| Black Sunday | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | John Frankenheimer |
| Screenplay by | Ernest Lehman Kenneth Ross Ivan Moffat |
| Based on | Black Sunday byThomas Harris |
| Produced by | Robert Evans |
| Starring | Robert Shaw Bruce Dern Marthe Keller Fritz Weaver Bekim Fehmiu |
| Cinematography | John A. Alonzo |
| Edited by | Tom Rolf |
| Music by | John Williams |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 143 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $8 million[1] |
| Box office | $15.8 million[2] |
Black Sunday is a 1977 Americanaction thriller film directed byJohn Frankenheimer and based onThomas Harris'snovel of the same name. It was produced byRobert Evans, and starsRobert Shaw,Bruce Dern andMarthe Keller. It was nominated for theEdgar Allan Poe Award in 1978.[3] The screenplay was written byErnest Lehman,Kenneth Ross andIvan Moffat. Ross had previously written the screenplay forThe Day of the Jackal, a similar plot-drivenpolitical thriller. The inspiration of the story came from theMunich massacre, perpetrated by theBlack September organization againstIsraeli athletes at the1972 Summer Olympics, giving the title for the novel and film.[4]
Michael Lander is aGoodyear Blimp pilot who flies overNational Football League games for network television coverage. Secretly deranged by years of torture as aPOW in theVietnam War, he had a bittercourt martial on his return and a failed marriage. He longs to kill himself and to take with him as many as possible of the cheerful, carefree civilians he sees from his blimp each weekend.
Lander is desperately in love with Dahlia Iyad, an operative from thePalestinian terrorist groupBlack September, who controls and manipulates him. They conspire together to launch a suicide attack using a bomb composed ofplastique and a quarter-million steelflechettes. They plan to mount the bomb on the underside of thegondola of the Goodyear blimp and detonate it over theMiami Orange Bowl duringSuper Bowl X, killing over 80,000 spectators, including the President of the United States, in order to call attention to the plight of the Palestinians and to punish the United States for supporting Israel.
During a raid on a Black September safehouse in Beirut, the Israeli counter-terroristMossad agent David Kabakov surprises Iyad while she is showering. His mission was to kill everyone in the unit; however, seeing her unarmed and naked, he spares her life and turns his attention to clearing the rest of the safehouse, and she escapes. When the raid is complete, Kabakov finds a recorded message which Iyad had planned to publish after the terrorist attack. The recording explains the motive for the terrorism, but does not include any specific information about the attack plan itself.
Collaborating withFBI agent Sam Corley, Kabakov and his partner Robert Moshevsky try to learn the details of the plan. Meanwhile, Black September bribesfreighter captain Tekiaki Ogawa to transport the plastic explosives, disguised as statuettes. Ogawa puts the explosives aboard Iyad and Lander's motorboat, but the two terrorists are discovered by theCoast Guard and forced to flee.
Ogawa is interrogated by Kabakov and Moshevsky, only for a bomb Lander had secretly planted to explode, killing Ogawa and hospitalizing Kabakov. Iyad disguises herself as a nurse to infiltrate the hospital and assassinate Kabakov, only for Moshevsky to discover her before she kills him and escapes.
Kabakov uses a contact in the Egyptian government named Riaf to discover her identity, and Corley tracks Iyad and her superior Mohammed Fasil to a hotel in Miami. They attempt to capture them, but Iyad escapes, while Fasil is killed.
After searching Iyad's room, Kabakov realizes that they are targeting the Super Bowl. Corley and Kabakov form a security detail to search the crowd for any sign of suspicious activity. During the Super Bowl game, Kabakov figures out that Iyad and Lander have mounted the bomb on the Goodyear blimp. He and Corley commandeer a helicopter and set out in pursuit of the blimp, accompanied by a police helicopter.
Loaded with the bomb, the blimp approaches the stadium. Lander pilots the blimp while Iyad exchanges deadly gunfire with policemen in the pursuing helicopters. From his place in one helicopter, Kabakov sees Iyad's face, and they both recognize each other from the Black September raid in Beirut, where he spared her life. This time, Iyad hesitates, but Kabakov does not and he shoots and kills her. Lander has been mortally wounded, but he lives long enough to succeed in flying the blimp straight into the Super Bowl, causing mass chaos and destruction in the stadium. Just before dying, with the electronic detonator destroyed, Lander lights the backup fuse of the weapon.
With the weapon just minutes away from detonation, Kabakov lowers himself from the helicopter to the blimp, and hooks it up with a cable to the helicopter, which hauls it out of the panicked stadium and over the ocean. Kabakov unhooks the cable from the blimp, and clings to the cable as the helicopter moves away to a safe distance. A few seconds later, the bomb detonates, destroying the blimp and firing theflechettes harmlessly into the sea.
