Tonight on Amazon: This ’70s Thriller Inspired a Tarantino Cult Classic!

In New York, four criminals identified by colors (Mr. Blue, Green, Grey, and Brown) hijack a subway car and demand a million-dollar ransom, while Lieutenant Zachary Garber of the transit police tries to negotiate and unravel their scheme….

Imagine New York in the early 70s, a bustling metropolis then grappling with a severe drug epidemic, rampant crime, to the extent that tourists were even given a survival guide. The city was on the brink of bankruptcy too.

The municipal coffers were so empty that the city couldn’t even afford to pay garbage collectors to clean up, especially in neighborhoods like the Bronx and Harlem, which had turned into open-air ghettos. The Black Panthers even threatened the life of the mayor if he didn’t clean up the streets…

During this bleak period, to significantly bolster its finances, the city had the idea to attract Hollywood studios to film in New York, offering them favorable tax and practical conditions.

This led to the creation of pure masterpieces such as Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon. But also gems like The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, a quintessential feverish crime thriller of the time.

Directed by the sadly underrated Joseph Sargent, the film was even remade in 2009 as The Taking of Pelham 123 by Tony Scott. A solid film that tried to modernize the 1974 movie. However, in our opinion, this effort was somewhat in vain as the original work does not suffer from the passage of time at all.

The film owes a lot to its leading duo: Walter Matthau, an actor then mainly known for comedy, found a deliciously against-type role as a jaded, sarcastic, and grumpy cop, but cunning beneath his disillusioned exterior. Opposite him, Robert Shaw, who had made a mark just the year before in The Sting, portrayed his character with a cold, all-British elegance that contrasted sharply with his opponent’s edginess—a phlegmatic, almost courteous antagonist, but with palpable danger.

It was precisely this contrast in temperaments and acting styles, between Matthau’s comedic ease and Shaw’s clinical rigor, that enticed producers Gabriel Katzka and Edgar J. Scherick to bring this adaptation of John Godey’s novel to life: two cinematic giants that opposed each other on screen, and who almost never meet physically, merely communicating via walkie-talkie—a risky narrative bet that the charisma of both actors made utterly believable.

The screenplay by Peter Stone, biting and filled with a very New York brand of dark humor, avoids any easy sentimentality and superfluous action scenes: the tension builds gradually, driven by sharp dialogue and the gritty cinematography of Owen Roizman (also the cinematographer for The French Connection).

It’s no wonder Quentin Tarantino has always cited this film as a reference, particularly for the idea of criminals identified by colors, which he directly borrowed for his Reservoir Dogs.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, a gem like they don’t make anymore, with a memorable twist ending, available on Prime Video!