Black Sunday (1977 film)
Encyclopedia
Black Sunday is a 1977
American
thriller film directed by John Frankenheimer
and based on the novel by Thomas Harris
. The film starred Robert Shaw
, Bruce Dern
, and Marthe Keller
and was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Motion Picture in 1978. The inspiration of the story came from the Munich massacre
, a Black September
attack on Israel
i athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics
.
) is a pilot who flies the Goodyear Blimp
over NFL football games to film them for network television. He is also, secretly, deranged by years of torture
as a prisoner of war
in Vietnam
, a bitter court martial on his return and a failed marriage. He longs to commit suicide
and take as many of the cheerful, carefree American civilians he sees from his blimp each weekend with him as possible.
He conspires with Dahlia Iyad (Marthe Keller
), an operative from the Palestinian terrorist group Black September
, to launch a suicide attack using a bomb composed of plastique and a quarter million steel darts, housed on the underside of the Goodyear Blimp
, which they will detonate over the Miami Orange Bowl
during Super Bowl X
between Pittsburgh
and Dallas
. Dahlia and Black September, in turn, intend the attack as a wake-up call for the American people, to turn their attention and the world's to the plight of the Palestinians.
American and Israeli intelligence, led by Mossad
agent David Kabakov (Robert Shaw
) and FBI agent Sam Corley (Fritz Weaver
), race to prevent the catastrophe. After discovering the recording Dahlia made, which was meant to be played after the attack, they piece together the path of the explosives into the country, and Dahlia's own movements.
In a spectacular conclusion, the bomb-carrying blimp is chased by police helicopters as it approaches the packed stadium.
not to center on serial killer Hannibal Lecter
. In his introduction to the new printing of the novel, Harris states that the driven, focused character of terrorist Dahlia Iyad was actually an inspiration for and precursor to Clarice Starling
in his later Lecter novels.
The film was produced by former Paramount Pictures
chief Robert Evans. He had earlier produced Chinatown (1974) and Marathon Man
(1976).
As it hinged on filming a real Goodyear Blimp
at a real Super Bowl
, there were many challenges. Luckily, Frankenheimer had a good relationship with the heads of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company
as a result of working with them on his earlier film Grand Prix. He was able to negotiate the use of their blimp, on the condition that the pilot be specified as a freelancer, not a Goodyear employee, and that the blimp itself never actually kill anyone with its propellers or any other working part. Frankenheimer states in Charles Champlin's biography that he helped convince Goodyear by telling them that if they declined, he would rent the only other large blimp in the world from Germany, paint it silver, and people would assume it was theirs anyway.
Evans helped secure the unprecedented cooperation of the NFL and the production was allowed to film at Super Bowl X
and shoot extensive footage with the principal actors for the final half hour of the film as the Dallas Cowboys
played the Pittsburgh Steelers
. Frankenheimer found that many of the TV crew covering the game were friends from his time at CBS and he was able to secure their help in hiding his film cameras among their television cameras so they would not be distracting to the crowd in the stadium, or to audiences watching the movie.
The final attack on the stadium was filmed later, using a mock-up of the forward section of the blimp and 10,000 extras supplied for free by The United Way charity, in exchange for Frankenheimer directing a promotional film for them, which Shaw would narrate.
The film was among the highest scoring ever in the history of Paramount Pictures
test screenings, and was widely predicted in the industry as a second Jaws
. When it came out in March 1977, however, it fell short of expectations.
has said in interviews that the sequence in Kill Bill: Vol 1 where Daryl Hannah
attempts to kill The Bride in disguise as a nurse is homage to a similar sequence in Black Sunday. More specifically, he said the fact that the sequence in his film is done with split-screens is actually a homage to the trailer for Black Sunday, which shows shots from the sequence in that manner, unlike in the actual film.
1977 in film
The year 1977 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*In the Academy Awards, Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway and Beatrice Straight win Best Actor and Actress and Supporting Actress awards for Network....
American
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
thriller film directed by John Frankenheimer
John Frankenheimer
John Michael Frankenheimer was an American film and television director known for social dramas and action/suspense films...
and based on the novel by Thomas Harris
Thomas Harris
Thomas Harris is an American author and screenwriter, best known for a series of suspense novels about his most famous character, Hannibal Lecter...
