Taking From 'The Taking of Pelham One Two Three'

As part of my devotion to seeing every movie set in early-1970s scuzzy New York, I recently caught up with 1974's The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, which features four bandits hijacking a subway train just south of the 28th St. station on the 4-5-6 line. It's the rare film in which New York City's now-defunct Transit Police (including Jerry Stiller as a transit detective!) get to be the heroes. For all I know, it's the only film with the transit cops as the heroes.

One of those bandits is Hector Elizondo, who was only 37 at the time, so I figured this might be a rare chance to see him with hair. Hector wears a hat for nearly the entire running time of the movie, but when he finally takes it off near the end, you can see that he went to his barber and asked for the Gavin MacLeod.

Elizondo plays a character referred to only as Mr. Grey; his fellow hijackers are Mr. Brown, Mr. Blue and Mr. Green. Hey, just like Reservoir Dogs! I swear, if I watch enough scuzzy movies from the 1970s, eventually I'm going to come across someone having a conversation about a Royale With Cheese.