Black Sunday did only moderately well in 1977. From an original source book by the man who wrote The Silence of the Lambs, it generates suspense with an unbroken series of violent and tense scenes ably directed by John Frankenheimer in straight action mode. Someone's plotting a mass political murder in the U.S., and only one top Israeli operative can stop it. The often misused Robert Shaw does a fine job with the self-doubting, aging patriot-assassin, overcoming his basic Aryan-looking 'Red Grant' appearance.

Superproducer Robert Evans got only the best - the cameraman from Chinatown and three hot writers including Adaptor for all Seasons Ernest Lehman, Ivan Moffat (Giant) and Kenneth Ross (The Day of the Jackal). The clever concept has only one hitch: its own plot hook and main selling point, the hijacking of a Goodyear blimp to be used as a mass murder weapon.

The farfetched story is much more potent today, two years after a rather similar crime scenario masterminded by renegades with the same nationalist cause succeeded horribly in New York. A familiar American flying machine is used as an unlikely weapon, in this case to carry a homemade but highly effective anti-personnel bomb. Of course, the Arab murderers find that one of the Goodyear pilots just happens to be a borderline psycho obsessed with a desire to strike back against the U.S., for perceived wrongs by the Navy and his own wife. Bruce Dern is initially very credible as the embittered serviceman, seduced and manipulated by superspy Marthe Keller.

Keller is better than I remembered her; in 1977 her supermodel looks seemed ill-chosen for an agent who needed to be inconspicuous. Her masquerade as a nurse is pretty foolish, as is the FBI's inability to find a woman who sticks out as plainly as Sophia Loren at a scrubwoman's convention.

Up until act three, Black Sunday is a solid thriller. Robert Shaw has an interesting streak of weakness; his flaw is that he's not ruthless enough, it seems. His clashes with the FBI (a rather stodgy Fritz Weaver) are orchestrated to prove how foolish Americans are to underestimate Arab fanatics. The movie even gets away with a scene that belongs in a Roger Moore Bond film: Shaw negotiates with a comic-book Russian comisar (Walter Gotell) to show how Arab terrorism should be a common bonding agent between East and West.

The barely-adequate effects in the big climax let down Robert Evans' elaborate production, that successfully integrates the story's action into an actual Super Bowl game. But the real damage was done earlier, by some laughable character developments. Bruce Dern is excellent at showing the initial quirks of deranged blimp pilot Lander, but the script makes him totally freak out toward the end. The melodramatics of films like Silent Running and Coming Home typed Dern as a neurotic nut case, even though his instincts were always good. Also, the concept of the Vietnam Vet going violently insane was already stale, with bloodbaths like Rolling Thunder making Dern's mania seem cartoonish and more than disrespectful to real servicemen with emotional problems. When Dern starts wearing his old uniforms and calling himself a hero, or flinches uncontrollably at the sound of the National Anthem, audiences laughed.

What's really wrong is the linking of the Palestinian violence with the Vietnam trauma case. It may be thematically convenient to have one of our own soldiers turned against us, but it creates a confusion of affections. Black Sunday is 100% 'us or them' except when it comes to the very sympathetic Bruce Dern character. At the end all we know is that we need superheroes like Robert Shaw to save us.

Also, the film suffers from its own morbid premise. The audience is tantalized with thoughts of a gory spectacle, but is paid off with a shot of what looks like handfuls of gravel hitting the surf at Miami Beach. How to satisfyingly suggest thriller atrocities and yet avoid showing them has been a problem of movies ever since Pearl White faced a lumber mill sawblade, and Black Sunday stumbles when the blimp attack ("Oh no! It's a blimp!") turns out to be neither deadly nor visually impressive. Day of the Jackal made its cops 'n robbers thrills so exciting that we hardly missed the broken promise of a successful assassination. Black Sunday ends like a doomsday movie where the atom bomb turns out to be a dud.

Black Sunday is an exciting show that makes an interesting comparison to our present-day 'political' thrillers. At least it has a realistic background. Its brand of grandiose political super-crime has certainly come to pass, so it can be called prophetic as well.

Paramount's DVD of Black Sunday is a bare-bones disc given a good transfer. Frankenheimer's spare direction includes lots of real Super Bowl footage at the end (and brief glimpses of a Jimmy Carter lookalike) with real pro-footballers on the field. We're so used to commentaries on other Frankenheimer films, that the late director is missed here. He always had something insightful to say.

The lack of Special Features again doesn't keep Paramount from calling things like subtitles Special. Their generous offering of a 5.1 mix option may be a purchase factor for interested fans, however.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Black Sunday rates:
Movie: Good
Video: Very Good
Sound: Very Good
Supplements: none
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: October 28, 2003