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Orwell and the caper, a coolly abstruse Seventies formulation. "America, man, you know, it's so beautiful I wanna eat it." The outside world sparkles to the recently released safecracker (Sean Connery), or at least the luxurious building on Millionaires' Row does, a top-to-bottom burglary is the plan. "Like a military operation, not like the old days," heedless longhair (Christopher Walken), "fag decorator" (Martin Balsam), Black Power militant (Dick Anthony Williams) are among the recruits. Funding comes from the underworld capo (Alan King) who wants the wild card (Val Avery) liquidated, the moll (Dyan Cannon) plays muse for rent, "she knows the value of a contract." A pair of studies, one about hoods old and new and the other about the technologies that engulf them, between the two Sidney Lumet sustains a wry shuttling. (It begins with a surveillance monitor and ends with a reel of erased tape, the air of rampant bugging is sprinkled throughout with electronics quivers and bleeps.) Jumpsuits and leather masks and freeze-frames and flash-forwards for the heist, cf. The Killing, a whiz-kid's signal is intercepted by a ham radio operator but gets stalled by a fussy switchboard operator. The kaleidoscope of pungent New York cameos—from Ralph Meeker resembling a Tex Avery bulldog to Margaret Hamilton as an ancient tenant mortified by her salacious literature—bears Lumet's signature, Keystone Cops prepare Dog Day Afternoon's street theater. "If they're any good, they can do it the hard way." The Taking of Pelham One Two Three follows, so does Watergate. With Stan Gottlieb, Paul Benjamin, Garrett Morris, Richard B. Shull, Conrad Bain, Judith Lowry, Anthony Holland, Meg Myles, Norman Rose, Max Showalter, Janet Ward, and Scott Jacoby.
--- Fernando F. Croce |