Black Sunday (film)

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Black Sunday
DVD cover
Directed by	John Frankenheimer
Produced by	Robert Evans Alan Levine Robert L. Rosen
Written by	Ernest Lehman Kenneth Ross Ivan Moffat
Starring	Bruce Dern Robert Shaw Marthe Keller
Music by	John Williams
Cinematography	John A. Alonzo
Editing by	Tom Rolf
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	11 March 1977
Running time	143 minutes
Country	US
Language	English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

This article is about the film. For other meanings see Black Sunday (disambiguation).

Black Sunday is a 1977 American thriller film based on the novel by Thomas Harris.

The film was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Motion Picture in 1978.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Michael Lander (Dern) is an American Blimp pilot deranged by years of torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, a failed marriage, and a bitter court martial. He longs to commit suicide and take as many people as possible with him, so he conspires with an operative (Keller) from a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September to launch a massive suicide bombing on American soil. Lander plans to detonate a flechette-based bomb, housed on the underside of a blimp, over a football stadium during the Super Bowl. American and Israeli intelligence agencies, led by Mossad agent David Kabakov (Shaw) and FBI agent Sam Corley (Weaver), race to prevent the catastrophe. To add further intrigue and a pall of doom, the President of the United States attends the Super Bowl despite the pleas of Kabakov and Corley.

The film was a commercial hit when it was released in 1977. Although director John Frankenheimer lamented serious shortcomings in the visual effects of the climax (due to time and budgetary shortfalls), many critics trumpeted the final scene featuring a helicopter/blimp chase over the Orange Bowl as one of the more riveting and unusual in movie history. Black Sunday also features a film score from John Williams.

A significant portion of the filming was done during actual Super Bowl X at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida, on January 18, 1976. The Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Dallas Cowboys 21–17. In the movie, Kabakov discusses the security arrangements for the game with Miami Dolphins owner Joe Robbie, who plays himself.

[edit] Differences between the book and the film

In the book, the blimp is owned by the Aldrich Rubber Company. In the film, the Goodyear Rubber Company agreed to allow its blimp to be used. A representative of Goodyear noted that it is not possible for two people alone to launch the blimp.
In the book, the Super Bowl takes place in New Orleans prior to the completion of the Superdome football stadium; in the film it takes place in Miami at the Orange Bowl Stadium.
In the book, Kabakov's assistant Mochevsky survives to the end of the story, but Kabakov, the helicopter pilot and the FBI Agent Corley are killed when the blimp explodes after being towed over the Mississippi River. In the film, Mochevsky is killed about halfway through and Kabakov is not killed in the blimp explosion.
In the book, Muhammad Fasil, a terrorist who assisted Lander survives and is taken back to Israel (by Mochevsky) to stand trial; in the film, Kabakov shoots and kills him during a running gun battle through Miami in which he kills half a dozen bystanders and police.
In the book, Kabakov has a love interest.