The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

The 1970s were a great time for crime films.  America has always been cinematically obsessed with gangsters, criminals, and outlaws, but the 1970s saw a rise in films that dealt with those matters, most likely due to the political and social climate of the times.  (For a full American History lesson, pick up a book).  Unfortunately, a lot of these crime films would go unnoticed and slip through the cracks in a decade that saw various powerhouse films see release like Dirty Harry (1971), The French Connection (1971), The Godfather (1972), and Taxi Driver (1976).  One of these overshadowed 70s crime thrillers was The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), and it is a great little film, full of suspense, humor, and a great look at a New York City that doesn't exist anymore.

Hop aboard, the train is leaving the station.

It's just any other day on the New York City subway, except today four men, all wearing mustaches, trenchcoats, hats, and glasses, board a subway car and manage to hijack the whole thing, separating it from the rest of the train and essentially holding the 17 passengers hostage, demanding 1 million dollars in cash delivered within one hour.  If their demands are not met, they will begin executing the passengers.  Lt. Zachary Garber (Walter Matthau) of the Transit Authority must negotiate with the hijackers, as well as with various city officials, in a race against time.  The movie becomes a tense waiting game as the authorities try to coordinate with one another, figuring out their plan of action, while trying to guess what the hijackers ultimate strategy is.  After all, how do you hijack a subway car?

Answer:  with a meticulously crafted plan.

The hijackers all have color coded names.  Mr. Blue (Robert Shaw) is the leader of the group, a calm and calculated man.  He has a military background and has hired two thugs, the stuttering yes-man Mr. Brown (Earl Hindman) and the loose cannon Mr. Grey (Héctor Elizondo), to assist him.  Rounding out the group is the guy with the inside knowledge of the subway system, Mr. Green (Martin Balsam), who is suffering from a bit of a cold.  Their unfamiliarity with one another leads to some internal strife and some bickering, which puts the hostages further on edge.

Lt. Garber has the duty of trying to corodinate and communicate with different people at various levels of the city government.  Since this is the 1970s, this is all done with radios, telephones, CBs, things like that.  What I'm getting at is that it takes time, a commodity the hostages don't have much of.  Garber has to talk to Subway Police Lt. Rico Patrone (Jerry Stiller) who then has to call the Transit Manager, a surly fellow by the name of Caz Dolowicz (Tom Pedi), while Garber calls the Police Commissioner (Rudy Bond), who then coordinates with Inspector Daniels (Julius Harris) and the Borough Commander (Kenneth McMillian).  The Mayor (Lee Wallace), home sick in bed with the flu, is brought the news by Deputy Mayor Warren LaSalle (Tony Roberts), while Garber organizes his people (like loud mouthed Frank [Dick O'Neill]) on his end and keeps in communication with the hijackers.

This struggle to communicate and organize between these multiple parties and viewpoints is what drives the tension and suspense of the story.  The only alleviation comes from the stream of humor that runs through the film, which also serves to strengthen the depth of the characters (without cracking jokes, all the characters would seem like tightly wound jerkasses).  Also, and this is pretty important, the humor is usually pretty funny, but never distractingly so.  Jerry Stiller has a couple good one-liners, but he never gets to unleash his "Costanza yell."

Lt. Garber is introduced in a humorous fashion, as his first scene involve him giving a tour of the Transit Authority (and thus, a tour given to the audience) to a group of visiting Japanese business men.  They shuffle about, taking picutres as Garber points out this and that, but Garber gets the impression that they don't speak English, so he starts feeding them some nonsense and drops a few insults.  He's only saved from this situation when the hijackers make their first move on the subway car, but Garber isn't saved from his own embarrassment.

Once the hijacking goes down though, Garber gains a no-nonsense attitude.  He becomes focused and you can see his mind turning, looking for answers and clues as to who is doing this and how they plan on getting away with it.  He makes a good foil to go up against Mr. Blue, who has a similar steely determination.  Garber is a gruff guy (the scene where he chews out Frank is a standout), but he keeps his wits about him and his sense of humor remains intact until the end.

