Sightlines · reception

How The Taking of Pelham One Two Three was received

1974 · Joseph Sargent · The Taking of Pelham One Two Three on Sightlines

The arc

A solid hit in 1974 but treated as a genre programmer, it's since been canonized 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.

Did you know? The New York City Transit Authority was initially reluctant to cooperate with the production, worried that a movie about hijacking a subway train might give real people ideas.