Original ‘Taking of Pelham One Two Three’ tops insipid remake

THE TAKING OF PELHAM
ONE TWO THREE (1974)

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

From the thumping, repetitive bass line of the main title theme to the gritty New York City atmosphere, “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” remains one of the screen’s most successful crime thrillers.

Of course, I’m referring to the 1974 original film – not the pointless 2009 remake featuring Denzel Washington and John Travolta, an unsuccessful and totally unnecessary exercise.

“The Taking of Pelham One Two Three,” based on the book of the same name by John Godey, tells the gripping story of a group of heavily armed men who hijack a New York City subway and hold its passengers for ransom.

Meanwhile, Lt. Zachary Garber of the New York City Transit Authority leads efforts above ground to negotiate with the terrorists, secure the $1 million ransom and rescue the passengers. The back-and-forth play, above and below ground, heightens the film’s tense suspense.

A timeless classic of French cinema: ‘King of Hearts’

KING OF HEARTS (1968)

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

In the darkened auditorium of New Orleans’ only art house theater, I saw my first foreign language film – a wonderful, timeless French fable that opened my eyes to world cinema.

The year was 1975. The movie was Philippe De Broca’s 1966 film “King of Hearts,” a comedy-drama set in World War I France and starring Alan Bates as a Scottish soldier chosen to enter a small French town to defuse a German bomb.

As the local residents flee the town, the patients of an insane asylum escape the hospital and cheerfully take over the entire city oblivious to what is happening or to the ongoing war. They also thoroughly confuse Bates, whom they believe is the “King of Hearts.”

De Broca’s film has a simple and obvious message: Who is more insane – the folks who live in the asylum or the soldiers who wage war. The film’s joys come from watching De Broca and his talented cast work their magic, using sympathetic characters and poignant humor to drag you deeper into the story.

‘Squirm’: Among the best of 1970s drive-in schlock classics

SQUIRM (1976) 

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

During the mid-1970s, schlocky exploitation films from American International Pictures and New World Pictures filled second-run theaters and drive-ins every summer across the Deep South and the United States.

Marketed with catchy titles, bizarre concepts and trailers that promised violence, horror and crashing cars, many of these low-budget quickies played to packed theaters and turned an impressive profit.

But once hooked into the theaters, it was more than obvious most of the films were pure trash – films that had no redeeming value and weren’t nearly as interesting as the trailers that advertised them.

Every once in a while, though, one of those low-budget films would click. And when they did – like the 1976 horror, flesh-eating worm thriller “Squirm” – they often turned out to be an undiscovered gem buried in the middle of an otherwise large pile of pure junk.

Italian director Sergio Leone helms big screen’s best Western

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968)
ITALIAN MOVIE POSTER

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

From the brilliant 20-minute showdown at a train station depicted with almost no dialog to the pitch-perfect performances throughout, “Once Upon a Time in the West” is unlike any other Western ever made.

It’s also the greatest, the product of Italian director Sergio Leone – who had just completed the Clint Eastwood Western trilogy of a “Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More” and “The Good the Bad and the Ugly.”

Leone’s films are distinctively different from Westerns made by American film makers.

While Leone had an obvious love for the genre and was heavily influenced by such classics as “3:10 to Yuma,” “High Noon” and “The Searchers,” his films were nevertheless distinctively different.

For starters, they technically were Italian films, Spaghetti Westerns, filmed and financed on location in Europe with a European crew. The Eastwood trilogy was shot in Italian and dubbed in English for American release; Eastwood was one of the few actors to say his lines in English.

Pacino, DePalma team on crime thriller ‘Carlito’s Way’

Editor’s Note: This is the last of three posts on films of Brian DePalma. 

CARLITO’S WAY (1993)

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

Fresh off his Oscar-winning performance in “Scent of a Woman,” Al Pacino jumped head-first into his second collaboration with director Brian DePalma following the ultra-violent “Scarface” in 1983.

In the process, Pacino wound up starring in yet another of a long line of mob films that have dotted his career that began with “The Godfather” and included that film’s two sequels and “Donnie Brasco.” Ahhh, but “Carlito’s Way” is significantly different.

Like “Scarface”, 1993’s “Carlito’s Way” features an Hispanic hero played by Pacino. But the similarities end there. These are two distinctly different films, both thematically and stylistically.

“Carlito’s Way” eschews the vicious, mean-spirited violence of “Scarface” for a haunting, tragic story of a deeply flawed man.

Brian DePalma’s Vietnam War classic: ‘Casualties of War’

Editor’s Note: This is the second of three posts on films of Brian DePalma.

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

CASUALTIES OF WAR (1989)

Brian DePalma has spent a good bit of his film making career mimicking the work and style of Alfred Hitchcock and occasionally dabbling in comedy and crime films with mixed results.

After experiencing success in 1976 with “Carrie,” DePalma bombed with his next film – the thriller “The Fury.” The same thing happened in 1989 when he bombed with  “Casualties of War,” his first film after the hit thriller “The Untouchables” in 1987.

But while “The Fury” was a stylish horror thriller with plot elements similar to “Carrie” (the main characters in both were telekinetic), “Casualties of War” was drastically different from “The Untouchables.” Here, DePalma jumped head-first into the Vietnam War with powerful results.

The tag line was catchy: “The first casualty of war is innocence.” The cast was impressive: A young Michael J. Fox trying to branch out from comedy and Sean Penn adding to his long list of admirable screen performances.

Overlooked and underrated: Brian DePalma’s ‘Blow Out’

Editor’s Note: This is the first of three posts on films of Brian DePalma. 

By TERRY R.CASSREINO

BLOW OUT (1981

Brian DePalma built his reputation and successful career by directing, and sometimes also writing, suspenseful and memorable character-driven horror thrillers.

He modeled his early work on Alfred Hitchcock. Some critics derided DePalma as nothing more than a Hitchcock hack, directing films that echoed and mimicked the themes and settings of many Hitchcock classics.

“Obsession” (1976), set in New Orleans, was nothing more than a retread of “Vertigo” – replete with a haunting score by Hitchcock regular Bernard Hermann. “Sisters” (1973) and, especially, “Dressed to Kill” (1980) had an awful lot in common with “Psycho.” In fact, “Dressed to Kill” is practically a shot-for-shot remake.

When DePalma tried to re-invent himself, his efforts proved just as troubling. “The Untouchables” (1987) was a slick, uninteresting retread of a popular 1950s television crime drama and “The Bonfire of the Vanities” (1990) was a flat-out, unmitigated, uninteresting disaster.