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Category:    Home > Reviews > Thriller > Terrorism > Black Sunday (1976/Paramount DVD)

Black Sunday (1976)

 

Picture: B     Sound: B-     Extras: D     Film: B

 

 

Out of nowhere, John Frankenheimer pulled off anther great thriller with Black Sunday.  With the exciting pace of the action in Grand Prix and The Gypsy Moths, but with a thriller story as smart as The Manchurian Candidate or Seconds, Frankenheimer was just coming off of the sequel to The French Connection.  Yet, he had not made an outright action thriller unto itself, so he went all out when Robert Evans pulled the project together.

 

First, there is the cast.  Robert Shaw, best known for his role as henchman Red Grant in the 1963 James Bond film From Russia With Love, just had the biggest hit of his career with Steven Spielberg’s Jaws in 1975.  Bruce Dern was also on a roll, with films like Silent Running (read about the classic on the review elsewhere on this site), The King of Marvin Gardens (both 1972), The Great Gatsby (1974), and Alfred Hitchcock’s released but never totally finished Family Plot.  Dern got a big break with The Master of Suspense, on his 1964 opus, Marnie.

 

Add great character actors like Fritz Weaver, William Daniels, Bond regular Walter Gotell (reuniting with Shaw here after From Russia With Love), Victor Campos, and female lead Marthe Keller (also in John Schlesinger’s Marathon Man) among others, and you have a cast that pulls-off the intensity Frankenheimer was attempting.

 

Then there is the story, in which some anti-Israeli terrorists intend to kill thousands at a Super Bowl in the old Robbie Stadium in Florida, transporting explosives and a device that will launch thousands of deadly darts via the Goodyear blimp.  In producer Robert Evans wisdom, he believed in the novel by an upstart writer.  That turned out to be Thomas Harris, who later wrote Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, and Hannibal.  Even his initial novel shows exemplary storytelling, plotting, and exists in a real world you can buy into, never pulling punches about human nature and high stakes situations.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is surprisingly good for an older film, though there are still parts of the print that have dirt, artifacts, and show there age, you also get many exceptionally transferred materials that are in really good shape.  John Alonzo, A.S.C., was the cinematographer on Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974) and a master of the scope frame.  He demonstrates that just as strongly here, creating some amazing footage and clever moves that build on an already intense story.  The sound has been remixed for Dolby Digital 5.1 AC-3 multi-channel from the original theatrical optical monophonic sound, with the major component being a fine score by John Williams.  Before becoming over-familiar with the Lucas and Spielberg cannon of films, Williams, was turning out exceptional, dark, smart music for thrillers at this time.  Other such scores of the time include his work on Brian De Palma’s The Fury (1978), The Eiger Sanction and Family Plot.  The only problem with the mix is that the mono dialogue is too restricted in the center channel.

 

Very sadly, there is not one extra here, not even a trailer.  Why no commentary with Robert Evans or even Thomas Harris.  Paramount did a commentary with Frankenheimer on Seconds, now on DVD and originally on LaserDisc, but really missed a great opportunity here now that he is gone.  The trailer for the film is awesome, which is out on VHS, but is the least that Paramount could have done.  Why no behind-the-scenes footage?  This has to exist somewhere.  On the DVD case, the Goodyear blimp has been repainted a less-menacing off-white and the tire company name is badly airblown off of it on the back, but at least the blimp has its original color.

 

What is great is the film, a thriller that gets more and more intense as it goes on like few we see getting made today.  Evans was on a roll bringing all the right elements together, and Frankenheimer would only equal the intensity here one more time with 1997’s Ronin.  Black Sunday has so many reasons to see it, that it is a reissue you cannot miss.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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