tellurikwaves blog : , CINEMA :Les blessures narcissiques d'une vie par procuration (75 Paris)

The orange Volkswagen Beetle that Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw pass as they flee town after the bank heist is driven by James Garner. Garner had been visiting a friend on the shoot and was hired for his vehicular skills by stunt coordinator Carey Loftin.

In the scene where Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw are standing outside the car and McQueen suddenly slaps her, the slap was unscripted, as can be seen by McGraw's shocked reaction.

According to "The Garner Files", Luis Delgado was working as Steve McQueen's stand-in. Luis' wife bought him a custom van, built by Tony Nancy, for his birthday. James Garner volunteered to drive the van from Los Angeles to San Antonio to surprise Luis. While on the set of The Getaway, Jim drove an orange VW Beetle in the robbery scene. When Jim asked the director, Sam Peckinpah, to be paid for the car stunt, Sam asked "How much do you want?". Jim said "Just give me what you think it's worth." Sam reached in his pocket pulled out $1. Jim later said he had so much fun doing the stunt, he would have paid Sam.

The film was rated PG by the MPAA in the United States. A few years later, in retrospect, this was considered a mistake and the board believed that the film should have been rated (what was then) one step higher, an R.

Shot almost entirely in sequence.

Steve McQueen's semi-automatic handgun is a Colt M1911A1.

The movie was supposed be directed by Peter Bogdanovich and star Cybill Shepherd, his girlfriend at the time. When Shepherd was replaced by Ali MacGraw. Bogdanovich left the project and was replaced with Sam Peckinpah. MacGraw then fell in love with costar Steve McQueen and broke up with her husband, Paramount production executive Robert Evans.

For this film, Ali MacGraw learned how to fire a gun and drive a car.

Sam Peckinpah originally wanted Jack Palance to play the role of Rudy Butler but could not afford his salary.

Hints that Rudy will be bad luck: His pedal-boat number is 13, and he plays with a black kitty at several points in the film.

The film's original score was composed by frequent Sam Peckinpah collaborator Jerry Fielding, but was replaced, at Steve McQueen's insistence, with the lighter, jazzier film score by Quincy Jones, shortly before the film's release.

Writer Jim Thompson was originally hired to adapt his own novel for the movie. Thompson worked on the screenplay for four months and produced a prose treatment, a first draft, and alternate scenes and episodes. Thompson's script included the original borderline-surrealistic ending of the novel featuring the kingdom of El Rey. Steve McQueen objected to the depressing ending and had Thompson replaced with rising screenwriter Walter Hill.

W. Dee Kutach, the Texas prison parole board chairman who denies Doc McCoy (Steve McQueen) his parole in the opening minutes of the film, was actually a prison official at the time the movie was made - he was the Assistant Director for Treatment for the Texas Department of Corrections in Huntsville, TX.

Actual marked police cars were used for two of the towns used for shooting. You can see "San Marcos Police Department" on two cars in the chases and crashes after the bank job, and "Sierra Blanca Police" on a car chasing Doc and Carol from the drive-in restaurant near El Paso.

When Sam Peckinpah took over the film, he intended the female lead for Dyan Cannon, but changed his mind in favor of Ali MacGraw.

While Ali MacGraw appeared in this film, her husband Robert Evans was producing Le parrain (1972). Cast members Richard Bright and Al Lettieri appeared in both films.

Evocative harmonica solos courtesy of jazz great Toots Thielemans. The music played at the end titles quite obviously quotes Thielemans' best-known composition "Bluesette".

The radio station playing at the drive-in restaurant is WHIL, an obvious reference to scriptwriter Walter Hill.

When Carol McCoy lists the exits to the First Bank of Beacon City, "One on Hopkins, one at Guadalupe Street, and one is the alley," she is listing the real-life exits of the actual shooting location in San Marcos, Texas.

Matthew King Kaufman, co-manager of the band, Earth Quake, won some compensation for the unauthorized use of Earth Quake's music in the movie The Getaway. This resulted in the set up Beserkley Records in 1973.

Average Shot Length (ASL) = 3.5 seconds (1917 shots).

CINEMA :Les blessures narcissiques d'une vie par procuration

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Spoilers

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Golden Globes, USA 1973

Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA 1973

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