Noteworthy Deaths

Director of 1974 NYC-set Pelham thriller

Joseph Sargent, a director who won four Emmy Awards for television movies but whose best-known work was the 1974 thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, which chillingly presented the gritty New York City of the 1970s, died Monday at his home in Malibu, Calif. He was 89.

His wife, Carolyn Nelson Sargent, said the cause was complications of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Sargent acted on television shows such as Gunsmoke and The Twilight Zone in the 1950s and early '60s, often in uncredited parts, before he switched to directing, working on Lassie, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Star Trek and other series. In a career that lasted almost five decades, he directed numerous made-for-TV movies and about a dozen theatrical features.

He won his first Emmy in 1973 for directing The Marcus-Nelson Murders, a TV movie written by Abby Mann. A crime drama with a strong subtext on racial bias, it starred Telly Savalas and served as the pilot for his long-running police procedural, Kojak.

In The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, another gritty drama set in New York with a screenplay by Peter Stone based on a novel by John Godey, Sargent conjured a straphanger's nightmare: Hijackers take over a subway train and hold its 18 passengers hostage. If their demands for $1 million are not met within an hour, they say, they will shoot a hostage every minute.

The film developed an enthusiastic following over the years and found broader favor when Quentin Tarantino cited it as an influence. A 2009 remake of Pelham, directed by Tony Scott and starring John Travolta and Denzel Washington, was less successful.

Metro on 12/25/2014

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