The Incident (film)

"The Incident" is an American film released in 1967, directed by Larry Peerce and starring Beau Bridges, Tony Musante, Brock Peters and Martin Sheen in his first film role. It tells the story of two young punks who, after mugging a man at knifepoint, board a New York City subway train and terrorize the passengers.

Plot

Joe (Tony Musante) and Artie (Martin Sheen) are two deadbeat punks who board a New York subway train on a late night and psychologically terrorize the passengers, who include: two soldiers, Pfc. Phillip Carmatti (Robert Bannard) and Pfc. Felix Teflinger (Beau Bridges), the latter of whom has a broken arm; an African-American couple, Arnold and Joan Robinson (Brock Peters and Ruby Dee); an upper-class couple with a child (Ed McMahon and Diana Van der Vlis); an elderly couple (played by Jack Gilford and Thelma Ritter); teenage virgin Alice Keenan (Donna Mills); and an unconscious derelict (Henry Proach). Joe is the more aggressive and sociopathic of the two punks, humiliating and degrading the passengers one by one. Artie is passive, docile, and more of a follower. Eventually Joe becomes violent, pulling out a switchblade. This leads Pfc. Teflinger to engage the punks in hand-to-hand combat. Despite his broken arm and a stab wound from Joe's knife, Teflinger manages to overpower Joe, and subsequently Artie, who drops his tough-guy facade and cowers when Joe is disarmed and overpowered.

The film ends with the passengers getting off the train, with the derelict still unconscious (or dead) on the floor, unmoving.

Trivia

*All scenes in the subway car were filmed in a studio mockup of IRT World's Fair Lo-V #5674. The producers contacted St. Louis Car Co. for original blueprints of the car and painstakingly reproduced it. Lights were mounted along the car exterior and illuminated sequentially to simulate a speed of 30 mph. The NYC Transit Authority refused to grant permission for filming on its property. Subway footage was filmed by concealing the cameras inside bags. Police became suspicious when they heard whirring sounds inside the bags.

*A UK cinema release was rejected outright by the BBFC twice in January 1968. It has not been resubmitted since.

*The New York Transit Authority denied permission to film even background shots on its property, but the filmmakers shot them anyway. Cinematographer Gerald Hirschfeld and an assistant rode the subway with a hidden camera, and when its sound was noticed, they stopped and came back later to finish the job. Hirschfeld said in an interview that he filmed in black and white in order to get "the most realistic style of photography possible"; test shots were taken in muted color but they were deemed to distract from the desired "somber" effect.

*The outdoor scenes of the El train were filmed on and around the Bronx section of the Third Avenue El, which closed in early 1973 and was torn down shortly after.

*Brock Peters had appeared five years earlier in the film adaptation of "To Kill a Mockingbird", in which he played Tom Robinson. In this film he plays Arnold Robinson, who, like Tom, is the target of racial prejudice.

External links

*imdb title|id=0061814|title=The Incident