[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=AqOTObjWGH8[/youtube]
Last night on TVO’s Saturday Night at the Movies — one of the best curated film lineups on TV complete with likely the finest archive of filmmaker interviews in the world — The Taking of Pelham One Two Three was shown. It was mentioned here earlier this year in a post about films about subways. Pelham, the 1974 original, is a great and (one would hope) satirical look at New York of the ’70s when it was nearly bankrupt, paranoid and every other person was a dirtbag or pervert.
It’s the opposite of the upbeat Sesame Street subway song clip from the same era we also posted here, though both have the same kind of run-down aesthetic that characterized so many depictions of that city then. I wonder how New York actually was during this period — the other dominant version of this period is the Annie Hall/Jackie O uptown imagining of the city.
As for Pelham, add in some prolific New York swearing, a satirical sense of humour (the mayor is sort of bumbling and everybody is so crusty you can see the actual crust on them) and strange moments of racial and cultural awkwardness (the civil/womens rights movements and Vietnam were still recent), it wasn’t the B-Movie I thought it was. See it if you can — or keep you eye on SNAM as they repeat movies when the season is over.
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TVO showed an interview with the director, Joseph Sargent, who mentioned Toronto as one of the few cities outside New York that the film did well in. It seems only people who live in cities with subways were interested in seeing the film.
The TVO interviews also described the bureaucratic dealings required to film in the NYC subway system. Hearing the anecdotes makes you appreciate why Lower Bay station has so often substituted for New York in movies (such as the 1998 TV remake of Pelham One Two Three).
Yes. He also mentioned the decision to film in Widescreen even though it was mostly filmed in a subway (something about all the characters on board).
Too bad TVO doesn’t put the interviews up online. Imagine being able to select from their database, the interviews you want to see — as well as seeing the Saturday Night selections that are so often well paired.
The debate he was referring to was how “wide” to make the widescreen — whether to film in the standard 1.85:1 widescreen ratio or the wider 2.35:1 Panavision ratio.
Sargent thought the long length of the subway car would suit the Panavision frame, even though the space inside the car was small and cramped. I think he made the right call — the locations came across nicely within the frame.
I too, would love to see the Saturday Night at the Movies archive online, or at least accessible in something like the NFB’s Mediatheque centre.
Its a bit corny now and TVO has run it more frequently than “A Christmas Story” on CityTV but I do agree that it really captures the New York “going to hell in a handbasket paranoia” of that time that didnt stop until BIll Curtis and A&E discovered crime in small town America; and it developed into a pride—life sucks in NY so whats your problem.
I always thought that, the now reopened, Revue should have done a double bill with “123” and Runaway Train”.
I always wanted to write a modern version of Michael Crichton’s take on the Great Train Robbery except it would take place on a subway instead.
Looks like this is almost it.
As it happens, this was already next in my netflix queue. Living in NYC and riding the subway every day to work certainly is different now, although there are tiny grains of the 70s New York scattered here and there if you know how to look for them.
Now that is classic cinema! I miss the 70s.
“I wonder how New York actually was during this period  the other dominant version of this period is the Annie Hall/Jackie O uptown imagining of the city.” As someone who grew up there in the seventies, I’d say it was closer to Pelham 123, although actually it was grittier and more ethnically diverse than either of these celluloid imaginings. For example, subway windows and maps were routinely so thoroughly covered in graffiti as to be opaque — which would shock today but was particularly striking since previously there had essentially been no graffiti to speak of. That said, I too miss the 70’s…
Did you know that a TV movie version was made a few years back (1998), and shot in the lower Bay St. subways of Toronto? Same title except starring Edward James Olmos, Lorraine Bracco, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Donny Wahlberg.