Panic on the 5:22

Panic on the 5:22 is a 1974 American made-for-television crime film starring Ina Balin and Bernie Casey. The film was written by Eugene Price and directed by Harvey Hart as an ABC Movie of the Week installment.^[1]

Wealthy commuter train passengers are beset by three desperate characters, who become all the more desperate upon discovering their victims carry nothing but credit cards.^[2]

• Ina Balin as Countess Hedy Maria Tovarese
• Bernie Casey as Wendell Weaver
• Linden Chiles as Tony Ebsen
• Andrew Duggan as Harlan Jack Garner
• Dana Elcar as Hal Rodgers
• Eduard Franz as Jerome Hartford
• Lynda Day George as Mary Ellen Lewis
• Laurence Luckinbill as Lawrence Lewis
• Dennis Patrick as Dudley Stevenson
• Robert Mandan as Dr. Cruikshank
• Reni Santoni as Emil Linz
• James Sloyan as Frankie Scamantino
• Robert Walden as Eddie Chiario

Panic was filmed in October 1964, primarily in Los Angeles, and on location in New York City,^[3]

Prior to filming, Robert Walden, who plays one of the would-be robbers, devoted two weeks to preparing for this role by living with a street gang in New York.

I got in through friends of mine who knew some of the boys. I thought they might resent me and tell me to drop dead when they learned my purpose. But it was just the opposite. They were intrigued by my being an actor and they wanted to be sure they were shown in their best light.^[4]

Once assembled on set, such was the level of enthusiasm for this project that the actors reportedly waived their fees for a full week of rehearsal.^[a] One genuinely scary real-life altercation occurred during that period, involving three cast members, Dana Elcar (who plays passenger Hal Rodgers), and two of the would-be killers, Walden and James Sloyan. Director Harvey Hart recalled the incident many years later.

My mouth must have been wide open. Here were three of my stars yelling curses at each other, shoving each other and threatening bodily harm. I started to jump up on the platform where our set was, when Sloyan turned on me and shouted: 'Turn the cameras over, for blankety-blank's sake.^[5]

Scary moment notwithstanding, when recalling the experience almost three decades later, star Linda Day George, cinematographer William W. Spencer, and producer Anthony Spinner were unanimous in singing the praises of director Hart. "That was one of the toughest shows we ever did," Spencer told author Jonathan Etter.

I think we had more than two weeks shooting time on that show. It was so confined. We had this mock-up train car, lots of rear prjection. The minute you changed angles, it affected everything else. Our lamps were so close to the people that if they walked near the hot lights, they could have burned up. You had to have a lot of control. You had to shoot out of continuity. That was very difficult for the director, Harvey Hart. Harvey kept a good mood on the set. That's why I enjoyed doing that movie. Harvey's attitude had a lot to do with why that movie worked.^[1]

The Hollywood Reporter's Sue Cameron rated the film a "better than average" movie-of-the-week and called it a "disaster film with a message". ^[6]

Similarly, L.A. Times critic Kevin Thomas credits the director and writer with "hav[ing] struck a precise balance between suspense and social consciousness."

In the 35 minutes–minus commercials–before Walden and company don ski masks and draw their guns, Hart and Price show their wealthy would-be victims as largely unsympathetic types, for the most part arrogant, self-centered and, in a few instances, downright crooked. Thus, the difference between these rich passengers and the intruders is one of socio-economics rather than morals. Instead of presenting an old-fashioned, clear-cut confrontation between good and evil, Hart and Price make the discomfiting point that morality is relative -that evil resides in the dire circumstances of life that drove these three uneducated losers to commit such an ill-planned, desperate act, and in the indifference of a rich privileged few who so casually exploit and oppress society's less fortunate.^[7]

This point was reiterated many years later by Quinn Martin biographer Jonathan Etter.

Because this plot-line was so similar to the 1967 motion picture, 'The Incident', many critics saw 'Panic on the 5:22' as an inferior rip-off [...] As usual, the critics got it wrong. Unlike 'The Incident', which was simply about two thugs terrorizing people, 'Panic on the 5:22' was a study of the rich and the poor.^[1]

• "Movies Today". Tampa Bay Times. November 20, 1974. p. 12-D. "Andrew Duggan, as a retired army general, and Ina Balin, as a cosmetic tycoon are starred as passengers robbed during a daring holdup in 'Panic On The 5:22,' at 8:30 p.m. on Ch. 40."
• "TV Key Previews". Stamford Advocate. November 20, 1974. p. 42. "Wednesday Movie of the Week. 'Panic on the 5:22.' (1974). Another crisis drama. It involves a private railroad club car that is taken over by a trio of thugs, out to rob and, perhaps, kill. Will Lynda Day George, Ina Balin, Laurence Luckinbill, Andrew Duggan and Bernie Casey make it home in time for the 7 o'clock news, or will they become victims of James Sloyan and his two sidekicks?"
• Robinson, Johnny (November 20, 1974). "Complete Schedule of Programs for RADIO and TV". Lewiston Journal. p. 27. "Terror rides in a luxurious private railroad car, where the passengers have only their wits as weapons against three armed men determined to rob and kill them. A trio of young street hoodlums decide to hold up the wealthy passengers riding in the private club car of a New York commuter train, with each of the three hung up on his own psychological web of frustration. The passengers, all with their own secrets kept hidden until the rip-off occurs, agree to the demands of the trio until the leader, Frankie, threatens to kill everyone. It then becomes a battle of wits and physical prowess between the gunmen and their victims. Tension explodes when Gardner, a former general, tries to take the gun away from one of the hoods and in turn is slugged. Now Frankie is more determined than ever to shoot the passengers, who realize their lives are in the hands of a psychotic young gunman who is immune to reason."

• Panic on the 5:22 at IMDb