Panic on the 5:22 (1974)

Interesting facts

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.

Production

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

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.

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. 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.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.