The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

A crime thriller directed by Joseph Sargent from a screenplay by Peter Stone, adapted from John Godey's 1973 novel. Cinematography by Owen Roizman, score by David Shire. Starring Walter Matthau as Transit Authority police lieutenant Zachary Garber, Robert Shaw as the lead hijacker Mr. Blue, Martin Balsam as Mr. Green, Hector Elizondo as Mr. Grey, and Earl Hindman as Mr. Brown. Four armed men take a New York City subway car and its seventeen passengers hostage, demanding one million dollars delivered within one hour. See The Color-Coded Hijackers for how Peter Stone's alias system migrated to Quentin Tarantino eighteen years later.

"What's good about 'Pelham's' example of the form is that the performances are allowed enough leeway so that we care about the people, not the plot mechanics. And what could have been formula trash turns out to be fairly classy trash, after all." — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (1974)

Quick Facts

Detail	Info
Director	Joseph Sargent
Screenplay	Peter Stone
Based on	The Taking of Pelham One Two Three by John Godey (1973)
Stars	Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam, Hector Elizondo, Earl Hindman
Composer	David Shire
Cinematographer	Owen Roizman
Editor	Gerald Greenberg
Production Companies	Palomar Pictures International, Palladium Productions
Distributor	United Artists
Budget	~$3.8 million
Box Office	~$18.7 million (domestic)
Release Date	October 2, 1974
Running Time	104 minutes
MPAA Rating	R
Filmed In	New York City (including abandoned Court Street station)

Key Pages

• Plot Summary (The Taking of Pelham One Two Three)
• 40 Beats (The Taking of Pelham One Two Three)
• Cast and Characters (The Taking of Pelham One Two Three)
• Joseph Sargent
• Walter Matthau
• Martin Balsam
• Hector Elizondo
• Owen Roizman
• David Shire Score
• Production History (The Taking of Pelham One Two Three)
• New York City as Setting (The Taking of Pelham One Two Three)
• The Color-Coded Hijackers
• Critical Reception and Legacy (The Taking of Pelham One Two Three)
• Themes and Analysis (The Taking of Pelham One Two Three)
• Physical Media Releases (The Taking of Pelham One Two Three)

Tagline

"We are going to kill one passenger a minute until New York City pays us one million dollars."

Genre Context

The film arrived in the middle of the 1970s urban-paranoia cycle — after The French Connection (1971) and Serpico (1973), alongside Death Wish (1974) — but it played the material differently. Where those films treated New York as a problem to be survived or avenged, Pelham treated it as a workplace. Matthau's Garber is not a vigilante or a crusader. He is a city employee doing his job under unusual circumstances, and the film's comedy comes from the bureaucratic machinery grinding along even when the situation is lethal. The hostage crisis is real, but so is the Japanese delegation Garber has to escort, and the film finds both equally worth its attention.

"Throughout, there's a skillful balance between the vulnerability of New Yorkers and the drastic, provocative sense of comedy that thrives all over our sidewalks." — Nora Sayre, The New York Times (1974)