SYNOPSICS
Black Sunday (1977) is a English movie. John Frankenheimer has directed this movie. Robert Shaw,Bruce Dern,Marthe Keller,Fritz Weaver are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1977. Black Sunday (1977) is considered one of the best Adventure,Crime,Drama,Thriller movie in India and around the world.
Terrorist organization Black September is planning an attack on the United States. A woman called Dahlia is the one overseeing the operation. She was in the Middle East with the other members of the organization, discussing the operation when some Israelis came in; the leader, Major Kobakov had his gun on her but didn't shoot her. Kobakov then informed the US what they found. Though they don't know what their operation is, Kobakov assures them that it will be devastating. So, with FBI man, Corley, they try to find out what it is before it's too late. But they both have different ways of doing things, and since Kobakov is the visitor, he is warned to watch it. Dahlia's "partner in crime" is Michael Lander, a Vietnam P.O.W., who is psychologically scarred by that experience, thus making him very susceptible to her machinations.
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Black Sunday (1977) Reviews
A Solid No-Nonsense Thriller
There are a number of good things going for this film, among them two things you learn right from the opening credits: (1) John Frankenheimer is the director and (2) it's based on a book by Thomas Harris, the man who created "Hannibal Lechter." Throw in two intense always-interesting actors, Bruce Dern and Marthe Keller, and you now have a good, no-nonsense story translated to the screen. By that, I mean that when people are shot, that's it, no questions asked, no stupid talking. Even the football scenes were real-life with actual footage of the Cowboys and Steelers playing in a past Super Bowl. The suspense was done well, although a bit hokey at the very end (can't say more without spoiling it) but it can't take away from the previous two-plus hours of credibility. Dern also makes for a good "psycho" (he's almost made a career of it) and Keller is convincing as a villain, too, as she was in a film from the previous year: Marathon Man. Two other consistently- good actors also help make this an interesting film: Robert Shaw and Fritz Weaver. It was nice to see this film on a widescreen DVD but the picture was a bit grainy. The transfer was okay, but could have been better. The film is worthy of a top- notch print.
A long shelf-life
This is such a disturbing film, based on a very disturbing book by Thomas Harris, the creator of Hannibal the Cannibal. I read the book in 1976 and actually believed that cunning terrorists might be able to think up a really spectacular way of killing a whole lot of people at one time, but we'd be able to see it coming and stop them, just like in the book. Little did we know . . . I imagine what it would have been like to see a mid-1930s era movie about a carrier-borne air-strike against an American naval base. It would have seemed so far-fetched, and it would have drawn fire for smearing the race or nationality of the aggressors. Yet, here's Thomas Harris's novel of a disgruntled POW who is hired by Palestinians to set off an enormous shaped charge, packed with steel darts, into the crowd at a Super Bowl. With John Frankenheimer's skill and a great cast of actors, Harris's story really does come to life, and even with the occasional special effects flaw and some really unpleasant violence, it works! I remember being so excited about the movie--it had Bruce Dern and Robert Shaw and that gorgeous woman from Marathon Man, Marthe Keller. The art work was so imaginative! Even in dopey little Spokane, Washington, the Fox Theatre put up a billboard sized blimp on their roof. Frankenheimer even shot two scenes of the President of the United States coming down to watch the action--one, a Jimmy Carter lookalike and the other, Gerry Ford. The movie felt real, even with, as a I mentioned before, some special effects cheese that, for its time, couldn't be avoided. In January 1977 I had not seen The Manchurian Candidate--I didn't even know who Frankenheimer was; the only directors I knew were Don Siegel (because I loved Dirty Harry) and Roman Polanski (because of--my chronology might be off here--his little dust up with an underage girl at Jack Nicholson's house, or something like that). If I had seen TMC, I might have noticed certain similarities between Candidate and Black Sunday--the damaged war veteran, the cold manipulators, the driven investigator of the truth, and the interspersal of violent, ugly images. Yet, Black Sunday is truly an action movie; its relation to The Manchurian Candidate stops as the bombs and bullets start tearing up the place. Finally, it's strange to say that casting Bruce Dern as a psychologically damaged former carrier pilot was inspired--the man got rich and famous off playing wackadoodles--but Dern is more tortured, more pathetic than anything I ever saw him in. His character is so sad, so torn up by his experience in the Hanoi Hilton that, while it doesn't excuse his perfidy, he is as three dimensional as Sgt. Raymond Shaw. But Shaw did right at the end; Lander dies trapped by his own anger and hate. So, if you can find it, I would strongly suggest renting this film. It is disturbingly topical, intense and suspenseful, and an example of a good movie made about an attack against the Super Bowl, unlike the other winter 1977 football disaster, Two-Minute Warning.
Top notch excitement
"Black Sunday" is a flat out exciting motion picture about the planning and execution of a terrorist attack during the Super Bowl. Robert Shaw plays the head of an agency trying to prevent the attack. Bruce Dern is at his creepy best as a brainwashed Vietnam vet enlisted by the lovely Marthe Keller to help carry out the sinister plan. Dern is a blimp pilot and the perfect person to help detonate a contraption that will send thousands of deadly needles into the unsuspecting crowd. Dern was born to play parts like this and it's a reminder of how terrific an actor he is and how sad it is that he doesn't work as much as he used to. The final 40 minutes is intercut between the game (actually shot during the real Cowboys-Steelers Super Bowl game of 76) and the unfolding of the final stages of the plot. It's tense and exciting as Shaw and cohorts commandeer helicopters to try to catch the blimp heading to the big game to unleash its deadly attack. Kudos to director John Frankheimer for keeping the pacing on this 2 hour 25 minute thriller moving. The editing is first rate and the music score by John Williams is one of his best though it is never mentioned when his name comes up. If you like a good thriller that is never boring and will keep you on the edge of your seat, I highly recommend "Black Sunday."
A Gem
"Black Sunday" is a nice example of how good action films used to be, before the 80s and 90s saw dumb scripts and dumb characters undermine the genre forever (films like "The Rock" for example). Instead of going for non-stop pyrotechnics, John Frankenheimer and Ernest Lehman serve up a tense, exciting build-up with interesting characters along the way that culminates in a grand finale that was partly filmed during Super Bowl X between Dallas and Pittsburgh. Robert Shaw, at long last given the chance to play the hero in a movie, is quite good as the weary Israeli agent and Bruce Dern is at his psychotic best as the deranged blimp pilot.
Not quite escapism anymore
Black Sunday was considered a "what if" disaster movie in the '70s, although it's not a disaster movie along the lines of Earthquake!, Flood! or the others. Now of course it seems less like a "what if" movie and some of the lines of "fictional" dialogue have actually been quoted in the news recently. This is an absorbing thriller, and does not rely on the special effects that so many thrillers like "The Siege" (and probably The Sum of All Fears, which I haven't seen) employ. Too bad Robert Shaw passed at such a relatively young age--in all of the movies I've seen him in (The Sting, The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3, Jaws and this one), he created such different types of characters. I didn't even recognize him at first in this one, going from the Irish accent of Jaws to the Israeli accent in Black Sunday. John Frankenheimer gripped my attention for the whole movie, and considering its length (nearly 3 hours) this is no small feat. Even Bruce Dern, doing his usual psycho thing, was good. Highly recommended.