Black Sunday
Tags: suspenseful, murder, violence, cult, insanity, revenge

Plot synopsis:
Dahlia Iyad, an operative from the Palestinian terrorist group Black September, arrives in Beirut where she meets with Black September operatives in a safe house outside the city where she informs them about her plan for the upcoming "operation" in the USA to be carried out in two months the following year in the month of January. That same evening, a group of Israeli Mossad counter-terrorist commandos under the command of Major David Kabakov, arrives in Beirut from an Israeli spy ship and travel to raid the safe house. They kill most of the Black September operatives, but Kabakov backs down from shooting Dahlia when he finds her in a bathroom shower, mistakenly thinking that she might be an innocent call-girl. The Israelis take many files as well as an audio tape that Dahlia just made accepting responsibility for an upcoming attack in America at the start of the next year. Kabakov and the commandos set explosive charges around the house and detonate them before retreating back to their ship. Dahlia and a few operatives manage to escape.The film then switches to Los Angeles, several weeks later where Michael Lander is introduced. Lander is a pilot who flies the Goodyear Blimp over National Football League games to film them for network television. Secretly deranged by years of torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, he had a bitter court martial on his return and a failed marriage. He longs to commit suicide and to take with him as many as possible of the cheerful, carefree American civilians he sees from his blimp each weekend. Dahlia arrives in Los Angeles where it is revealed that she is his handler who has conspired with him to launch a suicide attack using a bomb composed of plastique and a quarter million steel flechettes, housed on the underside of the gondola of the blimp, which they will detonate over the Miami Orange Bowl during Super Bowl X. 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.Meanwhile, agent David Kabakov travels to Washington DC where he meets with Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Sam Corley, where they race to prevent the catastrophe. After discovering the audio recording Dahlia made, meant to be played after the attack, Kabakov and Corley try to piece together the path of the explosives into the country, and Dahlia's own movements.Lander and Dahlia don masks and travel to a cargo ship in Long Beach harbor where they pick up the shipment of plastic explosives that they intend to use to detonate the bomb and flee from the harbor police after a wild chase. Kabakov and Corley arrive in Los Angeles after learning about the incident and Kabakov questions the captain from the cargo ship who tells them about an unknown man and woman purchasing the explosives. However, the ship's captain is killed by a bomb left behind by Lander in which Kabakov is wounded. At the hospital, Dahlia arrives where she attempts to murder Kabakov but is forced to retreat after she kills Kabakov's friend and Mossad agent, Robert Moshevsky, who attempts to stop her.After recovering, Kabakov questions Muzi, a dockside owner, about the movements of the cargo ship's origins from Libya to Hong Kong. Kabakov then travels back to Washington where he secretly meets with a Russian KGB informant, named Colonel Riat, who researches and gives him the history and identity of Dahlia.Back in California, Dahlia and Lander travel by plane to a remote desert airfield where Lander conducts a "dry run" of the plan by detonating a small explosive device to test the steel darts and killing a park ranger who happens by. Lander's giddy reaction to the destructive force of the darts effectiveness unnerves Dahlia, but she says nothing.Dahlia drives the completed bomb from Los Angeles to Miami where she hides it in a storage facility by disguising it as a small motorboat and leaves it there before driving back to Los Angeles. When she learns from Lander that her identity has been discovered, she considers calling off the plan. But Lander persuades her to continue it by rambling about his determination to carry it out.When Dahlia was spotted in Miami during her brief stay there, Kabakov and Corley fly out to Miami where they attempt to arrest a certain Mohammed Fasil whom Dahlia met to discuss the final stages of the attack. Kabakov attempts to arrest Fasil but he runs and guns down several policemen forcing Kabakov to kill him. A search of Fasil's hotel room leads Kabakov to finally realize that the upcoming Super Bowl is the target for the Black September attack. At the same time, Dahlia and Lander arrive in Miami and easily evade the lax police screenings to set up the final stages of the plan. When Lander discovers that he has been replaced as the pilot of the blimp, Dahlia murders the pilot in his hotel room so that Lander can take his place.On the day of the Super Bowl, Kabakov and Corley survey with the local security detail in the Orange Bowl stadium as the football game gets underway. Lander arrives at the airfield where he tells the blimp crew (whom already know him) that he has been hired as the replacement pilot. Taking the blimp up