The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is a 1974 American crime drama film directed by Joseph Sargent, produced by Gabriel Katzka and Edgar J. Scherick, and starring Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam, and Héctor Elizondo.
In New York City, fou…
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is a 1974 American crime drama film directed by Joseph Sargent, produced by Gabriel Katzka and Edgar J. Scherick, and starring Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam, and Héctor Elizondo.
In New York City, four men wearing similar disguises and carrying concealed weapons board the same downtown 6 train, Pelham 1-2-3, at different stations. Using codenames Mr. Blue, Mr. Green, Mr. Grey, and Mr. Brown, they take 18 people, including the conductor and an undercover police officer, hostage in the first car.
Communicating over the radio with Zachary Garber, a New York City Transit Police lieutenant, Blue demands a $1 million ransom to be delivered exactly within one hour or he will kill one hostage for every minute it is late. Green sneezes periodically, to which Garber always responds, "Gesundheit". Garber, his co-worker Lt. Rico Patrone, and others cooperate while speculating about the hijackers' escape plan. Garber surmises that one hijacker must be a former motorman since they were able to uncouple the head car and park it down the tunnel below 28th Street.
Conversations between the hijackers reveal that Blue is a former British Army Colonel and was a mercenary in Africa; Green was a motorman caught in a drug bust; and Blue does not trust Grey, who was ousted from the mafia for being erratic. Just then, Grey shoots and kills a supervisor sent from Grand Central as he approaches the stalled train.
The ransom is transported uptown in a speeding police car that crashes well before it reaches 28th Street. As the deadline is reached, Garber bluffs Blue by claiming that the money has reached the station entrance and just has to be walked down the tunnel to the train. A police motorcycle arrives with the ransom, but as two patrolmen carry the money down the tunnel, one of many police snipers in the tunnel shoots at Brown, and the hijackers exchange gunfire with the police. In retaliation, Blue kills the conductor.
The money is delivered and divided among the hijackers. Blue orders Garber to restore power to the subway line, set the signals to green all the way to South Ferry, and clear the police from stations along the route. Before the process is complete, however, Green moves the train farther south. When Garber becomes alarmed, Blue explains that he wanted more distance from the police inside the tunnel.
