The Taking of Pelham One Two Three · reception & legacy
1974 · Joseph Sargent
How The Taking of Pelham One Two Three has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
A solid hit in 1974 but treated as a genre programmer, it's since been canonised as one of the great gritty New York thrillers of the 70s — now routinely mentioned in the same breath as The French Connection and Dog Day Afternoon.
What's debated
The perennial fan fight is original-versus-remake: the 2009 Tony Scott version with Denzel and Travolta sends film Twitter and Letterboxd back to relitigate why the unglamorous '74 original wins every time.
Its footprint
Its color-coded criminal aliases — Mr. Blue, Mr. Green, Mr. Grey, Mr. Brown — famously inspired the naming scheme in Reservoir Dogs, and David Shire's snarling funk score has become a sampled, playlisted cult object in its own right.
Where it stands
A 'you must have seen this' staple of the 70s New-York-grime canon, beloved on Letterboxd for Walter Matthau's deadpan and one of the most celebrated final shots in the genre.