Cinematically speaking, the New York subway system was a scary place in the 1970s.  Films like Death Wish (1974) and The Warriors (1979) played up the more dangerous and seedy aspects of life below the streets and the loud, bustling setting makes a great location for a thriller.  It's grungy, dark, and full of all types of weirdos and working class individuals.  Pelham One Two Three would mostly be shot on location (only the Transit Authority control center was reconstructed on a soundstage) and would take full advantage of these street locales and it is a cool look at 1970s New York.  The hostages themselves are a cross-section of New York life, with screen credits like "The Pimp," "The Delivery Boy," The Old Man," "The Homosexual," and the formidable duo of "Co-ed #1" and "Co-ed #2."  Despite these generic monikers, the hostages all display their own bits of grit of fortitude, enduing their characters with as much humanity and depth as one could with such limited screen time.

The filmmaking is tight and non-flashy and director Joseph Sargent manages to keep the movie flowing at a good pace.  With this many characters, locations, and with a "high concept" premise (for the early 70s), this film, in the hands of a less capable director, might of been a mishmash of elements without any value to it.  Sargent was mainly a director of TV movies, but in the 70s and 80s he managed to get behind a few feature films, including directing Burt Reynolds in the fun moonshine-actioner White Lightning (1973) and Michael Caine in the terribly dreadful Jaws: The Revenge (1987), which would be Sargent's final theatrical film.

One of the most successful elements of the film is the musical score by David Shire.  It's a big and bombastic orchestral work with lots of percussion and brass and the bustling bigness of it reflects the city life of NYC.  The score really drives the action at times and the ending is punctuated perfectly by the return of the main theme.  David Shire was married to Talia Shire (sister to Francis Ford Coppola) for most of the 70s, so naturally he composed a score for one of Coppola's movies, which turned out to be one of his (and Coppola's) best:  The Conversation (1974).  Other notable scores by David Shire include All the President's Men (1976), Straight Time (1978), Return to Oz (1985), Monkey Shines (1988), and Zodiac (2007).  He would win an Oscar for the Sally Field union drama Norma Rae (1979).

Cinematographer Owen Roizman also shot William Friedkin's The French Connection (1971) and The Exorcist (1973), the former which surely led to his hiring on Pelham One Two Three (the latter of which is just awesome).  He would also shoot Three Days of the Condor (1975), Network (1976), Straight Time (1978), and Tootsie (1982).

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three was based on a popular book of the same name by John Godey.  Screenwriter Peter Stone also wrote Charade (1963), which starred Audrey Hepburn and. . . Walter Matthau.

Good ol' Walter Matthau is pretty great in this.  He's the smarmy everyman hero, with a bit of a chip on his shoulder.  The final look he gives at the end of the film is pure gold.  Matthau plays Lt. Garber in a hard-lined manner similar to Charley Varrick (1973), but with a funny edge, sort of like The Bad News Bears (1976).  The plaid shirt and yellow tie he wears most of the movie is pretty funny in its own right.

Robert Shaw is cold and menacing as the mastermind of the gang and, along with Matthau, he's the standout of the film.  The year before this movie he starred in The Sting (1973), and immediately following this film he would take his most iconic and enduring role, that of Quint in Steven Speilberg's Jaws (1975).

Martin Balsam brings a sympathetic quality to the nervous Mr. Green.  When talking to Mr. Blue, he claims to have never done anything like this before and is only participating in the hijacking because he was unjustly fired from his job and lost his pension, but even this admission is shaded with doubt as to whether he's telling the full truth or not.  Balsam had a long and varied career, from classics like 12 Angry Men (1957) and Psycho (1960) to minor cult favorites like Two-Minute Warning (1976) and The Sentinel (1977).

Mr. Brown has a timidity about him, personified by his stuttering, and his role in the film is relatively minor.  Actor Earl Hindman would go on to play Tim Allen's next door neighbor Wilson on long running TV show Home Improvement.  (Admit it.  You know who and what I'm talking about).

Héctor Elizondo is quite unhinged as Mr. Grey.  He smacks a brother in the face with his gun (while dropping some racial slurs) and gets inappropriate with one of the female passengers.  His actions have even the cool Mr. Blue a bit concerned.  Nowadays, Elizondo doesn't usually get this rough in movies.  He has been in things that your mom and/or your sister have probably seen, like Pretty Woman (1990), Runaway Bride (1999), and The Princess Diaries (2001).  As of this writing, he is the only gang member from The Taking of Pelham One Two Three still living today.

This was Jerry Stiller's first feature film and he would spend much of the 80s and 90s on television, most notably on Seinfeld, which made him more or less a minor-pop-culture icon.  He would co-star with his son Ben Stiller in Zoolander (2001), which, c'mon, is a pretty funny movie.

