FILM · 1974
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
79 archived facts 7 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (79)
- #001
In an interview with TVO (Ontario, Canada), the producer said the film earned tremendous box office in New York, Toronto, London and Paris (all cities with subways), but was considered a flop in the rest of the world.
- #002
During filming, one of Robert Shaw's favorite pastimes was playing ping-pong on tables set up in the station concourse. He reportedly beat all his opponents badly.
- #003
Lee Wallace, who plays the New York mayor in the film, bears a striking resemblance to the real mayor, Ed Koch. Many critics thought he was playing Koch, but Koch would not become mayor for another four years.
- #004
Composer David Shire was asked to extend the end-title sequence piece to allow for extra time/credits. His then-wife Talia Shire suggested he write a variation on the theme reflecting a more romantic view of New York City, to contrast with the bold sounds used in the film's main score. David Shire adopted this approach in the extended passage.
- #005
The large gap between the subway cars and the platform is because much of the underground footage was shot in the disused Court St. stub of the IND subway, which used wider cars than the IRT cars seen in the film.
- #006
In the scene where two officers arrive at the subway station to deliver the ransom money, the bright neon sign of the Belmore Cafeteria across the street is visible. That establishment played a more prominent role in another 1970s classic, Taxi Driver (1976), as the place where cab drivers took breaks during their shifts.
- #007
Since the film's release, the New York City Transit Authority has never scheduled a No. 6 train to leave Pelham Bay Park Station at 13:23 or 01:23. This was the policy for many years until it was stopped. Trains are still not scheduled to leave Pelham Bay Park Station at 01:23 or in the afternoon.
- #008
The New York Transit Authority (TA) initially refused to allow the film to be shot in the real New York subway. They feared it might actually give someone the idea to commit such a crime (it did not, though a later film, Money Train (1995), apparently did, showing their position to be reasonable). Associate producer Stephen F. Kesten was equally adamant that no other city's subway could be used convincingly. The TA finally cooperated after the intervention of Mayor John V. Lindsay, but required United Artists to pay $275,000 for subway use plus buy $75,000 in anti-hijacking insurance. The film's end titles include a disclaimer stating that the New York Transit Authority gave no advice or information regarding any use in the film. It reads: "Although most of the scenes in this film were shot on transit property, the New York City Transit Authority is not responsible for the plot, story and characters depicted. The Authority provided no technical advice or assistance."
- #009
When the hijackers get the money they demanded, Martin Balsam's character says, "I'm gonna die today!" Ironically, he is the only one of the hijackers not killed during the film.
- #010
Walter Matthau convinced Hector Elizondo to quit smoking during the filming of this movie.
- #011
While shooting all the scenes in the subway tunnels, the entire crew wore surgical masks to protect themselves from the dirt and debris.
- #012
Hector Elizondo once said he had trouble doing a transaction at his local bank because the teller had seen him in the film the night before and did not trust him.
- #013
The film was adapted from John Godey's bestselling 1973 novel of the same name.
- #014
The number and value of the $1 million in banknotes the hijackers demand would amount to 33 US pounds (15 kg).
- #015
Filming of the subway scenes began in late November 1973 and lasted until January 1974. Although the scenes were shot on a line unused since the 1940s, it was close enough to the still-operating A and E lines (running to and from the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station) that filming had to be done between passing trains because of their noise and lights.
- #016
Shooting underground was difficult and harsh because of the dirt and rats, the black dust and the unbearable noise of the subway trains. After each day of filming, crew members looked like coal miners.
- #017
During filming, director Joseph Sargent reminded everyone that it was a "golden safety rule" that no one go near the electrified third rail, despite the mostly confident belief among transit officials that it had been shut off. Apparently there was always a risk that someone would switch the device back on, either by accident or because they did not know it was off.
- #018
Although such cars were common at the time, the producers were forced by the MTA to show the subway cars without graffiti. The MTA believed that showing such subway cars would encourage and glorify graffiti.
- #019
Peter Stone came up with the idea of Mr. Green's constant sneezing.
- #020
The four train hijackers were codenamed Mr. Blue, Mr. Green, Mr. Gray and Mr. Brown. The color of the hat worn by each of the four villains (Gray, Green, Blue, Brown) matched their codename. Each boarded the train at a different subway station stop: Mr. Green at the 59th Street station, Mr. Gray at the 51st Street station, Mr. Brown at Grand Central station and finally Mr. Blue at the 28th Street station.
- #021
The motorman "Denny Doyle" of the Pelham 123 is played by James Broderick, Matthew Broderick's father.
- #022
The Pelham 1-2-3 subway train was an R21 Series subway car built by the St. Louis Car Co. in 1956.
- #023
Director Joseph Sargent's wife plays the woman with glasses who tries to stop the runaway subway car.
- #024
It was mostly shot in the tunnels leading to the disused IND Court St. station in Brooklyn. The station itself served as Grand Central and 28th St. and is now home to the New York Transit Museum.
