BLACK SUNDAY (1977)

Bruce Dern and Marthe Keller

BLACK SUNDAY (1977). Director: John Frankenheimer.

German-Arab Dahlia (Marthe Keller) is a member of the terrorist group Black September. She has been able to manipulate her lover, a bitter Viet Nam vet named Lander (Bruce Dern), into helping her in a plot to kill thousands of Americans. She hopes to send a message to the U.S. to stop aiding Israel. A taped message that she had planned to release to the media after the event has been recovered following a raid so that now the government knows something deadly is planned but doesn't know what. (The fact that Lander is one of the pilots of the Goodyear blimp for the Superbowl should give you a clue.) Israeli agent Kabakov (Robert Shaw) and FBI man Sam Corley (Fritz Weaver) join forces with others to find this woman -- whom Kabakov should have killed during the raid but didn't -- and stop her plan before she can kill over 83,000 people -- and the President -- at the Superbowl in Miami.

Robert Shaw

Black Sunday is a thinking man's thriller, the kind they generally don't make anymore, in that it has some great action set pieces and lots of suspense, but it also has interesting characters and heroes who are not quite superhuman. The film is over two hours long but never boring as it follows the deadly exploits of the daring terrorist duo and their equally daring pursuers, with speed boat chases, telephone bombs, hotel shoot-outs and a climax involving a blimp, a helicopter, a sub-machine gun wielded all too well by Dahlia, and a bomb that will fire thousands of metal pellets into a crowd of cheering and clueless fans if something isn't done to prevent it.

Marthe Keller 

The acting in the film could not be bettered. Marthe Keller of Fedora gives another excellent and passionate performance as the terrorist, and Bruce Dern [Coming Home] is simply superb as the tormented and vengeful vet who spent months in a POW camp and whose wife left him for another man when he finally returned home. Robert Shaw is similarly on target, as are supporting performances from Weaver, Steven Keats [The Last Dinosaur] as another ill-fated Israeli agent, and others. There's a horrifying scene in a warehouse when the evil duo test their weapon on an innocent caretaker who only thinks they're going to take his picture, and many other memorable moments. John Williams' score is also quite effective.

This is based on a novel by Thomas Harris. I always thought it was far superior to his over-rated Silence of the Lambs and that this earlier film is far superior to the film version of Lambs. Back in 1977, terrorist plots like this were strictly the stuff of movies and books, not to mention James Bond, but 9/11 certainly changed that notion, as we soon realized, sadly, that now anything was possible ...

Verdict: Terrific thriller with a great plot and excellent performances. ***1/2. 

DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES (PLAYHOUSE 90 LIVE TV/1958)

Cliff Robertson and Piper Laurie

DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES (1958). Playhouse 90 season three, episode 2. Directed by John Frankenheimer. Written especially for Playhouse 90 by J. P. Miller. Introduced by Sterling Hayden.

Joe Clay (Cliff Robertson of Obsession) stands up at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and relates the story of his life, his marriage to fellow alcoholic Kirsten (Piper Laurie of Carrie), and his dark descent and struggle back to sobriety. When Joe meets Kirsten at a party, it is already clear that she likes her liquor. After Joe loses his job due to his drinking, he and Kirsten and their little girl move in with her father, Ellis (Charles Bickford of Anna Christie), who unfairly blames Joe for his daughter's problem. But can Joe convince his wife that she has to give up alcohol entirely or they simply can not have a life together, and she cannot be their child's mother?

Cliff Robertson 

Days of Wine and Roses, as presented on the anthology series Playhouse 90, is a true classic of live television. (Frankly it's inexplicable how certain scene changes were enacted without any cuts or commercial breaks.) Hollywood had already dealt with alcoholism in The Lost Weekend, but this teleplay examines the affects of the disease on marriage and on an innocent child (although the latter aspect is downplayed). The script is strong, the performances from all three leads are excellent, and the teleplay, well-directed by John Frankenheimer [Seconds] early in his career, retains bite and interest. This was remade as a theatrical film starring Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick. One of Robertson's finest performances.

Verdict: A prime example of why everyone raves about the early days of live television. ***1/2.  

PROPHECY

Talia Shire, Richard Dysart and Robert Foxworth

PROPHECY (aka Prophecy: The Monster Movie/1979). Director: John Frankenheimer.

Dr. Robert Vern, who usually works in the ghettos of Washington D.C., accepts an assignment to do a survey for the Environmental Protection Agency in the timber lands of Maine, where a dispute is raging between the Original People [Indians] and factions in the lumber industry. Not only does Vern discover that the natives are being seriously affected by something in the area, with an alarming number of still-births and deformed babies, but he suspects a huge mutant creature has already resulted from toxicity caused by the sawmill on the river. To make matters worse, his wife Maggie (Talia Shire) hasn't yet told him of her pregnancy, but she's eaten the same fish the Indians have; it contains a poison that "jumps the placental barrier" and lodges in the fetus. Then that monster comes a'calling ... David Seltzer's paperback novelization of his own screenplay for Prophecy was released several months before the film came out, and it was such an excellent horror novel that monster movie fans awaited the movie with anticipation. The trouble is, there hasn't been a more disappointing monster since The Giant Claw. The FX people came up with a mere lumpy and unconvincing disfigured bear instead of the creature described in the book or depicted in the movie's poster, something that bore traces of every step of the evolutionary ladder. But despite this serious deficit, Prophecy is not a complete waste because the story pulls the viewer along, the acting is solid, and the movie has genuine suspense in good measure. Along with Foxworth [Falcon Crest] and Shire, Richard Dysart [The Thing] is notable as a lumber man and Armand Assante [Human Target] scores as a militant Native American known as John Hawks. In real life methyl mercury poisoning did have very adverse effects on Indians in Canada, though so far no monsters have been sighted. John Frankenheimer also directed Seconds and other first-rate movies. NOTE: You can read more about movies like this in Creature Features: Nature Turned Nasty in the Movies.

