The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

In 1974, when New York was but a young city, a pretty good movie called “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3” shrieked onto the screen. Walter Matthau starred as a subway dispatcher forced to deal with the hijacker of a subway train, played by Robert Shaw just before he made “Jaws.” The ransom demands were simple: One million in cash delivered within the hour or hostages would be killed, one hostage per minute.

In the remake, Denzel Washington and John Travolta are great. I tried to watch this movie as an up to date interpretation of John Godey’s book and not a remake of the original film. In my opinion, the mystery and suspense of the book were well portrayed in the movie remake – which is not usually the case.

These are two of my favorite actors playing a mind game that is clever and well executed. Is there any actor in the world who could play a catholic, crazy, smart guy better than John Travolta? -- I’ve been watching him in action since Welcome Back Kotter! -- His last line in this movie is delivered with such anguish, woe, thankfulness and grit that it’s mind blowing. Washington, it seems, doesn’t even have to try. Both these guys could be the people they portray.

The year is now 2009 and the ransom has inflated to $10 million. Washington’s Walter Garber is under a slight cloud for possibly accepting a bribe on the job; we are still led to believe that he’s probably an okay guy. His adversary, Travolta’s Ryder, sports an ugly black mustache and a weird neck tattoo. Always a cool a villain, Travolta also has most of the really good lines in this movie.

Travolta overplays a little while Washington seems to underplay just a tad. James Gandolfini shows up in a droll little part as the mayor, although his character seems like spliced together moments in the careers of other, more newsworthy, people.

Throw in the cash getting tied up in a weird car accident, a NYC subway rat crawling up a pants leg, and a completely normal gallon of milk showing up on the set, and you have all the heart-stopping elements of a halfway decent movie.

In my opinion, the New York City of 1974 was a scarier place to be than NYC is today. 911 has turned the Big Apple into more of a victim than an evildoer. I still think you can’t beat the attitudes of the people of NYC. This movie had plenty of attitude! I’m quite sure that the flick received an R rating for traditional NYC language and violence.



The Taking of Pelham 123, Book by John Godey

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

Secret Eyes (1)

True Boyer and I were friends the minute we both plunked our butts on Mrs. Randal’s dunce bench together in the second grade.
Not that we’re stupid or anything; True had this annoying habit of questioning adult logic that Mrs. Randal didn’t care much for and I happened to back him up that day, which I’ve been doing ever since. True had a knack for asking questions that drove adults crazy.
I once heard his foster mother, Mrs. Mister, say; “the boy was born with a question mark in his mouth.”
This came after True grilled her on why she had married John Mister if it meant going through life called either Mrs. Mister, or Hester Mister. How he managed to ask those questions with a perfectly straight face, I’ll never know. Mrs. Mister had haughtily suggested that a boy named True shouldn’t be throwing stones at glass houses, or something like that. True had smiled, and shrugged, and given me one of those yellow-eyed looks that said, “you see, Bernie, adults don’t know everything.”
True always maintained that his missing parents had named him “True” because they expected him to get to the bottom of things. All he really knew about them was that they’d abandoned him in a church when he was two days old. True used to speculate that they had been famous artists dying of AIDS who had tried to leave him a message with his unique name.


Continued in the next post

Poster Art Page

Secret Eyes (1)