The Incident

The Incident was a film that got great critical notices when it came out then seemed to disappear. I was waiting more than 50 years to see it and it was worth the wait.

A bunch of familiar players pair off in twos mostly some married, some not and at least one gay guy looking to hook up in those pre-Stonewall days. They're all quite absorbed with their selves and significant others not to notice a pair of deadly hoodlums, Tony Musante and Martin Sheen board the train. These two are quite deadly and they are the first we meet. And when we do meet them we see how deadly they are.

As our dramatis personae gather on the subway after we see bits of their lives, Musante and Sheen start to terrorize the occupants of the subway car. All of them so self absorbed in their own situations they don't make any kind of move. The men humiliated, the women degraded.

I'd love to know where the transit cops were? This was in the Lindsay years and back then the big campaign was to advertise New York as Fun City.

Some of the more memorable couples were Jan Sterling and Michael Kellin, Thelma Ritter, and Jack Gilford, Ed McMahon and Diane VanderVlis, Brock Peters and Ruby Dee.

The Incident is a film testament to New Yorkers legendary code of non-involvement. When rescue comes, it comes at the hands of the only non-New Yorker on the train.

After 50 years The Incident with its many fine performances packs a wallop.

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)"

I loved the way this film captured the essence of the 60s. Some people today think the 60s was the decade of long hair and flower power, but for the masses, that was really the 70s. The 60s, and most passengers on the ill-fated train car, were represented by tight clothes, businessmen who still wore hats and nondescript overcoats, and young women with straight, glossy hair. The two thugs who take over the train look like they might have come from a Beatles concert. I liked the realistic gritty look of the interior of the streetcar, with litter on the floor, and a design that seemed to come from about World War I. The outdoor scenes of the train passing by are very grainy, and in their black and white simplicity create an appropriate feel.

The movie is a bit heavy handed, though, in its morality lesson. It's as if the screenwriter had a framed copy of the German missive on the Nazi takeover above his desk: "First they came for the Jews, but I didn't speak out because I was not a Jew, then they came for the communists, but I didn't speak out because....." I simply can't believe that so many people could be so cowardly. The mod guy who freezes up while a bully strokes his girlfriend's hair is too much. And the fact that the bullies essentially insult everyone on the car in turn while everyone looks away doesn't wash either. You know you're next, so why not try to put a stop to it now? The black guy who was so eager to punch a white could have pummeled them both as soon as they let his wife/hostage go. Where did all his anger go? And the gay guy who tried to get off meekly returned when the weaker of the two bullies merely said, "go to your room". He was inches from freedom, and was much larger than Martin Sheen's character.

This movie is worth seeing for its cast alone. It's fun to see such a young Beau Bridges, and to see TV's Ed McMahon in a serious role. Virtually every cast member was known to me, if only as a familiar face from countless other movies from the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

Oh, and I burst out laughing at a scene which probably was originally intended to be very poignant and thought provoking. Blame my recent addiction to Dave Chapelle's comedy. When the police finally come and see the carnage, they immediately try to cuff the black guy, without asking any questions.

With its flaws noted, I recommend this movie as a great time capsule of the 60s, and a study of how cowardice can lead to worse and worse situations.

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!

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.