ShareThisThe role of Lt. Garber in "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" originally was written as a 32-year-old black man. Once Walter Matthau cut his normal asking price and joined the cast, Garber was reshaped to fit him like a custom-made suit.
Or, in his case, a slightly rumpled one.
The subway thriller, based on John Godey's novel of the same name, teamed Matthau as a New York transit cop with Robert Shaw as the lead hijacker of a subway train. Garber asked the obvious question of the underground gang: "You don't really think you're gonna get outta there, do ya?"
ABC remade "Pelham" in 1998 with Edward James Olmos as the transit detective and Vincent D'Onofrio as the chief villain. Now, the book is being dusted off again, thanks to director Tony Scott and writer Brian Helgeland.
This time, Denzel Washington is manning the microphone at the Rail Control Center and John Travolta is calling the sadistic shots from a subway car beneath the city. A look at how the 1974 thriller stacks up with its 2009 "retelling," "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3."
THE DISPATCHER:
Then: Walter Matthau played Lt. Zachary Garber, a New York transit cop who is giving a guided tour to Japanese visitors as the train is being hijacked. He becomes the negotiator, trying to maintain a fragile peace underground, get the ransom money to the gang and use his knowledge of the system to figure out how the criminals can hope to escape.
Now: Denzel Washington, in an apparent nod to the 1974 film, plays subway dispatcher Walter Garber, a family man living under a shadow of suspicion. With glasses and a wardrobe (including a yellow shirt that harkens back to Matthau's yellow tie) that seems to camouflage a few extra pounds, this is Denzel as Everyman. "I'm just a civil-service employee," he pleads.
THE RINGLEADER:
Then: Robert Shaw was at his icy best as the ringleader who goes by the name of Mr. Blue. A former mercenary, he is such a cool customer that he does crossword puzzles in between ransom demands. He chooses a different (final) exit strategy than his modern counterpart.
Now: John Travolta is Ryder, the mastermind who informs the conductor, "Life is simple now. You just gotta do what I say." With his receding hairline, fu manchu mustache, tattooed neck and fondness for the f-word, he's a flamboyant, financially savvy character who drops some clues about his religious upbringing.
THE RANSOM:
Then: In 1974, the hijackers with the simple crayon names -- Blue, Green, Grey and Brown -- demanded $1 million in cash to release 17 passengers and a subway conductor. They gave the city of New York an hour to produce the money and threatened to kill a hostage for every minute past the 3:13 p.m. deadline.
Now: Although you cannot put a price on human life, you can factor in inflation. This time, the ransom is a little more than $500,000 a person, bringing the tab to $10 million. It's all worked out to the penny.
THE MAYOR:
Then: Lee Wallace plays the sniveling, sniffling mayor, in bed with the flu at Gracie Mansion when the hijacking happens. His bedroom turns into a makeshift office as advisers suggest they don't want another Attica and weigh how this will play out in the polls. When he meets the public, he's greeted with boos.
Now: A bespectacled James Gandolfini is the mayor, reluctantly riding the subway to a school where he orders a doctor to be waiting with a flu shot so he can avoid getting sick. He is not running for re-election and is in the middle of a messy divorce. When a TV reporter asks him about that, he delivers a wonderful, withering look.
THE GANG:
Then: Shaw was joined by Martin Balsam as Green, Hector Elizondo as Grey and Earl Hindman as Brown. Green, suffering from a terrible cold, is fatalistic, insisting, "I'm gonna die today."
Now: Ryder so dominates the gang that the others are almost superfluous. Most notable among his hijacking henchmen is Luis Guzman as Ramos, who has a strip of tape across his nose (a nod to the original character's cold, perhaps) and the same "I'm gonna die today" lament.
SIGNS OF THE TIME:
Then: Garber assumes, incorrectly and offensively, that Japanese visitors cannot speak English. One of the hijackers uses the N-word, which provokes a comment about the Vietnam War, and word surfaces that an undercover cop may be among the hostages. "There's a bunch of heavily armed men down there, what chance does one lousy cop got, especially if it's a dame?" Garber asks.
Now: Garber speaks for all of New York when he asks Ryder, "Are you terrorists?" Ryder, in a politically incorrect sign of the times, repeatedly calls an Italian-American hostage negotiator named Lt. Vincent Camonetti a "greaseball." Access to the Internet, live news coverage and the rise and fall of Wall Street all factor into the updated story, too.
FUN FLOTSAM:
Then: After commuters across the country complained about "Taking" posters in subways, the ad campaign there was dumped. The Web site imdb.com reports that since the release of the film, no No. 6 train has ever been scheduled to leave Pelham Bay Park at either 13:23 or 01:23, the numerical reference of the title. Quentin Tarantino copped the name-color concept for "Reservoir Dogs."
Now: "Pelham" is the fourth collaboration between director Scott and Washington, after "Deja Vu," "Man on Fire" and "Crimson Tide." In the press notes, Washington says, "For the first six weeks, I didn't even see John. We were both on set, but I was in one room and he was in another." Scott filmed in the subway for four weeks, the longest and most extensive shoot ever in New York's subway.
(Pittsburgh Post-Gazette movie editor Barbara Vancheri can be reached at bvancheri(at)post-gazette.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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