The
Cats: New York|This is one of the greatest pictures ever made about New York. It is, however, the greatest picture ever made about the New York City subway system. Filmed almost entirely within the subway system, this picture captures not only the realism of the day to day operations of our beloved transit system, it captures a lost era of New York. All the characters that populate this picture are realistic and evocative of that times they are a changing era of the late 1960’s early 1970’s. And once upon a time our subway system did look like that, populated by employees, railroad men, who cursed in the thickest of New York accents. This is also a thrilling suspense picture.
Walter Matthau is the weary, seen it all detective Zachary Garber who has to deal with a highly dangerous and unusual situation. A subway car has been detached from a train and is being held hostage by “four dangerous and heavily armed men”. They are demanding a $1,000,000. ransom. How will they pull this off? They are in the claustrophobic confines of a subway tunnel. You will have to watch and see.
The only sets that had to be built for this picture were the Command Center and a motorman’s cab. Both sets were accurate. The actor motorman who loses his train to the gang of hijackers is Matthew Broderick’s father. He was not qualified to move a subway train. So a motorman’s cab was built on a flat bed car and a real NYCTA motorman operated the train from one car back. The Transit Authority did not offer any technical assistance to the producers. In fact they originally said no to this picture being made here. It was referred to as a “terrible idea”. Finally the NYCTA was persuaded with a hefty rental fee, an insurance policy just in case this situation ever arose and the intervention of Mayor John Lindsay
The uncanny resemblance that the actor who plays “the Mayor” to real life mayor Edward Koch was not lost as actor Lee Wallace did a one man show about Mayor Koch back in the 1980’s. He also played the mayor of Gotham City in the 1989 Batman with Micheal Keaton in the title role. Ed Koch did not become mayor for a few more years so the casting was just coincidental.
The score for this picture is one of the best ever composed by David Shire. It was something that would be played very loud late in a Friday night at the store, much to the dismay of out upstairs neighbors.
I do not remember the first time I saw this picture but I was a kid who did not end up terribly scared by this experience. The Transit Authority however, was. Ever since this film no #6 train has left Pelham at 1:23 (the title refers to the time a train left it’s starting point).
December 11 at 1:30 AM on Turner Classic Movies