- #025
The meaning of "Pelham One Two Three" refers to a New York subway schedule terminal and departure-time program radio call sign. As explained in the film, "Pelham" is the name of the station the subway train departs from and "One Two Three" refers to the departure time, that is, 13:23.
- #026
It is one of three tough-guy action films Walter Matthau made from the early to mid-1970s, before his 1976 bypass surgery, which prevented him from taking on such roles. The other two were Charley Varrick (1973) and The Laughing Policeman (1973).
- #027
In Season 8, Episode 23 of The King of Queens (1998), Doug, played by Kevin James, learns that his father-in-law, played by Jerry Stiller, used to be an actor. The film clip Doug watches is Stiller, who played Rico Patrone in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974).
- #028
Walter Matthau was not a fan of the script's profane language.
- #029
Walter Matthau's son Charles Matthau says that in the final scene Matthau imitates Charles Chaplin.
- #030
In the novel, motorman Denny Doyle is one of the hostages and is later the one shot dead when the hijackers decide to execute one of them, while conductor Bud Carmody is initially released to take the passengers in the other cars back to the 28th Street station. The film reverses this, with Carmody held hostage and executed while Doyle is ordered to take the other passengers back. This was done so that, when the motorman is initially shown before the train departs, Lieutenant Garber can correctly deduce that one of the hijackers was previously a motorman.
- #031
Steven Spielberg was considered to direct.
- #032
Lucy Saroyan, the daughter of writer William Saroyan and the stepdaughter of star Walter Matthau, appeared in a small role. Matthau's niece Michelle Matthow also appeared in a small role.
- #033
Although the scenes were shot in an abandoned station, other trains kept passing on nearby tracks, and their noise caused sound-recording problems that required dubbing some of the dialogue in post-production.
- #034
Walter Matthau wears a brightly colored shirt and a yellow tie in this film. In The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009), the second remake of the film, Denzel Washington wears a wardrobe with a similar color scheme.
- #035
In the novel, Grier comes up with the idea for the hijacking after reading in the newspaper about two men who put a change booth at a subway station in the Bronx.
- #036
The actor who played the Subway Guard was named Jim Pelham.
- #037
Robert Shaw and Julius Harris both played villains in two James Bond films: Shaw was the main villain Donald "Red" Grant in From Russia with Love (1963), and Harris was T. Hee, one of the villains in Live and Let Die (1973). Coincidentally, both characters were killed by Bond on a train.
- #038
In the novel, we later see some of the hostages. One of the novel's jokes is that one of them wants to write what happened as a novel.
- #039
The film holds a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 43 critic reviews.
- #040
Although Walter Matthau was born and raised in New York, he had not ridden the New York subway in many years.
- #041
While the Mayor is in his bedroom, a television can be heard in the background. He is watching The Newlywed Game (1966). The voice of the host heard is Dennis James. James never hosted that show; Bob Eubanks was the actual host of the series in 1974. James is known for hosting many game shows, including Name That Tune (1953), Your First Impression (1961) and The Price Is Right (1972), and he was also Ted Mack's announcer on Ted Mack & the Original Amateur Hour (1948).
- #042
Walter Matthau wore a curly-haired wig as a joke when he auditioned for the role of Garber.
- #043
According to Ben Stiller in the documentary Stiller & Meara: Nothing Lost (2025), he was in the back seat of the police car while his father Jerry Stiller and Walter Matthau shot the scene at the box office.
- #044
In the novel, some of the police officers consider pocketing part of the money for themselves.
- #045
The hijackers in the novel wore masks and used their real names, but Stone added the color-coded idea to his screenplay. It is smarter, but it also prevents great actors from having to perform in masks.
- #046
This is the only time Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw appeared together. In 1966, Matthau had beaten Shaw for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar with his role as Whiplash Willie in The Fortune Cookie (1966), against Shaw's powerful portrayal of Henry VIII in A Man for All Seasons (1966). Matthau also appears alongside Martin Balsam, who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar a year before Matthau for A Thousand Clowns (1965).
- #047
At 1:00:02, when the police car carrying the ransom money crashes, you can see the crowd standing behind the barricades watching. It was shot on a Sunday morning.
- #048
In the novel, the transit police character played by Walter Matthau as Lieutenant Garber is barely featured, and the book actually has a separate character named Garber. The actor liked the screenplay written by Peter Stone, who had written two earlier films in which Matthau shared the lead, and when he expressed interest, they began strengthening the role.
- #049
The film's cast includes two Oscar winners, Walter Matthau and Martin Balsam, and one Oscar nominee, Robert Shaw.
- #050
It was included in the American Film Institute's 2001 list of 400 nominated films for the 100 Most Heart-Pounding American Films.
- #051
The armored car carrying the money was a 1972 Plymouth Fury III.
- #052
Lieutenant Daniels's unmarked command car was a 1973 Ford Galaxie 500.
