By Todd Garbarini
The quintessential and politically incorrect New York movie The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
(1974) is an adaptation of John Godey’s novel of the same name and is brilliantly
directed by Joseph Sargent with loads of smile-inducing and laugh-out-loud
humor. This is the not the reaction one would associate with a film that is
marketed as a taut exercise in suspense, but one needs to understand and
appreciate the era in which the film was made. New York City was in financial
distress fifty years ago, with crime, violence and drug use running rampant.
Subway cars were blanketed in graffiti, and it was a dangerous time to be
walking the streets.
Pelham is the first and best of three filmed versions of
the novel and concerns four heavily armed men, all sporting moustaches and
machine guns. They are named after colors to mask their identities (this idea
was lifted by Quentin Tarantino and used to great effect in his 1992 film Reservoir Dogs). They commandeer an Interborough
Rapid Transit (IRT) train from the subway system and hold eighteen passengers
hostage. They demand one million dollars in cash for their release within one
hour – a mere pittance in 2025’s dollars – and will shoot one passenger per
minute should the police fail to provide the money by the ascribed deadline. Robert
Shaw shines as the lead baddy and heads the superb cast which also features
Martin Balsam as a sneezing confederate; Walter Matthau is the Transit
Authority lieutenant who negotiates with Shaw and lives on his wits, making a
last-minute snap decision that buys them time; Hector Elizondo is virtually
unrecognizable as the monkey-in-the-wrench who causes problems for Shaw with his
own sense of bravado; and Kenneth MacMillian is the Borough Commander. Among
the film’s highlights are Matthau’s off-handed and embarrassing treatment of
the representatives of the Tokyo Metropolitan Subway System who are visiting; Tom
Pedi’s role as Caz Dalowicz whose no-B.S. approach to the hijackers results in
a shootout in the tunnel; Lieutenant Rico Patrone (Jerry Stiller) who reads the
newspaper and is annoyed that he is being “interrupted” by the Japanese reps touring
the facility; Lee Wallace’s turn as the Mayor (he is a near dead ringer for
Mayor Ed Koch who became the New York Mayor four years after the film’s
release) and his inefficacy in dealing with the situation at hand, including
his Deputy Mayor, played brilliantly by Tony Roberts; and Robert Weil as a transit
worker – he’s a character actor who appeared in dozens of great New York films.
It also has one of the best endings to any film of recent memory.
Pelham manages to juggle suspense and outright human hilarity
in a way that few films that I have seen are able to. Bob Clark’s Black
Christmas, released the same year, also walks a tightrope of laugh out-loud
jokes on the one hand and intense fright on the other. While the idea of a
group of men “hijacking” a subway car might seem farfetched and implausible,
how about the city’s departments co-operating collectively to achieve a
peaceful outcome to the scenario at hand? There’s one for the books!
The Taking of Pelham One Two
Three was released on Wednesday,
October 2, 1974 in New York City. What the film
captures perfectly is the sense that working people have about themselves and
their jobs, a “another day at the office” mentality as they go about their
routines. The sentiments of the film are timeless and ring true in a city where
corruption and racism run behind-the-scenes and are perfectly sized-up by Doris
Roberts’s turn as the mayor’s wife when she tells him what he will receive in
return for paying out the ransom: eighteen sure votes, exposing the
expendability of the passengers.
Pelham was also lensed in 1998 for television by Felix
Enriquez Alcala, starring Lorraine Bracco, Edward James-Olmos, and Louis Del
Grande. This version posits Vincent D’Onofrio taking the place of Robert Shaw
and updates the times with a $5 million dollar ransom. Despite the film’s star
power, the lack of profanity in the New York setting, the use of archaic train
cars betrayed by the presence of oversized ceiling fans, and a lack of tension
all combined to make the film unrealistic, filling the audience with a yen to
revisit the original.
Tony Scott made a version in 2009 with John Travolta and Denzel
Washington, this time stylizing the title with Pelham 123 as numerical
numbers and upping the ransom to $10 million dollars. Gotta love inflation. It
is a well-made version with less emphasis on humor and more on action and it is
a film that stands on its own, and one of the few times that Mr. Washington
portrays a modern day Everyman just trying to get along.