Up to this point in his career, Julius Harris had done a bunch of blaxploitation pictures like Black Caesar and Hell Up in Harlem (both 1973) and was also Tee Hee in Live and Let Die (also 1973).  Genre fans can see him in King Kong (1976) and a couple small roles in Sam Raimi films Crimewave (1985) and Darkman (1990).  He doesn't get much to do in Pelham One Two Three, but he looks cool wearing sunglasses.

Lee Wallace, who plays The Mayor in this, would also play The Mayor in Tim Burton's Batman (1989).  He also looks a lot like actual New York City Mayor Ed Koch, circa 1977.

Loud mouthed and sexist Caz Dolowicz was played by Tom Pedi who also played a detective in The Naked City (1948) and Honest Harry in The Cat from Outer Space (1978).

Rudy Bond had parts in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), On the Waterfront (1954), and 12 Angry Men (1957).  He was also Carmine Cuneo in The Godfather (1972), the guy who gets trapped in the revolving door and shot to death.

Kenneth McMillian would be promoted from Commander to Commissioner in Dog Day Afternoon (1975), albeit uncredited.  He was also a Constable in Salem's Lot (1979), a Baron in Dune (1984), and the shady jerk Cressner in Cat's Eye (1985; the "Ledge" segment).

Deputy Mayor Tony Roberts, who looks like a smashed together version of Ron Perlman and 70s Elliot Gould, would pal around with Woody Allen in Annie Hall (1977) and Stardust Memories (1980) and was also in Serpico (1973) and Amityville 3-D (1983).

As Patrolman James, Nathan George spends most of his time in Pelham One Two Three hiding out on the tracks, watching the hijacked subway car and reporting back with his walkie-talkie.  He had a short career, but has memorable supporting roles as Trask in Klute (1971) and as Washington in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975).

Dick O'Neill was in Wolfen (1981) and a boat ton of television shows.  Look at that face...you've seen him before.

As you can tell from above, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is full of great character actors (most of them of the New York variety) in all of the supporting roles.  Even though the film cuts between the multiple viewpoints of all these characters spread throughout the city, it still manages to maintain the necessary pace for a tick-of-the-clock thriller.  From the moment it starts, the movie races towards its finish and it keeps you guessing until the end.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is easily the best Mass Transit thriller ever released (suck it, Speed) and it is more popular than you might imagine, at least amongst people you've heard of.  Quentin Tarantino borrowed the idea of color coded names for the heisters in his debut film Reservoir Dogs (1992) and seminal NYC hip-hop group The Beastie Boys name checks the film in their song 'Sure Shot.'  So, you know, it's just not me who likes and recommends this movie; famous people do to.

I saw The Taking of Pelham One Two Three at The Hollywood Theatre a couple weeks ago.  The 35mm print looked great, the crowd dug it, etc.  I would've had this write-up done sooner but, you know, it's been unseasonably nice outside and I like sunshine.

Fun Facts:

*You probably are aware that this movie was remade in 2009 by Tony Scott starring Denzel Washington and John Travolta (I've not seen it, but I bet it has lots of shaky editing and Travolta is over-the-top), but did you know there was a remake before the remake??  Yup, in 1998 there was a TV movie version made with Edward James Olmos, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Donnie Wahlberg.

*For some years after the release of the film, the New York City Transit Authority banned any train from leaving the Pelham station at 1:23.

Walter Matthau goofing around on set...

....but seriously, check out The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.

Charley Varrick

The 1970s were a great period for film and it's my particular favorite decade of American cinema, without a doubt.  I find the look of everything and everyone to be very visually appealing, and the stories being told were combinations of things never seen before and old narratives being told in new and often exciting ways.  Also exciting was how various genres were reexamined and reinterpreted in accordance to the era's shifting and changing social and cultural values.  Film noir, a film genre that was most popular during the '50s, went through a rougher and tougher period in the 1970s, one that was an all too brief renaissance for the genre.  These lower profile 70s crime films were generally overlooked upon release and are now overshadowed by their contemporary classics, by your Taxi Drivers, your Godfathers, and your French Connections, if you will.  I don't want to dispute the greatness of some of those films, but they do seem to dominate the conversation when 70s American cinema is concerned.

Which is a shame, as there were some fantastic dark and gritty crime films being made and released back then, including The Long Goodbye (1972), The Mechanic (1972), The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), The Outfit (1973), The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), The Yakuza (1974), and a truckload more.  One of my personal favorites from this field of underappreciated gems is the 1973 crime/heist film from director Don Siegel, Charley Varrick, starring Walter Matthau, Joe Don Baker, and John Vernon.