- #053
Key differences between the film's two main versions: The 1974 version is a crime thriller with dark humor and social commentary, with a strong sense of realism depicting 1970s New York as chaotic, dirty and in urban decline, and a more measured pace focused on the psychological tension between the negotiators and the criminals. The villains are a group of cold-blooded hijackers led by Mr. Blue (played by Robert Shaw), a methodical and ruthless ex-soldier, and the emphasis is on an iconic ending that keeps the audience guessing until the last second, regarded as one of the best decisions in crime thrillers. The 2009 version is a modern action film with fast cuts, tense camera work and intense electronic music (the style that characterizes most films directed by Tony Scott), an updated context of the internet, the stock market and post-9/11 terrorism, far more action and gunplay and less subtlety. Its villain, John Travolta's Ryder, is flashier, more violent and unstable and has almost gangster-like traits, and the emphasis is on the personal relationship between Ryder and Garber (played by Denzel Washington), explored through long radio conversations and moral dilemmas.
- #054
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) was the second time Robert Shaw played a hijacker; the first was in the British production Tomorrow at Ten (1963).
- #055
The ransom demand is $1,000,000 as in the novel, but in the 2009 remake the ransom was raised to $10,000,000 because one million was seen as a stale price.
- #056
It was Bill Cobbs's first film.
- #057
Robert Shaw is shown holding a 1911 pistol on a widely distributed poster for the film, but the pistol his character uses in the film's thrilling confrontation is a Browning Hi-Power.
- #058
Garber's equivalent in the novel is a man named Prescott, a minor character who is the operations lieutenant and who watches the escape from the transit police headquarters.
- #059
The film contains a reference to the "motorman," known in many other countries as a "train driver"/"tram driver." Also, and perhaps confusingly, some organizations, films and TV series may refer to a "driver" as an "engineer." The term "Train Operator" is also used in some countries.
- #060
That same year, composer David Shire also wrote the music for The Conversation (1974), directed by his then brother-in-law Francis Ford Coppola.
- #061
In the novel, Grier shoots one of the robbers and another is paralyzed.
- #062
Cinematographer Owen Roizman and editor Gerald B. Greenberg had worked on The French Connection (1971) three years earlier.
- #063
It was included in the American Film Institute's (AFI) 2005 list of 250 films nominated for AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores.
- #064
Jim Healy, curator of film exhibitions at George Eastman House, spent time in Rochester, NY, and brought Joseph Sargent in for a series of heist screenings.
- #065
In the scene where Garber confronts Frank, he grabs him by the front of his shirt and pushes him back. Frank falls back very hard and narrowly misses hitting his head on the table. This was clearly not scripted, was left in by the editor and made the final cut.
- #066
At around 1:34, Lieutenant Patrone (Jerry Stiller) informs Lieutenant Garber (Walter Matthau) that the hijacker who electrocuted him (Robert Shaw) is identified in immigration records as "Bernard Ryder. Mercenary soldier." In the 2009 remake, John Travolta's character uses the name "Ryder" as his alias when talking to Garber (Denzel Washington).
- #067
Mr. Blue chooses Manhattan's South Ferry station to give Lieutenant Garber his instructions. It is the southernmost end of the subway line, just two blocks from the waters of New York Bay.
- #068
In the novel, an off-duty police officer is one of the hostages and takes matters into his own hands at the film's climax. He shoots Ryder in the tunnel (named Grier in the film), but in the film he dies of electrocution. In the 2009 remake, Ryder is killed outside by Garber.
- #069
The novel's ending differs from both this film and the 2009 remake; in this film the last remaining robber says something incriminating to Walter Matthau, while in the remake Garber kills Ryder and the police kill the last two robbers.
- #070
The hijackers carry Smith & Wesson Model 76 submachine guns.
- #071
During the 'money run,' a large billboard-style sign reading BERKEY PHOTO can be seen. Berkey was a major photo processor in New York at the time.
- #072
The film is filled with character actors who had long and distinguished careers. Ironically, the distinction here is that those playing the good guys (police officers, politicians, transit workers, etc.) had equally well played villains, criminals and losers in other films.
- #073
For an unexplained reason, all of Mr. Blue's gang members wear hats, black-framed glasses and mustaches. This arrangement is not guaranteed to help them all remain anonymous in public. However, they keep away from each other until the hijacking begins.
- #074
As Lieutenant Garber, played by actor Walter Matthau, talks to Captain Costello on the radio, the camera pans across a shot of Transit Authority train conductors. The man seated on the left is the voice on the radio, Dolf Sweet.
- #075
Dick O'Neil and Earl Hindman appeared several times in the TV series Home Improvement.
- #076
All the advertising posters in the hijacked subway car are for real products.
- #077
$1,000,000 is equivalent to $7,500,000 in 2026.
- #078
At 1:00:04, you can briefly see the silver helmet Joey Chitwood wears while flipping the police car.
- #079
The $1,000,000 ransom amounts to a total of 15,000 banknotes, consisting of $500,000 in $100 bills and $500,000 in $50 bills, which is far more than could fit in the bag shown.
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