Weekend Reading and Watching
This afternoon, I finished up Batman: Dark Victory, the Jeph Loeb-scripted, Tim Sale-penciled sequel to their previous Batman miniseries, The Long Halloween. Once again, I was underwhelmed. There are some strong elements to the book — Sale’s shadowy artwork is pleasingly moody, and Loeb does a nice job of balancing organized criminals with costumed supervillains — but once again, the story doesn’t live up to its promise. Both books are structured like detective fiction; there are a series of murders, and the question of whodunnit is the primary plot driver. But the detective elements aren’t terribly convincing. Batman beats a few people up to get information, and he puzzles vaguely over crime-scene clues, but there’s precious little real detecting in the book. And, to make things worse, there’s almost no character arc to speak of: Batman deals briefly with his own propensity to work alone, but, as in The Long Halloween, the bulk the story seems designed to take readers on a tour of his deadliest superfoes — Harvey Dent, Joker, Scarecrow, Poison Ivy, and Solomon Grundy all make appearances, but with the exception of Dent (who plays a pivotal role), none manages to make much of an impact. They’re there as props, designed mostly to inflate the villain count and make the story seem as if it’s got an epic sweep. Sale gets Gotham’s mood just right, but Loeb essentially forgets that there’s more to Batman than a lineup of supervillains — while ignoring the focus on character and procedure that drives the best Batman stories.
Character and procedure, meanwhile, are at the heart of one of my all-time favorite heist movies: Joseph Sargent’s original 1974 adaption of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, which I watched again this evening (in part to show Megan, who’d never seen it). The details aren’t perfect, of course (Megan noticed that a few of the station interiors were wrong, for example), but one of the movie’s strengths is the clear delight it takes in exploring and explaining the inner-workings of the New York subway system — workings that are crucial to understanding both the villains’ plot and the city officials’ responses. The final act is somewhat uneven, mostly due to the unwieldy way it’s all wrapped up, but the movie’s comparatively careful devotion to small-scale procedural detail, coupled with its cast of droll, cranky 1970’s NYC archetypes and not-so-thinly veiled stand-ins (Lee Wallace’s unnamed Mayor is particularly effective as an Ed Koch mirror) make for thoroughly enjoyable, and surprisingly durable, genre entertainment.
One additional little pleasure in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three was Doris Roberts, Mama Barone herself, as the mayor’s wife. Small role, but she was great.
— Paul Sand · Dec 14, 12:26 PM · #
Peter:
What about the final act is so uneven? All I remember is the absolutely wonderful ending with Walter Matthau saying “Gesundheit.” Care to explain?
— jd · Dec 14, 01:59 PM · #
As soon as I finished Dark Victory, I went back and re-read it, convinced I had missed something. On finishing it the second time, I realized that something had missed it.
— Tom Meyer · Dec 14, 03:29 PM · #
Ed Koch wasn’t elected mayor until 1977. Lee Wallace’s Mayor was more than likely a stab at John Lindsay, or maybe Abe Beame, who was NYC mayor around the time of Pelham’s release. A minor quibble but both were seen as impotent in the face of the city’s mid 60s to early 70s decline and I think better illustrate your otherwise excellent read on what is one my favorite all time favorite movies as well.
— Peter Curran · Dec 14, 09:07 PM · #
Here’s another little tidbit from the original Pelham 1,2,3. Robert Shaw had two or three accomplices in the heist. One of them was the guy who eventually played Wilson on Tim Allen’s Home Improvement series. You know, the back door neighbor who never showed his whole face.
I’m still really curious as to why Peter Suderman thought the ending was “uneven.” I can recall that it was entirely unsatisfying to think that the Martin Balsam character had gotten away with it, but that’s probably how it would have happened in reality. Fortunately, his sneeze gave him away, and Walter Matthau peeked in through the door with that famous grin. Perfect.
— jd · Dec 14, 10:35 PM · #
Peter Curran — Ack! My mistake — I’d always been told he was a Koch stand-in, and he seems so much like him.
As for the unevenness of the finale: I think it was Roger Corman who said something to the effect that, “When the monster’s dead, the movie’s over.” And in Pelham, the monster is Shaw. But the movie’s structured so that Shaw and two of his accomplices die too early — the train keeps speeding away, Balsam escapes and has to be tracked down. The rest of the movie is so wonderfully taut, but the finale, while not bad by any means, fails to build to a strong crescendo. The final scene, at Balsam’s apartment, feels anti-climactic.
— Peter Suderman · Dec 15, 03:08 AM · #