What are your favorite…uh…uh…uh…sneezes in movies? Listen to us go on about ours, and hear Kelly Wand read some listener picks, including one listener who totally nails the same picks as one of us!
Someone explain the context of the Taking of Pelham sneeze. I vaguely recall that it’s how Walter Matthau knows something something something about someone something.
[spoiler]Martin Balsam is driving the hijacked subway train because he was fired from his job as a motorman. During the hostage negotiations he would sneeze every so often, and Matthau, who was the negotiator would offer a reflexive Gasundheit.over the radio.
In the end Balsam is the only hijacker to make it out alive, and he’s stashed a quarter of a million in his oven. Matthau and Jerry Stiller, on a hunch, are checking up on ex-motormen fired for cause. The final scene[/spoiler]
Hmm, I didn’t remember how tenuous that Taking of Pelham 1…2…3 final scene was. So a dude sneezes and Matthau knows it’s the hijacker? No one else in New York City sneezes? I call plot hole!
If we dismiss movies based on plot holes, that’s a lot of dismissing. The movies is so good otherwise (in a cheeseball 70’s way) I’m willing to cut it a little slack. It probably helps if you grew up/lived in NYC at the time.
I just don’t think a simple sneeze earns the stone-cold bloodhound stare Matthau is throwing out. So I’m officially calling it: the Tony Scott remake is better.