Charley Varrick is bookended by two great action scenes, the tricky and thrilling opening bank heist pulled by Varrick (Walter Matthau) and his crew, including his wife Nadine (Jacqueline Scott) and his partner Harman (Andy Robinson), and the final chase and showdown that takes place in a junkyard and involves a bi-plane and Joe Don Baker.  Both of these scenes are tense and full of creative energy.  Everything in between is more subdued and calculated, but just as riveting, as Varrick and crew unexpectedly come away with almost a million dollars in mafia money, money that the mafia wants back.  Varrick must use his cunning and cleverness to stay multiple steps ahead of the mob, the authorities, a ruthless hitman named Molly (Joe Don Baker), and even his partner and buddy Harman.

That's really all you need to know about the plot, or at least all I'm going to say.  The details that come while watching the film are part of the thrill of experiencing the twists and turns of the narrative.  Varrick is a gum chewing, level headed, rational thinker, someone who is pragmatic and practical.  When he finds out what they've stolen is most likely mob money, he just nods his head coolly and moves on to solving this new problem.  When Harman is talking up a storm about not waiting to spend his share of the loot, Varrick just says, "okay, you know what's best," and doesn't make a big scene about it and goes about his business, which includes hiding the money so Harman can't lay his hands on any of it.

Charley Varrick breaks a couple of the conventions of film noir by forgoing the shadows and darkness of metropolitan cityscapes and replacing it with the bright, sunlight open spaces and small-townness of New Mexico, but its landscapes are still populated by crooked, greedy lowlifes and other various miscreants and oddballs.  Everybody in the movie seems greasy or weaselly or both.  The callous directness of some of the characters and the intricate cause-and-effect plot mechanics recall the world depicted in Richard Stark's series of Parker novels, but with slightly softer edges.  Some of the tricks and turns of the plot are telegraphed early, but when the payoff comes it is still pretty damn great.

Walter Matthau is amazing as the title character, his hangdog looks and demeanor at odds with his steely determination and decision making.  He makes as unconventional an action hero as you could imagine, but he brings this cool headed intelligence to the role, making him compelling to watch, simply because you want to know what he's up to.  Varrick owns an independent crop dusting business and talks about how bigger companies are pushing the smaller guys under, and how that's led him to crime (or possibly back into crime; the film never makes it clear if his earlier days involved crime, although it seems likely).  His business slogan is "the last of the independents," which also works as Varrick's personal motto (it was also going to be the original title of the film) and which sort of hints at the "free spirit" that a certain population of American was searching for at that time in history.

It's said that Clint Eastwood was originally up for the role of Varrick, having worked with director Don Siegel on his previous three pictures, including the very popular Dirty Harry (1971), but I can't imagine Eastwood bringing the right presence or attitude to Varrick, not in the way Matthau does.  The audience would expect Eastwood to be able to win this one right from the get-go, but Matthau is an unproven commodity as far as action movie expectations are concerned.  At this time, Walter Matthau was mainly known for his comedies with Jack Lemmon, like The Fortune Cookie (1964) and The Odd Couple (1968), but he also had some excellent dramatical work in Nicholas Ray's Bigger Than Life (1956), Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd (1957), and Sidney Lumet's Fail-Safe (1964).  His post-Varrick career includes another excellent 70s crime movie, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), and his loveably foul turn as the manager in The Bad News Bears (1976).  (If you're only familiar with Walter Matthau through Grumpy Old Men (1993) then you need to knock it off and get with the program).

A great hero like Charley Varrick needs a villain that is equally measured, and to balance Matthau's cool-headed evenness, we get Joe Don Baker (in what is easily his finest role) as the ruthless and coldblooded, but surpsingly upbeat, hired hitman Molly.  Unlike Varrick, who rarely has to muscle anybody, Molly muscles everybody he comes across.  The guy whose car he repossesses, the girls and clients at the whore house he stays at, the wheelchair bound gun-store owner, and even the lady photographer who specializes in fake documentation, Molly punches, slaps, insults, and threatens them all with seemingly sociopathic enjoyment, wearing a big cowboy hat and an even bigger smile.  He's mean as a rattlesnake, but he's also a pipe smoker who whistles to himself, is nice to dogs, and won't sleep with whores (if he knows about it).  Molly seems to be a direct influence on the character of Anton Chigurah (Javier Bardem), the single-minded and ruthless killer from the Coen Brother's No Country for Old Men (2007), another film that takes place in the sun-drenched southwest.  Joe Don Baker would also star in Walking Tall and The Outfit (both also 1973), as well as Mitchell (1975, immortalized on the 5th season of Mystery Science Theater 3000), The Pack (1977), Joysticks (1983), Fletch (1985), and Cape Fear (1991).  He can also be seen in the upcoming and anticipated (by me at least) Mike Nichols movie, Mud (2013).