As appearing inBlack Sunday (main roles and screen credits identified):[5]
The film was produced by formerParamount Pictures chiefRobert Evans. He had earlier producedChinatown (1974) andMarathon Man (1976).[6] DirectorJohn Frankenheimer's frequent line producer Robert L. Rosen was credited as executive producer.
As the movie required filming a real Goodyear Blimp at a real Super Bowl, many challenges existed. Fortunately, Frankenheimer had a good relationship with Robert Lane of theGoodyear Tire and Rubber Company, as a result of previously working with Goodyear on his 1966 filmGrand Prix.[7] Lane told Frankenheimer, "You're the only person I've ever worked with who has kept his word."[8] At that time, the only other large blimp in the world was based in Germany; Frankenheimer told Goodyear that if they declined the use of their blimps, he would rent the German blimp, paint it silver, and people would assume it was theirs anyway.[9] Lane granted Frankenheimer use of Goodyear's blimps on three conditions: the film had to make clear that the villainous pilot did not work directly for Goodyear, but for a contractor; the final explosion could not emit from the nameGoodyear on the blimp's sides; and the blimp itself could not directly be part of any violence (for example, nobody could be churned up in its propellers).[8]
Evans helped secure the unprecedented cooperation of the National Football League, and the production was allowed to film at Super Bowl X on January 18, 1976, and shoot extensive footage with the principal actors for the film's final half hour as thePittsburgh Steelers beat theDallas Cowboys 21–17.[10] The production returned to theMiami Orange Bowl on January 29, 1976, to film the final moments of the pursuit, as the blimp crashes into the stadium. A mockup nose section of the blimp was recreated. The thousands of extras needed for this footage, which obviously could not be shot during the real Super Bowl, were instead provided by theUnited Way charity, in exchange for Frankenheimer directing a promotional film for them, narrated by Shaw.[9] Members of theMiami Dolphins were hired and outfitted with Cowboys and Steelers uniforms to appear in the footage as well. During filming of the chaotic scenes of panic as the blimp descends into the crowds, Dolphins playerBarry Hill fell and injured himself, requiring a splint and a bandage on his right hand.[11]
Goodyear granted the film use of all three of its U.S.-based blimps forBlack Sunday. The blimps were flown by company pilots Nick Nicolary and Corky Belanger Sr., among the five pilots who were involved in the production.[12] The landing and hijacking scenes were filmed at Goodyear's blimp base alongInterstate 405 inCarson, California, with theColumbia (N4A). TheAmerica (N10A) appeared in a short scene filmed at the Goodyear base atSpring, Texas. The extensiveMiami Super Bowl scenes were shot with the blimpMayflower (N1A), which was of a different design and is noticeably smaller than theColumbia andAmerica. TheMayflower was then based onWatson Island across thePort of Miami.[13] While Goodyear allowed the use of their airship fleet in the film, they did not allow the "Goodyear Wingfoot" logo (prominently featured on the sides of the blimp) to be used in any advertising ormovie posters. Thus, the words "Super Bowl" are featured in place of the logo on the blimp in all advertising for the film.[14]
The film's score was composed and conducted byJohn Williams and performed by theHollywood Studio Symphony. In January 2010,Film Score Monthly issued a limited edition of 10,000 copies of the previously unreleased soundtrack, remixed from the original masters.[15]
The film grossed $15.8 million[1] against a budget of $8 million.[2] Director Frankenheimer felt the film was hurt by the fact an earlier movie about terrorism at a championship football game,Two-Minute Warning, had come out just beforehand and performed poorly. He also blamed the film's audience response on the fact the film was banned in Germany and Japan.[16]
Thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes reports that 75% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 32 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "A smart, tense thriller from director John Frankenheimer,Black Sunday succeeds on a technical level, even if it fails to bring its characters to vivid life."[17] OnMetacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 57 out of 100 based on 8 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[18] In general,Black Sunday was appreciated more for its technical virtues and storyline than its character development. ReviewerVincent Canby fromThe New York Times tried to rationalize his reaction: "I suspect it has to do with the constant awareness that the story is more important than anybody in it ... The characters don't motivate the drama in any real way."[6] In a later review, Christopher Null took exception and identified the one key character who drove the plot: "...Black Sunday is distinguished by its unique focus not on the hero but on the villain: Bruce Dern ..."[19]John Simon, while praising the acting, said thatBlack Sunday "is one of those films that are perfectly enjoyable to watch but [about] which there is not all that much to say".[20]
Quentin Tarantino has said in interviews that the sequence inKill Bill: Volume 1 whereDaryl Hannah attempts to kill The Bride in disguise as a nurse is an homage to a similar sequence inBlack Sunday. More specifically, he said the fact that the sequence in his film is done with split-screens is actually an homage to the trailer forBlack Sunday, which shows shots from the sequence in that manner, unlike in the actual film.[21]
The film was parodied as "Blimp Sunday" in the issue ofMad Magazine #195, in a story written byDick DeBartolo with art fromMort Drucker.[22]