Blu-ray Review: Black Sunday

Blu-ray Reviews, Reviews, Top Story

A few decades back, my uncle and aunt got tickets to the Super Bowl and immediately resold them for a price that paid for the next year’s season tickets. I was shocked since after decades of dealing with defeats, they had a chance to turn see their team win the big trophy. I asked them why and my uncle said, it wasn’t worth the hassle of spending hours dealing with security. They could watch at home with friends without having to get scanned, wanded and X-rayed. This was post 9/11 so everyone on TV swore the Super Bowl had become the biggest terrorist target in the World. Turning the Super Bowl into a terrorist target was something Hollywood had done decades before with Black Sunday being released in the Spring of 1977.

Mossad agent David Kabakov (Jaws‘ Robert Shaw) is on the trail of a Black September unit that’s up to something major. When they raid their compound, Kabakov mistakenly lets Dahlia Iyad (Marathon Man‘s Marthe Keller) escape since she doesn’t look like one of the terrorists that are getting shot up. This was a serious error since Dahlia is the key to Black September’s biggest terrorist plan ever. Michael Lander (Silent Running‘s Bruce Dern) is an ex-Air Force pilot who spent time as a POW in the Vietnam war. He’s not happy about his treatment when he came home. He does have a job as the pilot of the Goodyear Blimp and he plans to use his position in the sky to get revenge on America. Dahlia has figured out a way to weaponize the blimp so that during the Super Bowl, it will shock the world. Can Kabakov track down Dahlia and save the end of the football season?

One of the things that director John Frankenheimer could do better than anyone was talk people into letting them be a part of his movie. There is no finer example than Black Sunday. First is how he got Goodyear to let him use their iconic blimp as a potential weapon of mass destruction. He could have just put up the Goodrich blimp, but he went for the real deal and even used their logo in all the advertising. The second biggest thing is he talked the NFL into letting him film at the actual Super Bowl. This turned out to be one of the most legendary games with the Pittsburgh Steelers beating the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl X. There are more stars in the field than in the movie. The Blu-ray allows you to get sucked into the game. You’re seeing Roger Staubach, Terry Bradshaw and Lynn Swann in 35mm Cinemascope. If you’re a fan of old school football, the game footage is so much better than what you might have seen in NFL Films highlight shows. The biggest shocker is to notice that the Orange Bowl had the most horrifying astroturf. It looks like a bare welcome mat.

Black Sunday is an engrossing thriller thanks to Robert Shaw and Bruce Dern’s obsessed characters. You get why Dern’s blimp pilot would be willing to take part in a terrorist plot. You kind of understand why Shaw’s agent didn’t pull the trigger during the first raid. There’s a fun aerial fight in the sky above the Super Bowl that would be done with CGI today. Black Sunday is that classic ’70s epic page turner come to the big screen. The book was written by Thomas Harris who would later write The Silence of the Lambs. The best part of the film is how they Frankenheimer makes it so real with the real Super Bowl and Goodyear Blimp. The thriller feels a bit more real as security for the Super Bowl gets tighter and tighter each year. The don’t want a blimp attack to ever happen and make Black Sunday a prediction.

The video is 2.35:1 anamorphic. The 1080p transfer really brings out the great highlights of Super Bowl X. The Audio is the original mono mix in LPCM. There are also LPCM mixes in 5.1 and 2.0 stereo audio options. The movie is subtitled in English.

Audio commentary by film scholar Josh Nelson goes into the terrorism of the time and how it’s reflected in the film. There’s also discussion of Thomas Harris’ writing career from his time as a crime reporter.

It Could Be Tomorrow (29:30) is a visual essay by critic Sergio Angelini. The background of making the film and the times get explored. He reminds us how this links back the 1972 Olympics when the PLO killed members of the Israeli team. The book did better in paperback than hardback. He talks about producer Robert Evans.

The Directors: John Frankenheimer (58:35) was a special from 2003. Among the people interviewed are Frankenheimer, Kirk Douglas, Samuel L. Jackson, Roy Scheider and Rod Steiger. There’s talk about how he went from live television in the early network days to theatrical films.

Image gallery has 45 press photos and lobby cards.

Arrow Video presents Black Sunday. Directed by John Frankenheimer. Screenplay by Ernest Lehman, Kenneth Ross & Ivan Moffat. Starring Robert Shaw, Bruce Dern, Marthe Keller, Fritz Weaver and Bekim Fehmiu. Running Time: 146 minutes. Rating: Rated R. Release Date: March 28, 2023.

Joe Corey is the writer and director of "Danger! Health Films" currently streaming on Night Flight and Amazon Prime. He's the author of "The Seven Secrets of Great Walmart People Greeters." This is the last how to get a job book you'll ever need. He was Associate Producer of the documentary "Moving Midway." He's worked as local crew on several reality shows including Candid Camera, American's Most Wanted, Extreme Makeover Home Edition and ESPN's Gaters. He's been featured on The Today Show and CBS's 48 Hours. Dom DeLuise once said, "Joe, you look like an axe murderer." He was in charge of research and programming at the Moving Image Archive.