and circling the stadium as usual, Lander starts a fire in one of the blimp's engines forcing it to return to the airfield for repairs. At the same time, Dahlia picks up the bomb from the storage docks and drives it to the airfield. At the Orange Bowl, Kabakov learns over his radio about the police finding the dead body of the blimp pilot in his hotel room. He frantically races to locate the blimp which flies off and finally figures out that the replacement pilot, Lander, is the terrorist collaborator with Dahlia.When the blimp returns to the airfield, Dahlia arrives with the bomb where, in the confusion, Lander tricks the ground crew into hooking up the bomb to the underside of the blimp's gondola. Lander is forced to kill the ground foreman who receives a phone call from the police who tell him to detain Lander. Dahlia and Lander are forced to hijack the blimp by opening fire with sub-machine guns at the ground crew and the police. After throwing out all the camera equipment from the overweight blimp so they can take off, Lander and Dahlia set off just as Kabakov and Corley arrive at the airfield to see the blimp flying away. Kabakov and Corley commandeer a civilian UH-1 Huey helicopter to chase the bomb-carrying blimp as it approaches the stadium. With Lander flying the blimp, Dahlia provides covering gunfire as she fires and shoots down a police helicopter and damages the helicopter carrying Kabakov and Corley who is slightly wounded. By ordering the chopper pilot to make some evasive moves, Kabakov then opens fire on the blimp gondola, killing Dahlia, mortally wounding Lander, destroying the detonator and damaging one of the blimp's engines. But Lander defiantly continues to fly the blimp and prepares a backup fuse to detonate the bomb.Kabakov lowers himself from the helicopter onto the blimp's tail just as it crashes into the stadium creating panic and chaos just as Lander lights the backup fuse. Kabakov manages to hook up the blimp's tail to the lowered cable wire and the helicopter literally hauls the heavy blimp out of the stadium and over Miami Bay. Kabakov releases the blimp and hoists himself back on the tow wire where the helicopter safely flies away with him seconds before the blimp blows up, and the thousands of steel darts harmlessly rain into the water.

Review: There are a number of good things going for this film, among them two things you learn right from the opening credits: (1) John Frankenheimer is the director and (2) it's based on a book by Thomas Harris, the man who created "Hannibal Lechter." Throw in two intense always-interesting actors, Bruce Dern and Marthe Keller, and you now have a good, no-nonsense story translated to the screen.
By that, I mean that when people are shot, that's it, no questions asked, no stupid talking.Even the football scenes were real-life with actual footage of the Cowboys and Steelers playing in a past Super Bowl.The suspense was done well, although a bit hokey at the very end (can't say more without spoiling it) but it can't take away from the previous two-plus hours of credibility.Dern also makes for a good "psycho" (he's almost made a career of it) and Keller is convincing as a villain, too, as she was in a film from the previous year: Marathon Man. Two other consistently- good actors also help make this an interesting film: Robert Shaw and Fritz Weaver.It was nice to see this film on a widescreen DVD but the picture was a bit grainy.
I read the book in 1976 and actually believed that cunning terrorists might be able to think up a really spectacular way of killing a whole lot of people at one time, but we'd be able to see it coming and stop them, just like in the book.
I remember being so excited about the movie--it had Bruce Dern and Robert Shaw and that gorgeous woman from Marathon Man, Marthe Keller.
The movie felt real, even with, as a I mentioned before, some special effects cheese that, for its time, couldn't be avoided.In January 1977 I had not seen The Manchurian Candidate--I didn't even know who Frankenheimer was; the only directors I knew were Don Siegel (because I loved Dirty Harry) and Roman Polanski (because of--my chronology might be off here--his little dust up with an underage girl at Jack Nicholson's house, or something like that).
Yet, Black Sunday is truly an action movie; its relation to The Manchurian Candidate stops as the bombs and bullets start tearing up the place.Finally, it's strange to say that casting Bruce Dern as a psychologically damaged former carrier pilot was inspired--the man got rich and famous off playing wackadoodles--but Dern is more tortured, more pathetic than anything I ever saw him in.
Dern was born to play parts like this and it's a reminder of how terrific an actor he is and how sad it is that he doesn't work as much as he used to.The final 40 minutes is intercut between the game (actually shot during the real Cowboys-Steelers Super Bowl game of 76) and the unfolding of the final stages of the plot.
It's tense and exciting as Shaw and cohorts commandeer helicopters to try to catch the blimp heading to the big game to unleash its deadly attack.Kudos to director John Frankheimer for keeping the pacing on this 2 hour 25 minute thriller moving.