. The film starred Robert Shaw
Robert Shaw (actor)
Robert Archibald Shaw was an English actor and novelist, remembered for his performances in The Sting , From Russia with Love , A Man for All Seasons , the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three , Black Sunday , The Deep and Jaws , where he played the shark hunter Quint.-Early life...
, Bruce Dern
Bruce Dern
Bruce MacLeish Dern is an American film actor. He also appeared as a guest star in numerous television shows. He frequently takes roles as a character actor, often playing unstable and villainous characters...
, and Marthe Keller
Marthe Keller
Marthe Keller is a Swiss actress and opera director. She studied ballet as a child, but stopped after a skiing accident at age 16...
and was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Motion Picture in 1978. The inspiration of the story came from the Munich massacre
Munich massacre
The Munich massacre is an informal name for events that occurred during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Bavaria in southern West Germany, when members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage and eventually killed by the Palestinian group Black September. Members of Black September...
, a Black September
Black September (group)
The Black September Organization was a Palestinian paramilitary group, founded in 1970. It was responsible for the kidnapping and murder of eleven Israeli athletes and officials, and fatal shooting of a West German policeman, during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, their most publicized event...
attack on Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics
1972 Summer Olympics
The 1972 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from August 26 to September 11, 1972....
.
Plot
Michael Lander (Bruce DernBruce Dern
Bruce MacLeish Dern is an American film actor. He also appeared as a guest star in numerous television shows. He frequently takes roles as a character actor, often playing unstable and villainous characters...
) is a pilot who flies the Goodyear Blimp
Goodyear Blimp
The Goodyear Blimp is the collective name for a fleet of blimps operated by Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company for advertising purposes and for use as a television camera platform for aerial views of sporting events...
over NFL football games to film them for network television. He is also, secretly, deranged by years of torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
as a prisoner of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
in Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, a bitter court martial on his return and a failed marriage. He longs to commit suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
and take as many of the cheerful, carefree American civilians he sees from his blimp each weekend with him as possible.
He conspires with Dahlia Iyad (Marthe Keller
Marthe Keller
Marthe Keller is a Swiss actress and opera director. She studied ballet as a child, but stopped after a skiing accident at age 16...
), an operative from the Palestinian terrorist group Black September
Black September (group)
The Black September Organization was a Palestinian paramilitary group, founded in 1970. It was responsible for the kidnapping and murder of eleven Israeli athletes and officials, and fatal shooting of a West German policeman, during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, their most publicized event...
, to launch a suicide attack using a bomb composed of plastique and a quarter million steel darts, housed on the underside of the Goodyear Blimp
Goodyear Blimp
The Goodyear Blimp is the collective name for a fleet of blimps operated by Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company for advertising purposes and for use as a television camera platform for aerial views of sporting events...
, which they will detonate over the Miami Orange Bowl
Miami Orange Bowl
The Orange Bowl, formerly Burdine Stadium, was an outdoor athletic stadium in Miami, Florida, west of downtown in Little Havana. Considered a landmark, it was the home stadium for the Miami Hurricanes college football team...
during Super Bowl X
Super Bowl X
Super Bowl X was an American football game played on January 18, 1976 at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida to decide the National Football League champion following the 1975 regular season....
between Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional football team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team currently belongs to the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League . Founded in , the Steelers are the oldest franchise in the AFC...
and Dallas
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football franchise which plays in the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference of the National Football League . They are headquartered in Valley Ranch in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas...
. Dahlia and Black September, in turn, intend the attack as a wake-up call for the American people, to turn their attention and the world's to the plight of the Palestinians.
American and Israeli intelligence, led by Mossad
Mossad
The Mossad , short for HaMossad leModi'in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim , is the national intelligence agency of Israel....
agent David Kabakov (Robert Shaw
Robert Shaw (actor)
Robert Archibald Shaw was an English actor and novelist, remembered for his performances in The Sting , From Russia with Love , A Man for All Seasons , the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three , Black Sunday , The Deep and Jaws , where he played the shark hunter Quint.-Early life...
) and FBI agent Sam Corley (Fritz Weaver
Fritz Weaver
Fritz William Weaver is an American actor and voice actor.-Life and career:Weaver was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Elsa W. and John Carson Weaver. His mother was of Italian descent and his father was a social worker from Pittsburgh. Weaver attended Peabody High School...
