{ "id": "epk5p37hrq", "slug": "narrow-margin", "title": "Narrow Margin", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery", "label": "Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1990s-films", "label": "1990s films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1990s-films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1990s-films.thrillers", "label": "Thrillers", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1990s-films.thrillers" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1990s-films.thrillers.yr-1990-1995", "label": "Released 1990 to 1995", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1990s-films.thrillers.yr-1990-1995" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1990s-films.thrillers", "label": "United States · 1946 to 2000: Thrillers", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1990s-films.thrillers", "path": [ { "id": "geo.us", "label": "United States", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946", "label": "United States · 1946 to 2000", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery", "label": "Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1990s-films", "label": "1990s films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1990s-films" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1990s-films.thrillers", "label": "Thrillers", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1990s-films.thrillers" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Narrow Margin (1990) is a Peter Hyams action thriller starring Gene Hackman and Anne Archer, a remake of the 1952 RKO noir The Narrow Margin, set on a train through the Canadian Rockies; it grossed $10.1 million on a $21 million budget.", "snippet": "Narrow Margin (1990) is a Peter Hyams action thriller starring Gene Hackman and Anne Archer, a remake of the 1952 RKO noir The Narrow Margin, set on a train through the Canadian Rockies; it grossed $10.1 million on a $21 million budget.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1990s-films.thrillers.yr-1990-1995", "markdown": "# Narrow Margin\n\n**Narrow Margin** is a 1990 American action thriller written, directed, and photographed by [Peter Hyams](https://www.edgepedia.org/peter-hyams), starring [Gene Hackman](https://www.edgepedia.org/gene-hackman) as a Los Angeles deputy district attorney who protects a murder witness aboard a train crossing the [Canadian Rockies](https://www.edgepedia.org/canadian-rockies). It is a remake of the 1952 RKO film noir *The Narrow Margin*, and it was released by TriStar Pictures on September 21, 1990.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58626-NARROW-MARGIN) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1030146-narrow_margin)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Release | September 21, 1990 (wide, United States); 97 minutes; rated R[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58626-NARROW-MARGIN) |\n| Key personnel | Written, directed, and shot by Peter Hyams; produced by Jonathan A. Zimbert; music by Bruce Broughton[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58626-NARROW-MARGIN) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1030146-narrow_margin) |\n| Cast | Gene Hackman (Robert Caulfield), Anne Archer (Carol Hunnicut), James B. Sikking, J.T. Walsh, Harris Yulin, M. Emmet Walsh[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1030146-narrow_margin) |\n| Source | Remake of the 1952 RKO film *The Narrow Margin*, directed by Richard Fleischer[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58626-NARROW-MARGIN) |\n| Budget and gross | Budgeted at $21 million; grossed $10.1 million in the United States[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58626-NARROW-MARGIN) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1030146-narrow_margin) |\n| Critical scores | Metascore 53 (mixed or average); 63% on the Tomatometer from 16 reviews; 52% on the Popcornmeter[3](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/narrow-margin/critic-reviews/) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1030146-narrow_margin) |\n| Filming | Canadian Rockies, British Columbia; principal photography June 12 to mid-October 1989[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58626-NARROW-MARGIN) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Premise\n\nOn a blind date, Carol Hunnicut ([Anne Archer](https://www.edgepedia.org/anne-archer)), a recently divorced publishing editor, inadvertently witnesses the murder of attorney Michael Tarlow (J.T. Walsh) in his Los Angeles hotel suite by mobster Leo Watts ([Harris Yulin](https://www.edgepedia.org/harris-yulin)) and a henchman. She flees to a remote cabin in the Canadian wilderness. Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Robert Caulfield (Gene Hackman) tracks her down to persuade her to testify, but hitmen arrive by helicopter and attack the cabin. Pursued through the wilderness, the two board a Vancouver-bound train, only to find the killers aboard with them; for the next 20 hours, as the train crosses isolated country, a cat-and-mouse contest unfolds in which telling friend from foe becomes a matter of survival.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58626-NARROW-MARGIN) • [4](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/narrow-margin)\n\nThe confined setting is the film's organizing device. Reviewers noted that apart from the opening set-up and the chase that puts the pair on the train, most of the film takes place within the train as it winds through the Canadian wilderness.[5](https://www.jestersreviews.com/reviews/5268) Hyams added a helicopter-versus-truck pursuit and a fight atop the moving rail cars that the 1952 original did not have.[6](https://digitize.gp.lib.mi.us/history/newspapers/grossePointeNews/year_ranges/1990s/1990/pdf/1990-10-04.pdf)\n\n## Production\n\nThe production needed a passenger train and empty tracks for three months. Five coach cars, two \"vista dome\" cars, and a dining car were leased from The Denver Railway Car Company in Colorado, hauled by truck to [Kansas City, Missouri](https://www.edgepedia.org/kansas-city-missouri), and brought up to 1989 standards in a three-week refit. In Vancouver the consist grew with a [Via Rail](https://www.edgepedia.org/via-rail) baggage car, a sleeper car leased from a Texas train enthusiast, and a B-unit and engine from British Columbia Rail, whose tracks were used in the film; the twelve cars' exteriors were painted in Via Rail's blue and yellow colors.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58626-NARROW-MARGIN)\n\nRail car interiors were built in a Vancouver warehouse on Euclid Avenue, with removable walls and a platform resting on inflated inner tubes so the sets would sway. The final sequence, in which the main characters walk and fight on top of moving rail cars, took three weeks to shoot, intercutting close-ups of Hackman, Archer, James Sikking, and Susan Hogan with wider shots of stunt performers. Anne Archer told *Newsday* the actors were secured by hidden cables but dreaded the rooftop scenes because cables \"can pull limbs from your body.\" The rooftop sequences, shot about fifty miles north of Vancouver close to Howe Sound and in Cheakamus Canyon, allowed only a couple of hours of filming at a time because trains ran through on a regular schedule.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58626-NARROW-MARGIN)\n\n## Relationship to the 1952 original\n\nThe 1952 *The Narrow Margin*, directed by [Richard Fleischer](https://www.edgepedia.org/richard-fleischer) and starring Charles McGraw, Marie Windsor, and Jacqueline White, is a 70-minute RKO film noir in which two detectives escort a racketeer's widow from Chicago to Los Angeles to testify before a grand jury.[7](https://www.tcm.com/articles/66959/the-narrow-margin-1952) The remake changed the story substantially. The original's witness, Mrs. Neall, a gangster's widow whose identity is concealed from the audience until near the end, became Carol Hunnicut, an innocent woman who simply witnesses a mob killing at the film's beginning. The protector changed from police Detective Sgt. Walter Brown to Deputy District Attorney Robert Caulfield, and all other character names were changed as well.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58626-NARROW-MARGIN)\n\nProducer Jonathan A. Zimbert said the most significant plot changes were made to accommodate the decline of passenger train travel since 1952. \"Rail travel was the norm\" when the original was set aboard a Chicago-to-Los Angeles express, he told the *Los Angeles Times*, but \"Who rides the train anymore?\" The solution was to force the protagonists onto a train in the wilderness with \"no place to get off.\" The filmmakers considered setting the ride in Mexico but found that many riders there were peasants, some transporting cattle and chickens, and that the American characters \"wouldn't exactly have blended in.\"[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58626-NARROW-MARGIN)\n\nThe scale difference is large: the original ran only seventy minutes and cost $230,000, whereas the 1990 film was budgeted at $21 million and ran nearly thirty minutes longer.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58626-NARROW-MARGIN) The original was shot on an RKO soundstage with station exteriors at Los Angeles' Union Station in a 15-day schedule, and it turned a large profit for the studio on its meager budget.