The editing is first rate and the music score by John Williams is one of his best though it is never mentioned when his name comes up.If you like a good thriller that is never boring and will keep you on the edge of your seat, I highly recommend "Black Sunday.".
Instead of going for non-stop pyrotechnics, John Frankenheimer and Ernest Lehman serve up a tense, exciting build-up with interesting characters along the way that culminates in a grand finale that was partly filmed during Super Bowl X between Dallas and Pittsburgh.
Robert Shaw, at long last given the chance to play the hero in a movie, is quite good as the weary Israeli agent and Bruce Dern is at his psychotic best as the deranged blimp pilot..
The late John Frankenheimer was one of our greatest movie directors and Black Sunday was one of his greatest films that showed him as a true master of suspense.
He took another opportunity to change to the big screen , collaborating with Burt Lancaster in The Young Savages (1961) and Birdman of Alcatraz(62) ending up becoming a successful director well-known by his skills with actors and expressing on movies his views on important social deeds and philosophical events and film-making some classics as ¨The Manchurian candidate, Seven days of May and The Train¨.
An ex-Navy pilot and prisoner of war(Bruce Dern) teams with a devout member(Marthe Keller) of the Black September terrorist group to hijack/fly the Goodyear blimp and shoot a  quarter million rifle darts into the Orange Bowl.
The point being that terrorists are never born but made .BLACK SUNDAY is a very good political thriller full of good but often violent action scenes which means it`s not a film for everyone .
Robert Shaw plays Israeli agent Kabokov, who learns that a terrorist organization named Black September is planning an attack on the United States, which involves a known woman terrorist named Dahlia(played by Marthe Keller) who has enlisted the services of disgruntled Vietnam Veteran Michael Lander(played by Bruce Dern) to fly a Good Year blimp in the next Super Bowl, crashing its bomb-laden body into the stadium, killing thousands, all on national television.
Kabokov races against time to stop this plan before it is too late...Exciting and provocative film(especially today) has an interesting story, good action, and fine acting, which never lags despite its nearly Two & a half hour length.Based on the Thomas Harris novel, and directed by John Frankenheimer..
John Frankenheimer was one of the cinema's best and most talented directors, yet for some reason he rarely achieved the same status of respect as, say, Martin Scorsese, Alfred Hitchcock, or even Brian De Palma."Black Sunday" is based on the novel by Thomas Harris ("Silence of the Lambs"), and is one of four books he's written that does not deal with the character of Hannibal Lecter.
Robert Shaw plays an FBI agent who stumbles upon plans by a demented war veteran (Bruce Dern, "The 'burbs") to attack the US Superbowl with the help of Iraeli conspirators.You may remember this in another film a few years back named "The Sum of All Fears" (2002).
(It's not the first time he's been accused of "stealing" from other authors - Elmore Leonard accused him of having stolen the name Jack Ryan from a mystery thriller he wrote named "The Big Bounce").Shaw and Dern both give good, solid performances but in the end it is Frankenheimer's thrilling, paranoid direction that makes this worth seeing.
One of the reasons attributed to BS not making a lot more money was because Two Minute Warning which was a horrible film from Universal came out three months before it.Black Sunday was a perfect child of seventies movie-making - believable characters thrown into an unbelievable situation.
This is a film where the obvious villain, played by a colorful Bruce Dern, is the central character driving the story, and Robert Shaw's underplayed hero somewhat of an antagonist getting in the way.
who longs to commit suicide and take as many people as possible with him, so he conspires with an operative from a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September, to launch a massive suicide bombing on American soil, the inspiration of the story coming from the Black September attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics.It is hard to say, given the later malfunctions of Frankenheimer's filmography and the gallows cynicism of Harris' said other work, whether or not Black Sunday was almost meant as a more abstract reflection of the heightened mass awareness of foreign policy after the Vietnam War. I'm in no position to discuss the Isreal-Palestine conflict, but Palestinian movie characters are almost thoroughly portrayed as evil terrorists mostly through the 1980s with films like Red Dawn.
What he is doing and with whom he is doing it, the Black September woman played by an effectively cold Marthe Keller, is monstrous, but he is such a pathetic and wronged shell of a man and she is a virile, militant, calculating, by all means persuasive killer.Robert Shaw puts on the Stoic Man With a Mission, just like From Russia With Love and The Sting, but comes off differently here as the hero merely by the way he is stingy with betraying his reactions.
