Heres another book I discovered long after seeing the movie, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. The book was published in 1973 and written by Morton Freedgood, writing under the pen name of John Godey. It involved a team of four armed and dangerous men who hijack one car of a NYC subway train and demand ransom for the hostages, cash to be delivered within one hour or hostages will be killed. The leader of the thugs develops a dialogue with the head of the transit police, who tries to figure out how these guys think they can possibly get away with the crime given that theyre in the subway tunnel. Its a great thriller-- The original 1974 film stars Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw, there was a Canadian TV version released in 1998, and then a 2009 remake made which stars Denzel Washington and John Travolta. The books characters names were used in the latter film and not in the original, but otherwise the first movie stays more true to the book. I highly recommend the book and the original movie. The 2009 films plot was changed substantially from the original, and is fairly entertaining but certainly no match for the original. (I just bought and read the book during the past year, so thats why it features the 2009 movie tie-in photo on the cover.)
Posted on: Sun, 25 May 2014 04:43:41 +0000