[7](https://www.tcm.com/articles/66959/the-narrow-margin-1952)\n\n## Reception\n\nCritical response was mixed. The film holds a Metascore of 53, with 11 positive, 11 mixed, and 1 negative review among 22 counted, and a 63% Tomatometer from 16 reviews.[3](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/narrow-margin/critic-reviews/) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1030146-narrow_margin) Reviewers repeatedly singled out Hackman. The *Seattle Times* wrote that \"the action scenes are exciting, and Hackman gives such a strong, detailed performance that he doesn't make you nostalgic for McGraw,\" and the *Orlando Sentinel* said Hackman was the one element that lifted the film above the limitations of its material.[3](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/narrow-margin/critic-reviews/) The *Washington Post* called it \"far better than it deserves to be, thanks to Hackman,\" while judging that it delivers \"the appropriate payoffs as a generic-brand thriller.\"[8](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1990/09/21/narrow-thrills-stay-on-track/6b0f1e4e-ff29-4dba-ba2a-54c232620b6a/?isMobile=1)\n\nRoger Ebert of the *Chicago Sun-Times* gave it 1.5 out of 4 stars, calling it \"a clumsy version of the Idiot Plot, dressed up as a high-gloss chase thriller,\" defining the Idiot Plot as any plot that would be resolved in five minutes if everyone in the story were not an idiot.[9](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/narrow-margin-1990) The *New York Times*' Caryn James wrote that the film echoes, but does not reinvent, the old formulas it draws on, from *Strangers on a Train* to the 1952 original.[10](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100224/criticreviews/)\n\nCommercially, the film underperformed. *Box* reported in November 1990 that *Narrow Margin* \"derailed\" during its second week, grossing only $6.6 million in its first ten days; its final United States gross was $10.1 million against a $21 million budget.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58626-NARROW-MARGIN) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1030146-narrow_margin)\n\n## Availability\n\nThe film can be bought or rented digitally on Amazon Video, the Apple TV Store, and Fandango At Home, and is also available on DVD and Blu-ray.[4](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/narrow-margin) Rialto Pictures lists it in its catalog, available on DCP, with a 2.39:1 aspect ratio.[11](https://www.rialtopictures.com/catalogue/narrow-margin)\n\n## References\n\n1. [Narrow Margin (1990), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58626-NARROW-MARGIN)\n2. [Narrow Margin, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1030146-narrow_margin)\n3. [Narrow Margin critic reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/narrow-margin/critic-reviews/)\n4. [Narrow Margin streaming: where to watch online?, JustWatch](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/narrow-margin)\n5. [Narrow Margin (1990), Jesters Reviews](https://www.jestersreviews.com/reviews/5268)\n6. [Grosse Pointe News, October 4, 1990](https://digitize.gp.lib.mi.us/history/newspapers/grossePointeNews/year_ranges/1990s/1990/pdf/1990-10-04.pdf)\n7. [The Narrow Margin (1952), Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/66959/the-narrow-margin-1952)\n8. ['Narrow' Thrills Stay on Track, The Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1990/09/21/narrow-thrills-stay-on-track/6b0f1e4e-ff29-4dba-ba2a-54c232620b6a/?isMobile=1)\n9. [Narrow Margin movie review, RogerEbert.com](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/narrow-margin-1990)\n10. [Narrow Margin (1990) Metacritic reviews, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100224/criticreviews/)\n11. [Narrow Margin, Rialto Pictures catalogue](https://www.rialtopictures.com/catalogue/narrow-margin)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 1990s films › Thrillers › Released 1990 to 1995*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/narrow-margin", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/narrow-margin.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Narrow Margin\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/narrow-margin. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Narrow Margin](https://www.edgepedia.org/narrow-margin)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/narrow-margin](https://www.edgepedia.org/narrow-margin). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Narrow Margin\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/narrow-margin. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Narrow Margin is a Peter Hyams action thriller starring Gene Hackman and Anne Archer, a remake of the 1952 RKO noir The Narrow Margin, set on a train through the Canadian Rockies; it grossed $10.1 million on a $21 million budget." }