John Frankenheimer made very good movies and very bad movies and very mediocre movies. He is not one of the greats, and he is not among the worst. This movie is no "Manchurian Candidate," but it's no "Reindeer Games" either. ("Reindeer Games" indeed. Ernest Lehman's toilet paper reads better than Ehren Kruger's most polished script. Robert Shaw picks slivers of guys like Ben Affleck out of his molars. In the psycho mastermind department, I'll take Bruce Dern over Gary Sinise any day, night, afternoon, whatever. And as far as supporting players, give me one Fritz Weaver against ten Donal Logues and I still got you covered.)
Much is made these days of this film's (and book's) prescience in the field of international terrorism. Such comments are made by folks who apparently have no historical perspective from which to speak. Black September was the Al Quaeda of the 1970s, as real a specter then as any we have now. The Munich Olympics had already happened; Athens had already happened; Khartoum too; and, as Spielberg's "Munich" has reminded us, Mossad was already busy shutting Black September down. "Black Sunday" simply uses headlines as fuel. It's like calling "Psycho" prescient for its use of the serial killer, or "Taxi Driver" for predicting (inspiring?) a botched political assassination. I like watching Mossad agents shoot jihadists as much as the next guy, but let's call this what it is: timely then, and sadly still timely now. The only real anachronism is Goodyear, in return for massive product placement, accepting its flagship symbol's presentation as a weapon of mass destruction.
Mostly this movie is notable for being one more excellent job by John Alonzo. I don't think he had it in him to expose a bad frame. Man, the 70s had Alonzo, Michael Chapman, Vilmos Zsigmond, Laszlo Kovacks, Gordon Willis, Sven Nykvist, Owen Roizman. Even guys who had done their best work in the 50s and 60s were still available: Philip Lathrop, Robert Surtees, Lucien Ballard. Now, happily, we've got Roger Deakins and Janusz Kaminski in effect, and Michael Ballhaus still turns in a wonderful job now and then though his best days are behind...but I wonder if we'll see days like those again. I suppose the digital age has rendered many skill sets obsolete. Fine. But digital has a long way to go before it produces an image as remarkable as any half-dozen in a b-grade Alonzo effort like "Black Sunday."
Much is made these days of this film's (and book's) prescience in the field of international terrorism. Such comments are made by folks who apparently have no historical perspective from which to speak. Black September was the Al Quaeda of the 1970s, as real a specter then as any we have now. The Munich Olympics had already happened; Athens had already happened; Khartoum too; and, as Spielberg's "Munich" has reminded us, Mossad was already busy shutting Black September down. "Black Sunday" simply uses headlines as fuel. It's like calling "Psycho" prescient for its use of the serial killer, or "Taxi Driver" for predicting (inspiring?) a botched political assassination. I like watching Mossad agents shoot jihadists as much as the next guy, but let's call this what it is: timely then, and sadly still timely now. The only real anachronism is Goodyear, in return for massive product placement, accepting its flagship symbol's presentation as a weapon of mass destruction.
Mostly this movie is notable for being one more excellent job by John Alonzo. I don't think he had it in him to expose a bad frame. Man, the 70s had Alonzo, Michael Chapman, Vilmos Zsigmond, Laszlo Kovacks, Gordon Willis, Sven Nykvist, Owen Roizman. Even guys who had done their best work in the 50s and 60s were still available: Philip Lathrop, Robert Surtees, Lucien Ballard. Now, happily, we've got Roger Deakins and Janusz Kaminski in effect, and Michael Ballhaus still turns in a wonderful job now and then though his best days are behind...but I wonder if we'll see days like those again. I suppose the digital age has rendered many skill sets obsolete. Fine. But digital has a long way to go before it produces an image as remarkable as any half-dozen in a b-grade Alonzo effort like "Black Sunday."