John Vernon plays Maynard Boyle, the mob money man who hires Molly to track down who robbed the bank, mainly in a preemptive effort to ensure his bosses don't think he had anything to do with the robbery.  He has some good scenes with FBI agent Garfinkle (Norman Fell, wearing sunglasses just like Mr. Roper might wear) and with the bank manager Harold Young (Woodrow Parfrey) that display Boyle's own cunning and slickness.  He has a line about guys using "a pair of pliers and a blow torch" that Quentin Tarantino would wholesale lift for Pulp Fiction (1994).  Vernon plays a great bad guy, usually an egotist and always a dick.  Vernon was the mayor in Siegel's Dirty Harry and was also in Point Blank (1967) and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), but he is without a doubt best known as the evil Dean Wormer from the classic college comedy Animal House (1978).

Andy Robinson's first role in a feature film was in Dirty Harry as the Scopio killer and Charley Varrick would he his follow-up.  He has a long list of television credits, most notably as reoccurring character Garak on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.  He's maybe most recognizable to horror fans for playing Larry in Clive Barker's Hellraiser (1987).

Don Siegel has a long career of projects that were able to transcend their budgets and/or subject matter and become classics, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and The Killers (1964), and he would also mentor Clint Eastwood, working with him five times.  Eastwood would dedicate Unforgiven (1992) to both Sergio (Leone, Clint's other mentor) and Don.  Siegel would sometimes do cameos in his movies; in Charley Varrick he can be seen as a ping-pong player.

The score is another excellent piece by Lalo Schifrin, less jazzy than some of his other works, using more ambient effects and instrumentation.  The opening credits has a nice gentle theme that plays over scenes of small-town domestic life, before opening up some big orchestration and a ripping sax solo that settles down and leads into the tense bank heist.  Schifrin has a ridiculously long list of credits, including most of Don Siegel's movies; some other highlights (and personal favorites) include Cool Hand Luke (1967), Bullitt (1968), Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971), Enter the Dragon (1973), The Manitou (1978), and of course his most iconic musical piece, the theme song to Mission: Impossible.....

I usually like to mention a couple minor supporting players and point out other minor supporting work they've done.  Here's two:  Woodrow Parfrey (wormy bank manger Harold Young) would play an orangutan in Planet of the Apes (1968), a Dr. Maximus to be exact (he sat in on Taylor's trial), and Sheree North (Jewell, the lady photographer) gets beat to death in Maniac Cop (1988) and was in a couple episodes of Seinfeld as Kramer's mother Babs.

Also of note, in one scene late in the movie, Matthau sleeps with a woman played by actress Felicia Farr and in general the scene feels kind of shoehorned in, which apparently it kind of was, as the scene is private joke of sorts.  You see, Felicia Farr was Jack Lemmon's real life wife, and "sleeping" with her onscreen was Matthau's way of getting a dig at his old friend.  I'd say the scene is out of place with the rest of the movie (and why this woman would suddenly sleep with Varrick is beyond me), even if the "joke" is kind of funny.

Also, with all apologies to Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959), the Best Use of a Crop Duster in a Motion Picture goes to Charley Varrick.

Another thing I love about this movie:  the finale is FULL of squealing tires on dirt!

I saw this last week as part of the Polyester Pulp: 70s Crime Series being screened at the fantastic Hollywood Theatre this month here in Portland, OR.  The 35mm print looked great and the crowd dug it.

Charley Varrick is a film I HIGHLY RECOMMEND.  You can find no-frills-but-in-proper-aspect-ratio copies of it to buy online and it's on Netflix (I think) and you should also be able to find it to rent at your local video store if it's cool enough (or not even; first time I saw it, I rented it from a shitty Family Video), but if all that fails or if you're cheap, you can apparently watch the whole damn movie over on YouTube, but don't look here for a link, I'm not posting one.  Sometimes if you want things, you have to work at being independent.