A movie-only edition of Pelham was issued on Blu-ray in 2011, and
that transfer appeared to be derived from the same master that was used on the
standard definition DVD released in 2000. A new 4K restoration was performed in
2022 by Kino Lorber and the film was released as a two-disc set on 4K UHD and standard
Blu-ray with a much-improved image. There were a host of extras added, which
can be found on this standard Blu-ray release now available following the 50th
anniversary of the film’s release:
First up is an audio commentary by film historians
Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson which runs the entire length of the film.
They are informative and highly engaging and are an example of what I love
about commentaries. They give a fair amount of information on the background of
the cast, discuss the film’s themes, and how the film’s overall look was
achieved, among many others. I am a sucker for these 1970’s gritty New York
films, and this one fits the bill.
There is a second audio commentary by actor and
filmmaker Pat Healy and film programmer/historian Jim Healy and is equally
informative and entertaining.
The Making of Pelham One Two Three is a cleverly-titled piece that runs 6:08 and
features the actual shooting of the film during November 1973 through April
1974. It is told from the perspective of a transit policeman, Carmine Foresta,
who was hired as a technical consultant on the film. He has a small role in the
film also while appearing briefly in Francis Coppola’s The Godfather Part II
(1974) and Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon (1975). My only complaint is
the short running time. I would have loved to have seen more behind-the-scenes
(BTS) footage and hear input from cinematographer Owen Roizman, who shot The
French Connection three years earlier for William Friedkin and has managed
to capture New York City in a way that I have not seen from any other director
of photography.
12 Minutes with Mr. Grey features a 2016 interview with actor Hector
Elizondo who recalls getting the role and enjoying his time working with the
late director Joseph Sargent. He points out how the station that they shot in
was fairly clean as it was unused (there was no way to interrupt actual daily subway
traffic) and therefore free of graffiti.
Cutting on Action runs 9:09 and features a 2016 interview with film editor Gerald B.
Greenberg, who won an Oscar for cutting The French Connection. That film
is highly lauded for its memorable subway/car chase through Brooklyn, NY. In Pelham,
there is an action sequence featuring police cars racing to the subway station
to get the money to the henchmen. Mr. Greenberg gives insight into his work on
the film. Again, I would have loved a longer piece. He discusses the editing
process and being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of footage he had to work
with. He brought in another editor, Robert Q. Lovett, to help him cut the film
and help create tension and suspense.
The Sound of the City runs 9:07 and features input from composer David
Shire. He began composing music for television shows back in the 1960’s, such
as CBS Playhouse and The Sixth Sense before creating the amazing
score for Francis Coppola’s The Conversation (1974). His theme to Pelham
is no less brilliant. He recalls how the music originally sounded like a
“dissonant Lalo Schifrin.” He would later score Martin Ritt’s Norma Rae
(1979) and win an Oscar for his collaboration with Norman Gimbel for the song It
Goes Like It Goes.
Trailers from Hell with Josh Olson runs just over two minutes and he
comments on the film, rightly praising it for its accomplishments as a great
New York movie. Interestingly, the film did not make money at the box office. I
suppose that New York humor does not go over well in Montana…
There is an Image and Poster Gallery that
runs 2:20 which features artwork and black and white snapshots of scenes from
the film.
There are two radio spots, and this is something
that I truly miss from the past. I loved hearing these spots for movies on the
radio, especially the ones created for horror films. These spots are a fun
listen.
The TV spot for the film is included here.
There are also theatrical trailers for Pelham;
Don Siegel’s Charlie Varrick (1973) and Stuart Rosenberg’s The
Laughing Policeman, both from 1973 and both with Walter Matthau; Guy
Hamilton’s Force 10 From Navarone (1979); Joseph Sargent’s White
Lightning (1973) with Burt Reynolds; John Frankenheimer’s The Train
(1964) with Burt Lancaster; Tom Griers’s Breakheart Pass (1975) with
Charles Bronson; and Andrei Konchalosky’s Runaway Train (1985) with Jon
Voight and Eric Roberts.
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is one of
the best films made during the American cinema's most riveting decade.
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