Beynon and kills him instead. Doc, having just been taunted by Beynon before Carol shot him, realizes that Carol had sex with Beynon to secure his parole. He angrily gathers the money and, after a bitter quarrel, the couple heads for the Mexican border at El Paso.
Rudy manages to collect himself and drive to the home of rural veterinarian Harold Clinton, who treats his injuries. Rudy kidnaps the doctor and his wife Fran to pursue Doc and Carol. Beynon's brother and his team also track down the McCoys. At a train station, a con man swaps locker keys with Carol and steals their bag of money. Doc follows him onto a train and forcibly takes it back, although the thief has already pocketed a packet of the money. The injured thief and a train passenger—a boy Doc had rebuked for squirting him with a water gun—are taken to the police station, where they identify Doc's mug shot.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: Walter Hill
- Cinematography: Lucien Ballard
- Edited by: Robert L. Wolfe
- Music: Quincy Jones
- Produced by: David Foster, Mitchell Brower
Cast
- Steve McQueen as Carter "Doc" McCoy
- Ali MacGraw as Carol McCoy
- Ben Johnson as Jack Beynon
- Sally Struthers as Fran Clinton
- Al Lettieri as Rudy Butler
- Slim Pickens as Cowboy
- Richard Bright as The Thief
- Jack Dodson as Harold Clinton
- Dub Taylor as Laughlin
- Bo Hopkins as Frank Jackson
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English, Spanish
- Studios: Foster-Brower Productions, First Artists, Solar Productions, National General Pictures
- Budget: $3,352,254
- Box office: $36,734,619
- Themes: robbery, based on novel or book, texas, heist, con artist, murder, organized crime, on the run, bag of money, gunfight
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