That's the kind of thoughts that director John Frankenheimer plants in your mind with a viewing of Black Sunday.Black September the Palestinian terrorist organization of the day and the ones responsible for the slaughter of Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich have something special in mind for America at one of our major sporting events.
The Combination of Real Life Super Bowl Footage and Iconic Goodyear Blimp Familism the Film is Disturbing as well as Melodramatic.It may be a Tad too Long but it Never seems Stagnant or Boring with Bruce Dern and Robert Shaw Dueling it out in a Landscape of Americana.
There is a Pulse-Pounding Score and the Production Looks Great, Except for a Few Dated SFX that are Noticeable but Forgivable, because the Movie is such a Fantastic Film that Really Resonates.Not the Best of John Frankenheimer Films but one Worthy of a Watch for those Seeking Action and Thrills in a Seventies kind of way.
in"Black Sunday" a terrorist plot to blow up the stadium during the Super Bowl in Miami is discovered.the only problem is,only the terrorists know how it will be done.it becomes a race against time to find out and stop the plot.i liked this movie quite a bit.i did think however,that there was too much information on the terrorist group and the motivation for the plot.for me,the movie dragged a bit in some of these scenes.i think the idea was to give the terrorists a more human face and make them more sympathetic.i could see their side of things,but i could also see the other side's view.if you have strong political views,this movie might bother you,as it has its own slant on things.this kind of thing doesn't really bother me that much.there have been many movies that portray both he Israeli's and the Palestinians in good and bad lites.the ending of the film is a real down to the wire nail biter,which for me,makes up for the slower parts."Black Sunday" is an 8/10 for me..
Black Sunday (1977) From the novel by Hanibal Lecter scribe Thomas Harris, is an expertly directed thriller from the always reliable John Frankenheimer, Marthe Keller, plays the deadly 'Dahlia' who work's for the terrorism outfit PLO(Palestinain Liberation Oragnziation,) with the help of embittered Vietnam vet Bruce Dern,Who is now a pilot of the Goodyear blimp, plan to strike the United State's with an elaborate and deadly terrorist attack, Robert Shaw, is Colonel David Kabakov, an Iserali commando who with his reliable sidekick attempt to thwart the elaborate plan, Finally arriving on DVD In restored 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio,it's great to see this classic, which has NEVER been available in Ireland, only once!
Stunning Marthe Keller is dynamite as a ruthless terrorist planning to blow up a football stadium during the Super Bowl via the Good Year blimp.
Bruce Dern also gives a great performance as a disturbed Vietnam Vet turned blimp pilot who becomes an aid for the terrorist plot on the Super Bowl.
For a film of this genre, "Black Sunday" is unique because it fleshes out the characters of the terrorists (Bruce Dern and Marthe Keller).
The producers also got permission to use the Goodyear blimp and actual Super Bowl game footage, adding some much-needed realism to the film.Soon, Paramount Pictures will begin production on "The Sum of All Fears," based on the Tom Clancy book about a terrorist plot to nuke the Super Bowl.
he did a great job here with Robert Shaw, in one of his last films, as the Israeli agent trying to catch the terrorists, American Bruce Dern and Palestinian Marthe Keller.Dern is always fun to watch as the heavy, and he plays a crazy ex-Navy pilot to the max.
Michael Lander, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, plans a bomb attack to a NFL game with Dahlia Iyad.She's an operative of Palestinian terrorist group Black September.85000 spectators + president Jimmy Carter would be at risk of losing their lives.Israeli David Kabakov does everything he can to prevent the act from happening.Black Sunday (1977) is directed by John Frankenheimer and it's based on a novel by Thomas Harris.Ernest Lehman was among those writing the screenplay.Robert Shaw does excellent job as Kabakov.Bruce Dern is excellent as Lander.Dahlia is played by Marthe Keller, and she's very good.Fritz Weaver is superb as FBI Agent Sam Corley.Steven Keats is terrific as Moshevsky.Great job by Bekim Fehmiu, who plays Fasil.Michadel V.
Gazzo is fantastic as Muzi.William Daniels does marvelous work as Pugh.Walter Gotell is magnificent as Colonel Riat.Also Clyde Kusatsu's portrayal of Freighter Captain is very good.Terry Bradshaw appears as himself.The movie has many incredible scenes.The speed boat chase is great for those who are hungry for action.The last minutes of this film are most intense.The Goodyear Blimp with a bomb is heading towards the Super Bowl stadium.Most entertaining thriller by Frankenheimer..
