Review of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) by Max M — 05 Jun 2009

With the useless remake on the horizon I figured I would revisit one of the great action thrillers of the 1970's.

The premise is simple: a group of thieves, led by the great Robert Shaw (who a year later would star as Quint in Steven Spielberg's masterpiece Jaws), hijack a New York City subway train and demand a ransom from the city (which at the time was pretty bad off economically).

These were the days when thrillers were lean and mean and the heroes of the stories were everyday working-class joes like Walter Matthau (who strangely enough became an action star in his own right with this picture as well as Don Siegel's Charley Varrick and Ronald Neame's Hopscotch).

This is one of those quintessential "New York" movies that really capture the flavor of the city and it's inhabitants. Part of this is due to having director Joseph Sargent (who mainly directed for television, therefore he knew how to tell the story as fast, effectively and economically as possible) at the helm. He not only keeps the action and the tension high but he never sacrifices the human stories as well (he populates the picture with such brilliant New York character actors like Matthau, Jerry Stiller, Tom Pedi, Lee Wallace and Dick O'Niell just to name a few). Another reason is the terrific cinematography by the great Owen Roizman, who shot several other great "New York" movies like The French Connection, Network, Three Days of the Condor and Tootsie.

This picture also boasts one of the all-time great action scores by David Shire. I guarantee you it will get your adrenaline pumping.

(Another interesting fact - this film gave Quentin Tarantino the inspiration to have his characters call each other by specific colors in his debut film Reservoir Dogs).