. No particular reason, just a great image: Ali MacGraw and Steve McQueen in The Getaway. [Borrowed from a recent article in the New York Times by Charles McGrath about film adaptations of Jim Thompson novels.]
. Yesterday's Loner, the Film Society of Lincoln Center's 12-film Steve McQueen festival, opens today at the Walter Reade Theater. Even when we lived in New York, Lincoln Center seemed as far away from Brooklyn as it does now from Seattle, but many of the films in the festival are on DVD, and the list provides a good study guide for packing the queue with McQueen classics:
-Bullitt -The Cincinnati Kid -An Enemy of the People -The Getaway -The Great Escape -Love with the Proper Stranger -The Magnificent Seven -Nevada Smith-Papillon -The Sand Pebbles -The Thomas Crown Affair -The Towering Inferno
Of course the big screen is always better though, and if you're at the actual festival (as opposed to the homemade one in your living room), an added bonus is that a number of guests will be on hand to introduce the films: Candice Bergen for The Sand Pebbles, David Forster for The Getaway, Norman Jewison for both The Cincinnati Kid and The Thomas Crown Affair, Robert Vaughn for The Magnificent Seven, and more. Click here for more info.
While we're at it, some stills and other photos to round it out:
McQueen at the California Junior Boys Republic reformatory in Chino Hills, 1963. He credited the school with turning his life around when he was a juvenile petty thief, and would often return to visit and hang out with the kids.
McQueen's first wife, Neile Adams, was born in Manila and spent 18 months during the war imprisoned in a Japanese POW camp in the Philippines.
McQueen with his cat, "Kitty Kat"
McQueen with Natalie Wood
With Peggy Moffatt in front of McQueen's 1963 Ferrari GT Berlinetta Lusso. Photo by William Claxton
Steve McQueen and Tuesday Weld
McQueen with Ann Margret and Tuesday Weld
McQueen with Faye Dunaway and Norman Jewison on the set of The Thomas Crown Affair
Steve McQueen and Jacqueline Bisset in Bullitt
McQueen on set with Ali McGraw (who would become his second wife) and Sam Peckinpah
McQueen on the covers of Harper's Bazaar (photo by Richard Avedon) and Sports Illustrated
I knew of On Any Sunday when I was a kid because it has one of the first appearances of bicycle motocross on film, and as I alluded to in a post below, I was obsessed with BMX racing for several years. Not long after I started somewhat seriously digging for records I found the soundtrack at a record show.
Pacific Standard issue no.1 covers: top, Abby Brothers by Michael Donovan; bottom, Alexis Schuster by Charlie Schuck. Select image above for more information.
Costume designs by Theadora Van Runkle (pictured above), the award-winning, self-taught costume designer who died Friday at the age of 83.
Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty in Bonnie & Clyde
Jacqueline Bisset and Steve McQueen in Bullitt
A Theadora Van Runkle sketch for The Godfather Part II
Marisa Berensen in S.O.B.
Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen in The Thomas Crown Affair
Raquel Welch in Myra Breckinridge
Leigh Taylor-Young and Peter Sellers in I Love You, Alice B. Toklas
