Reel Politique: Movie Review, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, D. K. Holm Film Fest 3
The hottest movie ticket in town is the weekly outdoor screenings at Lance Kramer’s house in Southeast Portland, and the best part of the admission is that it’s free. Kramer has a beautiful set up, with DVD projection against a huge recently-repainted white wall that serves as the screen, one at least as large as those found in the Laurelhurst. Kramer’s unnamed venue may be the last outdoor theater in all of Oregon, now that the era of the drive-in has subsided.
On a recent Wednesday evening the humid night gave over to occasional lightning flashes in the sky as Kramer screened Unearthly Strangers, part of the so-called D. K. Holm Film Festival. Unearthly Strangers is an obscure, talky, but intriguing British science fiction film with very little science fiction in it. Nevertheless, about 30 or more dedicated cinephiles seemed to get a kick out of it, as the last embers of the grill glowed in the dark, and the last vestiges of hedonism’s beverages were drained from the cups.
Next week’s film is as yet unknown (Mr. Kramer favors spontaneity and also takes requests), but in two week’s time, on Wednesday, July 16, Kramer will offer the third in the D. K. Holm series, a double bill of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, followed by The Train.
Form Buster Keaton’s The General to the horror film Terror Train the train movie has been a vibrant subset of Hollywood pictures, in which the brisk movement of the train usually contrast pleasingly with the static moments in the compartments themselves. These are two of the best. Directed by Joseph Sargent in 1974 from a novel by John Godey scripted by the great Peter Stone (Charade, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is a great heist film in which Robert Shaw leads a team of men to seize and hold for ransom a Manhattan subway car.
Walter Matthau is the transit cop out to stop him. Martin Balsam, Hector Elizondo, Jerry Stiller, and Doris Roberts also pop up in this gritty, funny, fast-paced tale fueled by David Shire’s jangly urban score. These days, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is most famous for being the source of Tarantino’s colorful gang pseudonyms for Reservoir Dogs, but new viewers will be won over by its gritty wit and cynicism.
The Train started out as an Arthur Penn film but after a dispute, John Frankenheimer took over. The 1964 film tells of a group of French resistance fighters and railroad workers attempting to thwart a German general (Paul Scofield) from stealing France’s great art as the last days of WWII wind down. Shot in a contrasty, grim black and white, The Train harks back to Keaton’s The General as a collection of difficult problems that one man must solve over a vast playing field, in this case, Burt Lancaster as the incongruous Paul Labiche. The Train is all about Lancaster as a physical presence, as a perpetual motion machine, sliding down staircases and running along hill tops in his lone effort to stop that train.
If Kramer’s loyal audience can last through a double bill, they’ll enjoy two of the finest train movies ever made, two movies that form a striking contrast between the two stylistic ends of the genre.
Forthcoming D K Hom Fest films include The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), The World of Henry Orient (1964), Guy Maddin’s Careful (1992), or some other Guy Maddin selection, a double bill of Them! (1954) and Tremors (1990), Little Murders (1971), and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). Showtime is around 9 PM, or whenever it gets dark and the spirit moves the multitude. Lance Kramer can be reached at 503 231 3561, or via kramer.lance@gmail.com.