This movie, of course is ficticious, but to demonstrate their cause, the Palestinians, with the help of a deranged Vietnam War veteran (played exquisitely by Bruce Dern), decide to show America that they (the Americans) can be quite vulnerable to a terrorist attack--the attack taking place at the Super Bowl.With the aid of the Israeli intelligence (played by Robert Shaw), the attack is thwarted.This movie shows all of the intelligence work behind the scenes so that we can "feel" safe.
Bruce Dern is at his best as the deranged blimp piolt who masterminds the plot, and Robert Shaw is also great as the agent out to stop him.
This movie, based on a book by Thomas Harris ("Silence of the Lambs" and "Red Dragon") is a terrific action-thriller about a terrorist plot to inflict mass casualties upon attendees at a Super Bowl game.
If you want to see Robert Shaw, watch "The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three."  If you want a good nutcase, watch "The Caine Mutiny."  If you want a Frankenheimer conspiracy film, look for "The Manchurian Candidate."  But if want you want is a thriller with an absurd premise, a limping and at times inexplicable plot, and a by-the-numbers John Williams score, watch "Black Sunday."  "Black Sunday" is interesting in its early appreciation (for America) of the justness of the Palestinian cause, but that political savvy is undercut by a terrorist plan that reminds me of Steve Martin's joke about cat juggling: attack the Superbowl with a Blimp that fires DARTS?
Airtight story (based on "Silence of the Lambs", "Red Dragon" and "Hannibal" author Thomas Harris' book) about a terrorist plot to commit a mass murder.Robert Shaw and Fritz Weaver are the head Mossad and FBI agents assigned to prevent it, Bruce Dern and Marthe Keller are the two terrorists assigned to carry it out.This movie doesn't drag - there are no unnecessary scenes, and the ending is fantastic..
This adaptation of Thomas Harris' bestseller concerns a terrorist group that plots to bomb the Super Bowl and enlists the aid of an unhinged Vietnam vet (are there any others in the movies?), played by Bruce Dern, to carry out the dirty deed.
Classical thriller material and quite enjoyable to watch.Unfortunately by the time we come to the ending it appears like the classical Hollywood I-do-not-have-clue-but-lets-throw-in-some-action people took over and it drags down an otherwise fairly well-made movie.
Shaw carries this entertaining adaptation of Thomas Harris' shocking novel about an Israeli agent trying to thwart a plot to drop a bomb from the Goodyear blimp onto 80,000 Super Bowl spectators.
But there was little good about him and especially not his ruthless sidekick Moshevsky (Steven Yeats).If there was anyone who actually came off as a bit of a good guy it was the FBI agent Sam Corley (Fritz Weaver).My one complaint about the film was turning Robert Shaw into a latter day James Bond with his phony heroics to hook up the blimp to the helicopter to drag it away from the Super Bowl before it blows up.
John Frankenheimer, who explored the Cold War in the early 1960s with masterpieces such as THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE and SEVEN DAYS IN MAY, came into the 1970s suspense genre with this lengthy but rarely boring 1977 thriller, based on Thomas Harris' first novel.A deranged Vietnam vet (Bruce Dern) and a Black September terrorist member (Marthe Keller) plot to strike back at America for its support of Israel by skyjacking the Goodyear blimp on Super Bowl Sunday in Miami, and loading it with a quarter of a million steel-rifle darts.
Black Sunday is the story of a Black September terrorist group attempting to blow up a Goodyear blimp hovering over the Super Bowl stadium with 80,000 people and the President of the United States in attendance.
Enjoyable and relatively thoughtful action flick, with Bruce Dern as an ex Navy aviator driven mad by six years as a Vietnam POW, Marthe Keller as a Black September operative on whom he is as dependent as a child, and Robert Shaw as the grim, chisel-jawed Israeli major who is on their trail as they try to fly the Goodyear blimp into a Miami stadium and explode it, killing 80,000 people, including the president of the USA.John Frankenheimer, the director, gets the job done effectively, without any artsy tricks.
The story is about an Israeli intelligence agent who is trying to stop a terrorist plot by Black September to blow up the Super Bowl using a Goodyear blimp.The good parts.