), race to prevent the catastrophe. After discovering the recording Dahlia made, which was meant to be played after the attack, they piece together the path of the explosives into the country, and Dahlia's own movements.
In a spectacular conclusion, the bomb-carrying blimp is chased by police helicopters as it approaches the packed stadium.
Production
The novel is the only one by author Thomas HarrisThomas Harris
Thomas Harris is an American author and screenwriter, best known for a series of suspense novels about his most famous character, Hannibal Lecter...
not to center on serial killer Hannibal Lecter
Hannibal Lecter
Hannibal Lecter M.D. is a fictional character in a series of horror novels by Thomas Harris and in the films adapted from them.Lecter was introduced in the 1981 thriller novel Red Dragon as a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer...
. In his introduction to the new printing of the novel, Harris states that the driven, focused character of terrorist Dahlia Iyad was actually an inspiration for and precursor to Clarice Starling
Clarice Starling
Clarice M. Starling is a fictional character and the protagonist in the novels The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal by Thomas Harris....
in his later Lecter novels.
The film was produced by former Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
chief Robert Evans. He had earlier produced Chinatown (1974) and Marathon Man
Marathon Man (film)
Marathon Man is a 1976 thriller film based on the novel of the same name by William Goldman. The film was directed by John Schlesinger, and stars Dustin Hoffman, Roy Scheider, and Laurence Olivier. The original music score was composed by Michael Small....
(1976).
As it hinged on filming a real Goodyear Blimp
Goodyear Blimp
The Goodyear Blimp is the collective name for a fleet of blimps operated by Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company for advertising purposes and for use as a television camera platform for aerial views of sporting events...
at a real Super Bowl
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League , the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to identify each game, rather...
, there were many challenges. Luckily, Frankenheimer had a good relationship with the heads of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company
Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company was founded in 1898 by Frank Seiberling. Goodyear manufactures tires for automobiles, commercial trucks, light trucks, SUVs, race cars, airplanes, farm equipment and heavy earth-mover machinery....
as a result of working with them on his earlier film Grand Prix. He was able to negotiate the use of their blimp, on the condition that the pilot be specified as a freelancer, not a Goodyear employee, and that the blimp itself never actually kill anyone with its propellers or any other working part. Frankenheimer states in Charles Champlin's biography that he helped convince Goodyear by telling them that if they declined, he would rent the only other large blimp in the world from Germany, paint it silver, and people would assume it was theirs anyway.
Evans helped secure the unprecedented cooperation of the NFL and the production was allowed to film at Super Bowl X
Super Bowl X
Super Bowl X was an American football game played on January 18, 1976 at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida to decide the National Football League champion following the 1975 regular season....
and shoot extensive footage with the principal actors for the final half hour of the film as the Dallas Cowboys
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football franchise which plays in the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference of the National Football League . They are headquartered in Valley Ranch in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas...
played the Pittsburgh Steelers
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional football team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team currently belongs to the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League . Founded in , the Steelers are the oldest franchise in the AFC...
. Frankenheimer found that many of the TV crew covering the game were friends from his time at CBS and he was able to secure their help in hiding his film cameras among their television cameras so they would not be distracting to the crowd in the stadium, or to audiences watching the movie.
The final attack on the stadium was filmed later, using a mock-up of the forward section of the blimp and 10,000 extras supplied for free by The United Way charity, in exchange for Frankenheimer directing a promotional film for them, which Shaw would narrate.
The film was among the highest scoring ever in the history of Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
test screenings, and was widely predicted in the industry as a second Jaws
Jaws (film)
Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...
. When it came out in March 1977, however, it fell short of expectations.
Homage
Quentin TarantinoQuentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
has said in interviews that the sequence in Kill Bill: Vol 1 where Daryl Hannah
Daryl Hannah
Daryl Christine Hannah is an American film actress. After making her screen debut in 1978, Hannah starred in a number of Hollywood films throughout the 1980s, notably Blade Runner, Splash, Wall Street and Roxanne and Kill Bill.-Early life:Hannah was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Susan...
attempts to kill The Bride in disguise as a nurse is homage to a similar sequence in Black Sunday. More specifically, he said the fact that the sequence in his film is done with split-screens is actually a homage to the trailer for Black Sunday, which shows shots from the sequence in that manner, unlike in the actual film.