Black Sunday

Black Sunday.
1977 Paramount Pictures.
Starring: Robert Shaw, Bruce Dern, Marthe Keller, Fritz Weaver, Bekim Fehmiu, William Daniels
Director: John Frankenheimer
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John Frankenheimer filmed Black Sunday partially on location at Super Bowl X at the Orange Bowl in Miami in 1976 (Pittsburgh defeated Dallas, 21-17) with unprecedented cooperation from the NFL, and a lot of help from CBS. Many of the CBS crew knew Frankenheimer from his time at the network, and they help arrange his film cameras around their television equipment as to not distract the crowd viewing the game live, or later, to audiences at theaters viewing the movie. Frankenheimer also worked out a deal with Goodyear to use their iconic blimp in the movie. The only condition was, the onscreen pilot of the Goodyear Blimp be specified as a freelance one, not a Goodyear employee, and that the blimp itself actually not kill anyone with its propellers or other working parts. Black Sunday was also adopted from the novel of the same name written by Thomas Harris. The book was a moderate success, but Harris created the character of Hannibal Lecter for his next project, and the rest is history.

Michael Lander (Dern) is a pilot of the Goodyear Blimp, providing aerial coverage of NFL games. He's also a Vietnam vet, unhinged from years of torture as a POW, a court martial after returning to America, and his failed marriage. Lander is suicidal, and wishes to take out as many civilians as he can see from his blimp every Sunday afternoon as possible. He teams up with Dahlia Iyad (Keller), a member of Black September, a Palestinian terrorist organization. They plan to launch a suicide attack with a plastique bomb and 250,000 steel darts concealed on the underside of the Goodyear Blimp, which they will detonate over the Orange Bowl and Super Bowl X. Black September intends to use the attack as a wake-up call for the Americans to call attention to the plight of the Palestinians.

While Lander and Iyad carry out their mad scheme, a Mossad agent named David Kabakov (Shaw) and the FBI agent Sam Corley (Weaver) follow their every move and race to prevent the attack, leading to a spectacular chase involving the Goodyear Blimp and police helicopters.

Recommended suspense film, with Bruce Dern turning in a stellar performance as the deranged Michael Lander.

The Manchurian Candidate

The Manchurian Candidate. 1962 United Artists.
Starring: Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, Angela Lansbury, Henry Silva, James Gregory
Director: John Frankenheimer
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During the Korean War, an American infantry patrol is captured by agents for the Soviet Union, and taken into Manchuria, where the soldiers are brainwashed, and in the case of Staff Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Harvey), implanting a subconscious trigger (a Queen of Diamonds card). After being returned to the front line, and later, after they come back home, the Americans have no idea what they were subjected to, and therefore believe that Shaw saved the lives of their entire platoon during combat. Shaw is awarded the Medal of Honor upon returning to America, which is something he is completely unhappy with.

Major Bennett Marco (Sinatra) starts having the same nightmare: a hypnotized Shaw killing two of his platoon before assembled Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean officers while watching a demonstration of the Communist brainwashing procedure. Wanting to investigate, Marco receives no support from Army Intelligence, until another soldier from the platoon comes forward and says he's been having the same nightmare with the same specific Communists in it. Meanwhile, Shaw's relationship with his parents is explored; he hates them both, especially his overbearing mother (Lansbury), and is unaware that they are actually Communist agents with a plan that could take them all the way to the White House, using their brainwashed son as their unwitting henchman.

The Manchurian Candidate is a gripping political thriller worthy of your time. Recommended.