Black Sunday
BLACK SUNDAY (15)
D: John Frankenheimer
Paramount (Robert Evans)
US 🇺🇸 1977
143 mins
Thriller
W: Ernest Lehman, Kenneth Ross & Ivan Moffat [based on the novel by Thomas Harris]
DP: John A. AlonzoÂ
Ed: Tom Rolf
Mus: John Williams
Robert Shaw (Maj. David Kabakov), Bruce Dern (Michael Lander), Marthe Keller (Dahlia Ilyad), Fritz Weaver (Sam Corley), Steven Keats (Robert Moschevsky), Bekim Fehmiu (Mohammed Fasil), Michael V. Gazzo (Muzi)
This 1977 thriller was possibly done a huge disservice by the similarly-themed ‘Two-Minute Warning’ (qv) coming out just a year earlier and underperforming at the box office.
Nevertheless, this is a much better movie, based on Thomas Harris’ novel, itself inspired by the events at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The film stars Robert Shaw, Bruce Dern & Marthe Heller, and surrounding a plot to perpetrate a terrorist attack at the Super Bowl using the Good Year blimp.
Character development is lacking, and the build-up is mostly dialogue driven, but director John Frankenheimer does a good job cranking up the tension as it leads to the big set piece finale, which is very well done in the respect of stunts and special effects, considering the film’s age.
Bruce Dern is the standout performer as a PTSD-suffering war vet, but it has to be said that it’s a film that focuses on the big events & circumstances, rather than the characters.
7/10
