ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Peereddi I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

suldog I'm a subway buff. Love underground/elevated trains, stations, etc., and am especially fond of the NYC subway. This is the best subway movie ever made.(I know - some folks will reference "The Taking Of Pelham 123", in one or another of its versions, as being better, and it certainly is fine, but this is better. Just my opinion.) What truly blows me away about the making of this film is that NYC Transit would not allow the filmmakers to shoot, but they did, anyway. The hid cameras in bags and just went ahead and shot without permission. Then they had a NYC subway car interior built for them by the original manufacturer, for the interior scenes. So, perfect realism in all aspects of the scenery.OK, the plot. Marvelous. Two punks terrorize a train full of passengers during the late night/early morning hours. This continues until one of the passengers (I won't tell you which one) finally stands up to them. While the punks are basically abhorrent, they occasionally do something to one or another of the passengers that perhaps makes you believe that they might begin to behave reasonably. Then they don't go in the direction you might wish. They do something even more reprehensible, and that's how the tension is kept razor sharp.Acting? Superb all around. Tony Musante is especially good as one of the punks, as menacing as any character in the history of motion pictures. Hell, just his look is enough to make most of the passengers back off. Martin Sheen, as his buddy, looks more reasonable, but is actually pretty much as vicious. Among the passengers, Beau Bridges is great as a soldier on leave. Another great performance comes from Mike Kellin as the henpecked husband of Jan Sterling. Very surprisingly good dramatic performance from Ed McMahon (!) as parent of a young girl.The ending is both satisfying and sad. We see the punks get some payback, but the hero is never thanked, never given anything even close to what he deserves. Lives have been changed - some irrevocably - but one is also left with the feeling that some of these characters are so into self-denial that they will be just fine with everything in a few days.Fine time capsule of the time period - the 1960's - and of the subway at that time.Highly recommended, even if you're NOT a subway buff.

Woodyanders Martin Sheen and Tony Musante are both chillingly intense and believable as a couple of nasty no-count hoodlums who terrorize a motley assortment of folks on a New York City subway car late at night. The pernicious pair force the various passengers to face up to their true (often pathetic) natures. Director Lary Peerce, working from a painfully incisive script by Nicholas E. Baehr, trenchantly uses the subway car as a microcosm of American society where all of man's worst fears and foibles come into play. Moreover, Peerce makes a grim, yet provocative statement about how most people become passive victims when thrust into a dangerous crisis situation. The sterling cast all give stand-out performances: Bob Bannard and Beau Bridges as two soldier buddies, Donna Mills as a mousy virginal blonde, Victor Arnold as Mills' amorous boyfriend, Jack Gilford and Thelma Ritter as a bickering elderly couple, a surprisingly solid Ed McMahon as a harried middle-class father of a little girl, Diana Van Der Vlis as MacMahon's wife, Robert Fields as a timid homosexual, Brock Peters as an angry white-hating black man, Ruby Dee as Peters' long-suffering wife, Gary Merrill as a desperate, down on his luck businessman, Mike Kellin as a meek school teacher, and Jan Sterling as Kellin's fed-up wife. Better still, the characters are well drawn and recognizably real human beings. This in turn makes the brutal ordeal they endure that much more potent and disturbing to watch. Gerald Hirschfeld's stark, vivid black and white cinematography, Terry Knight's rattling, rousing score, and the plausibly grungy Big Apple atmosphere further enhance the gritty realism and claustrophobic tension of this rough and unnerving movie. An absolute powerhouse.

kelsci I never watched this film before. I am originally from Queens,N.Y. so it did bring back memories,subway memories that is. I believe that NYC transit cops were riding the trains at that time. I noted the fare was 20 cents which had risen from 15 cents perhaps not too long before this film was produced. These were the last years that these particular kinds of subway cars were used on the subway lines of NYC. There were so many breakdowns that the city had to buy new cars not long after this film was made. I loved those old cars though. They had such a nice smell to them. On top of that, I loved the sound that they made. The sound people for this film captured that to a tee. I felt like I was riding in one of these cars again for just the moments that the movie was on. I got the feeling of an art film here as well. The black and white photography gave perfect atmosphere to this movie. Here it is 2007, and one cannot deny that Sheen and Bridges look good for their age and continue working in the industry. I never rode on the 3rd Ave. El but I remember it being in existence at that time. A good film of multi-characters;perhaps a good alternative title is "strangers on a New York subway train".

mdm-11 Despite budget limitations, the final product in this Independent Film Classic is outstanding. With a few familiar faces (although everyone looks so incredibly young here), and a relatively confining story line, the viewer becomes acquainted with several very unique characters. Two street thugs on a crime spree decide to continue their night of "fun and games" by accosting the passengers in a subway compartment. Regardless of appearance, ethnicity, age or gender, everyone appears to be free game for the hooligans.Although it may be painful to watch how innocent people are subjected to threats as well as emotional and physical abuse, this film offers much more than simply insight into an all-too-familiar nightmare. Through this "incident", people with their own problems are suddenly compelled to share with the world what they had kept hidden for so long. The outburst by the middle-aged woman, fed up with her small-time life as a school-teacher's wife, shows how emotional exhaustion can lead to an eventual explosion. As able bodied men look on in fear of the violent punks, a less likely hero emerges in defiance.This is a quiet gem of a film, much overlooked at the time of release in 1967. Fans will enjoy a look at the very youthful Martin Sheen, Donna Mills and Beau Bridges. Even Ed McMohann looks like a "kid". I highly recommend this film to enthusiasts of Independent Films. "The Incident" is easily among the very best of them!