A film, unlike a stage production, is sup- posed to
be 'permanent'. But its perma- nence is a curse — like freezing Ibsen for all time with the original Victorian cast. What dates a movie is the actors: that's why only the Disney classics are regularly re- released in first-run houses. The sole prob- lem with the 1949 D.O.A. is that audiences now couldn't give two hoots about Edmond O'Brien; so every 20 years it's remade (first with Tom Tryon, then Dennis Quaid). But not until The Getaway has a cinematic remake looked so much like a provincial revival: the 1994 version has the same pro- ducer (David Foster) and screenwriter (Walter Hill), but a few new sets (a suspi- ciously neat Arizona) and a younger bank- able cast. Both films simplify the Jim Thompson novel into a wham-barn on-the- lam thriller about honour among thieves: a small-time couple pull off a big-time heist, but, betrayed by everyone from their boss to the desk clerk, discover the real skill is in pulling off the getaway. The original was the dumbest movie Sam Peckinpah ever made and his biggest smash ever. But it had the endearing dumbness of honest commercialism. The Getaway was made as a Steve McQueen vehicle and, as vehicles go, they got away with it. Roger Donald- son's remake still looks like a Steve McQueen vehicle — same script, same Sev- enties sensibility, only due to Mr McQueen's indisposition his part will be played tonight by Alec Baldwin.
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