By Steve Saragossi
Remakes
have with us for a long, long time. Judy Garland’s A Star is Born was a remake, as were Mogambo, Ben-Hur and The Magnificent Seven. But they were all
solid films in their own right; brought something new to the stories they were
retelling, and didn’t besmirch the reputation of the originals.
But Hollywood today is a big
fat lazy worm consuming itself on the altar of corporate profit margins.
Playing it safe has never been more of a truism than it is now. The glut of
remakes that clog the multiplexes is staggering, and we’re in for a hell of a
lot more. In the eternal quest for voraciously chasing the ludicrously
simplistic idea of the built in audience, we are soon to be greeted with
remakes, sorry, reinventions, of The Day
the Earth Stood Still (starring Keanu Reeves in the Michael Rennie role. Like,
Klaatu Barada Nikto, dude), The Incredible Shrinking Man (as a Brett
Ratner directed Eddie Murphy comedy), and soon, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.
First
of all, the obvious question that springs to mind is, why remake good films?
Why not remake crap ones and make them better? Industry producers will say they
want to instil an echo of the good vibe that surrounded the original, but what
average 16-24 year old will have even heard of Pelham, less alone be drawn to a new version of it? Ah, hoisted by
my own petard you think; if they don’t know the movie then why not bring it to a whole new audience? To
which I reply, why not market your back catalogue properly and pay your scriptwriters to come up with some original stories!
But
no, still the remakes come, and so we’re in for Tony Scott’s new version,
starring Denzel Washington in the Walter Matthau role and John Travolta filling
Robert Shaw’s’ boots. Now I have nothing in particular against any of those
three individuals, but I do question all of them in pressing ahead with this,
as I assume they don’t need the money and assume that they all like the
original. It’s very simple – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I can guarantee
you this new film will be efficient, competently acted, moderately exciting,
slick...and instantly forgettable.
Today’s
big action movies are generally hollow experiences devoid of much substance or believability.
The bangs will be big, the quips will be glib, and it will all be terribly
unconvincing.
This
is all the things the original Pelham
was not. Not only is it one of the best urban thrillers of the 70’s (and a
crowded market that was too), but its
also one of the greatest New York
movies too. Right up there with Dog Day
Afternoon, The French Connection,
Manhattan
and Sweet Smell of Success.
Its
palette of characters was so well delineated, scripted and portrayed; it’s
amazing to me the script wasn’t nominated for an Oscar. Aside from Shaw’s
genuinely menacing Mr. Blue, and Mattahu’s wisecracking, and world weary
transit cop Lt. Zachary Garber, the entire cast shone. Tom Pedi as the profane
and doomed Cal
(“who wants to know!â€)Dolowitz; Dick O’Neill as the exasperated and politically
incorrect Frank Doyle (Garber: “Frank! Will ya keep it down I’m trying to save
passengers lives here!†Frank: “Fuck
the passengers, what do they expect for their lousy 35 cents – to live forever?â€); Jerry Stiller as the bored,
seen-it-all Rico Patrone (Deadpan, to a group of visiting Japanese dignitaries
crowding round his desk) :“Yesterday we had a bomb scare...but it turned out to
be a cantaloupeâ€; the perfectly cast Kenneth McMillan as the quintessentially
unflappable New York-Irish Borough Commander (Cop: “The Mayors on his wayâ€,
Commander (impassively): “Terrific, tell
him I’ll hold the crowd til he gets hereâ€); and the late great Julius Harris as
Inspector Daniels. Tony Roberts also pitches in with a terrifically acerbic
turn as Warren, the Mayors advisor. The Mayor by the way seems to have
predicted the era of Ed Koch: Mayor:
“What if the hijackers start shooting at me?†Warren: “Will you stop. They have no reason to
shoot at you†Mayor: “Why? D’you think they’re from outta town?†Even the
Mayors wife gets some good lines. When the Mayor can’t decide if it’s a good
idea to pay the $1m ransom and save the lives of the hijacked train passengers,
she offers him some pithy advice: “Just think what you gonna get in return?â€
Mayor: “What??†“Eighteen sure votesâ€.
The
rest of the hijackers are portrayed by Martin Balsam, surely the only
sympathetic terrorist in film history, Hector Elizondo, who manages to rub
everyone up the wrong way, and Earl Hindman who is possibly the only weak link
in the chain.
The
strong cast is one of the many reasons this film flies. To have such a good
array of actors in what is essentially a genre piece helps immeasurably.
As
you can see, the dialogue is sardonic and dryly witty. The early 70s New York milieu is so
brilliantly captured. Nothing is sleek or shiny; it’s grimy, dented, noisy,
drab...and utterly brilliant.
The
set up is audacious. Four guys, under the leadership of Robert Shaw hi-jack a New York subway train,
and hold the passengers to ransom for the (then) princely sum of a million
dollars. It’s not the “why†that pushes the narrative along, it’s the “howâ€, as
in how do they possibly think they can get away with this heist? The key thing
here is the characters. It’s a character driven piece all the way. The cadence
of the dialogue is so punchy and poetically profane it could have been written
by David Mamet. Peter Stone, who did
write this, was in my opinion, never better. And from the man who wrote the
screenplay to Charade, Mirage, and Arabesque, that’s saying something. Its one of those scripts that
you just sit back, cross your arms and smile beatifically too.
The
1974 setting of the movie is crucial to the characters motivations and
reactions too. New York
was on the verge of corporate bankruptcy, and needed a huge cash injection from
the federal government to avoid basically going out of business. In this
context, the tattered nerves of the politicians, the constant short
temperedness of the transit cops and stoic unflappabilty of the New York police is
entirely understandable.
In
terms of narrative drive, character interplay, the setup, score, cast, and pared-down
direction (no love interest here!), the film is an absolute textbook case in
how to make the perfect thriller.
David
Shire’s music deserves special mention, his jazzed up, muscular and highly
original take on the Schoenberg 12-tone method is a vital piece in the alchemy
that makes this movie such a knockout. Its bruising no-nonsense streetwise vibe
powers the film along. I dread to think what a wall-to-wall bombastic piece of
rent-a-score dross the remake will sport.
The
director Joseph Sargent was never better than here. A competent journeyman director, mainly in TV
series and TV movies, he really knocked one out the park with this one. Not to
take anything away from him, working with such first class ingredients as he
had here, he could barely have put a foot wrong. The odd thing is why he was
never offered anything as good again. However, one instinctively knows even the
maker of Jaws: The Revenge made a better
film here than Tony Scott is going to produce.
It
pains me to go on making these derisory comparisons, but the makers are
bringing it on themselves when they have the laziness of mind to go back to
classics of this nature and think they can “do it betterâ€. They really are on a
hiding to nothing. In terms of box office, yes I’m sure it’ll make a tidy
return. In terms of cinema, and its legacy, this will be forgotten in a week.
As
for the original? The Taking of Pelham
One Two Three is exciting, thrilling,
funny, wonderfully acted, brilliantly scripted, and simply one of the best
movies of the 70s. If you’ve seen it before it’s like revisiting a coarse old
friend. If you’ve never seen it – leave your prudishness by the door – you’re
in for a helluva ride.
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