The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

Some bad guys have hijacked a New York City subway train, but there's one thing they don't count on - there's an undercover member of the NYPD on board.

Then again, this is the mid '70s, so maybe that's not much of a problem.

Here's the other thing they don't count on - schlubby, reliable Walter Matthau, the Transit Police Detective who happens to be on shift in the control room that day. That is a problem, because Matthau, in his low key way, keeps his head while those about him are losing theirs.

So begins THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE, a thriller that appears to be mostly about people sitting around and talking. It's really about the fog of war, that gap between reality and knowledge, in which everyone must work in a crisis. The criminals, led by the imposing Robert Shaw, seek to exploit the fog, even to induce some, as part of their plan to make a great deal of money in a short amount of time. The authorities, led by Matthau in a striking example of situational
leadership and authority (He isn't the highest ranking guy involved in the situation, but he's the guy everyone defers to because he's the most capable.), spend most of their time playing catch up and trying to coordinate their response. It's great stuff.

The film's takes a workmanlike approach to casting both cops and criminals. On the side of the good guys we have Matthau, Jerry Stiller, and Dick O'Neill; on the bad, the aforementionted Shaw, Hector Elizondo, Martin Balsam. These are reliable, decidedly un-flashy actors know how to deliver. In that respect, they're like their one-liner-free-characters: they're more worried about getting the job done than looking pretty doing it. The approach, which is mirrored in TAKING's overall look and feel, works because we feel we're watching real people doing things that could happen in the real world. In a movie about the fog of war, that realism makes all the difference in selling the picture.

Joe Sargent, who recently made the wonderful SOMETHING THE LORD MADE for HBO, directs the hell out of this movie, which is tightly paced, well crafted, and pretty much seamless. THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE is a winner.

A Face in the Crowd

Elia Kazan's A FACE IN THE CROWD tells the story of Lonesome Rhodes (Andy Griffith), a drunk and drifter from the rural South. Early in the film, he's plucked from obscurity by an ambitious young radiowoman (Patricia Neal, in an extraordinary performance), and his unique combination of charisma and bull$#!^ eventually make him a nationwide success. It's a solid setup for a movie, and it sports great supporting performances from Neal, Walter Matthau as an increasingly disillusioned writer, and Anthony Franciosa as a hustler with his eye out for the main chance. Unfortunately, the setup doesn't pay off in a satisfying way.

I recently argued about the nature of screenwriting with a dear friend (Come on over to my place, where the fun never ends!). He posited that the first thing the screenwriter needs to do is outline the themes he wants to address, then create characters who embody those themes.

"The good screenwriter will give those characters enough hooks to make them interesting," he said, "to give them the feel of real people."

I argued that such an approach to screenwriting leads to characters that are little more than wind-up toys. Real characters, like real people, go places you don't expect them to go; they develop into complete personalities that are much more than the personification of themes or ideas. A FACE IN THE CROWD strikes me as an example of my friend's theory of screenwriting. Every character here is the embodiment of something: ambition, selfishness, conscience, greed, naivete, or what have you, and not a single one of them feels like an actual human being. Add to this Griffith's braying, scenery-chewing performance, and you get a movie that leaves audiences watching the clock.
A FACE IN THE CROWD is sold as an overlooked masterpiece. Well, it was "over" a lot of things: overwritten, overacted, and overwrought. Overlooked? No, I think it's just where it should be.