The Incident

It's the subway ride we all dread, closed in for many minutes with street hoods. In the early a.m hours, petty criminals (Martin Sheen, Tony Musante) board a crowded subway train after mugging a helpless old man. Inbetween subway stops, the hoods terrorize the passengers in the subway car. They hit upon the women, taunt the male passengers into fights. Finally, a young man in uniform (Beau Bridges) becomes the first to defend themselves, and gets into a harrowing fight with Musante. One of the first attempts at a low budget independent film. Director Larry Pearce gets excellent performances out of the all-star cast. Some of the dialog is a rather forced, cliched, and the time period between subway stops go on way too long. But there are fine moments (Musante verbally tearing apart passenger Brock Peters, Sheen scaring the daylights out of boarding passengers when the subway DOES stop) The film makes one think of the more exciting, and more thought out "Taking Of Pelham One Two Three (1974)"

As I watched this movie this evening, it affected me like a good movie should. In this one, Martin Sheen and Tony Musante are 2 hoodlums who board a subway car and proceed to terrorize/harass the various occupants riding this car. Psychologically, it accomplishes what the director sets out to: Provoke/Stir up Emotions in the viewer. In particular, the atrocities committed against the gay man and Black couple are disturbing, especially given the era in which this film was produced. I was driven to anger watching the responses of the characters. Beau Bridges, Martin Sheen, and Donna Mills are interesting to watch in this film. The ending is something to see, and the very ending provokes some questions to the summation of this film. Recommended to see.

I caught this movie on AMC at 3 o'clock this morning (or so), and was blown away! What a tense, gritty drama - and what a cast! I was trying to figure out who was who, as they were all so young (Ed McMahon? Donna Mills? Ruby Dee without Ossie Davis? Wow!) Martin Sheen's baby face made his psycho character all the more frightening. To me, the movie is a great time capsule of the sixties, and of New York. I do have a complaint to register regarding the AMC channel - instead of squeezing the end credits to make room for commercials for the next movie, how about staying true to your movie fans who have a compulsive need to read the credits, and show them full-screen to the end? Who's with me on this one? Thank goodness for IMDb to get us through!

Two psychos (Martin Sheen and Tony Musante) terrorize the passengers of a NYC subway car. The first half introduces the characters...the second half is the attack. The "victims" are an unhappily married couple (Ed McMahon and Diana van de Vlis); a young couple (Edward Arnold and Donna Mills); an elderly couple (Jack Gilford and Thelma Ritter); two Army guys (Beau Bridges and Robert Bannard); ANOTHER unhappy couple (Mike Kellin and Jan Sterling); a gay man full of self-loathing (Robert Fields); a recovering alcoholic (Gary Merrill) and a black couple (Brock Peters and Ruby Dee).

This is a great movie and STILL unknown to this day. It is very unpleasant to watch and the realism may be too much for some people. Also the film is, sadly, still topical (although NY subways are nowhere near this bad nowadays). Each character is attacked (verbally and physically) during the course of the film--the attacks on the black couple and the gay man are so extreme and violent they're virtually unwatchable. All the acting is excellent which makes this film very hard to shake off. Also it's very interesting to see Ed McMahon doing drama and this is the film debut of Sheen and Mills. Shot in b&w which actually helps. A must see...just brace yourself.

a truly excellent film with remarkable performances from all of the cast. The film explores a theme of the uncaring New Yorkers which was very much a dominating force here in the mid and late 1960s. Two boys terrorize and essentially hold hostage about a dozen people on a subway car in the early morning hours. The passengers represent a crossection of New York society. It is a film about ones fears in confronting terror...in allowing evil to happen to all around you and doing nothing to stop it. It ends when finally an outsider in that subway car has reached his breaking point. Yet he too is eventually abandonded.

as a New Yorker and a subway buff i really enjoyed the exteriors of the number 4 train although the cars early on are pre 1960 and later on the exteriors are the post 1964 cars...but this is a continuity error that someone like myself would look for.

Along with a very young Martin Sheen...look for Donna Mills as a late teenage virgin..the veteran Great THELMA RITTER and a surprise appearance in a dramatic role by Johnny Carson's sidekick ED MCMAHON