Verdict: Good in spite of itself. ***.

SEVEN DAYS IN MAY

Kirk Douglas, Martin Balsam and Fredric March

SEVEN DAYS IN MAY (1964). Director: John Frankenheimer. Screenplay by Rod Serling, from a novel by Fletcher Knebel.

U.S. President Lyman (Fredric March) has pushed through a nuclear disarmament pact with the U.S.S.R. that most of the people and military disagree with, not trusting the Russians. Colonel "Jiggs" Casey (Kirk Douglas) thinks he may have uncovered a plot by General Scott (Burt Lancaster) to capture Lyman and have a military take-over of the United States. Some people think Casey is paranoid and has no real proof -- although he has also uncovered a top-secret military base that the president has never heard of -- but as the time approaches, the evidence, and the suspicious death of at least one investigator, indicates that he may be right. Seven Days in May is a crackling good suspense thriller bolstered by excellent performances from the entire cast, including those already named, as well as Martin Balsam, Edmond O'Brien, George Macready, and Ava Gardner (as an old girlfriend of the general's). John Houseman plays an admiral, Andrew Duggan an Army man, and Hugh Marlowe, Whit Bissell, Richard Anderson, and Malcolm Atterbury have smaller roles. Fredric March is especially outstanding.

Verdict: Taut, fast-paced and terrific. ***1/2.

SECONDS

SECONDS (1966). Director: John Frankenheimer.

"We lived our lives in a polite, celibate truce."

Middle-aged Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph) seems to be living the American dream: he has a good job and is in line to be the next president of the bank, lives in a beautiful home in the suburbs, has a kind and presentable wife. But Arthur suffers from a mid-life crisis, he and his wife feel no passion for one another and are going through the motions, and he is tired of the commute and rat race. So when an old friend who is supposedly deceased calls him from out of the blue and suggests he go to a certain address and can start his life afresh, get a second chance, he decides to go -- although not without trepidation. Hamilton is practically blackmailed into accepting the services of the people he connects with, and before he knows it he has said good-bye to his old life, made financial arrangements to look after his wife, and undergoes physical therapy and cosmetic surgery -- and wakes up looking just like Rock Hudson! With the new name of Tony Wilson, Hamilton (now played by Hudson), a "reborn," is ensconced in a seaside community in California as a minor artist. The problem is that Hamilton is a nice but essentially dull man and he finds that he can't get away from himself. It all leads up to a grim but inevitable finale. Randolph and Hudson are both excellent as the two sides of Hamilton -- Hudson probably gives his best performance, in fact -- and they get fine support from Frances Reid as Arthur's wife, Salome Jens as a woman who befriends "Tony," Jeff Corey as the head of the Reborn organization, Wesley Addy as Tony's valet, Murray Hamilton as Arthur's old friend, and others. [This is based on an excellent novel by David Ely that probably filled in some of the loose ends you might find in the movie if you examine it too closely.]

Verdict: Creepy and absorbing, with some excellent performances. ***1/2.

LEARNING TO LIVE OUT LOUD Piper Laurie

LEARNING TO LIVE OUT LOUD. Piper Laurie. Crown; 2011.

Autobiographies of second and third tier celebrities are often worthless because the author is too interested in settling scores or vomiting bitterness over being overlooked, ignored, or hidden behind a bushel, but luckily this is not the case with Laurie, who has several Oscar nominations to her credit and once again became a sought after actress after her initial Hollywood period [although she refers to herself as a "star," which may technically be correct, she never exactly had the career of say, a Joan Crawford]. Laurie had a difficult childhood, but became closer to her parents in later years. She writes of her sexual experiences with Ronald Reagan and Mel Gibson [one would think some women would now be embarrassed to admit they'd had sex with those two!], her affairs with director John Frankenheimer and others, and her marriage to a movie critic, Joe Morgenstern. She writes with admirable candor of her personal life, and doesn't neglect her film or television career, either. Laurie struggled against an indifferent studio system which apparently saw her as little other than superficial cheesecake and had to fight to gain respect as an actress. She had a comeback of sorts in Brian De Palma's film version of Carrie, which led not just to other macabre assignments but more "serious" work as well. Occasionally, Laurie seems to pull back from total truth; surely there was more behind the break up of her marriage to Morgenstern than what she writes. She appeared in The Thornbirds but either never met star Barbara Stanwyck or chooses not to write about her. Some fans may be disappointed that she makes absolutely no mention of working with Italian director Dario Argento on his grotesque but rather excellent Trauma [if anything, Laurie's character is even more horrible than the mother in Carrie.] Still this is a very well-written and surprisingly absorbing read from a Hollywood, theater, and TV insider who was around for the studio system and the Golden Age of Television and writes intelligently about all of it.

Verdict: A worthwhile read. ***1/2. 

ALL FALL DOWN

ALL FALL DOWN (1962). Director: John Frankenheimer.

Young Clinton Willart (Brandon De Wilde) idolizes his older brother, the oddly-named Berry-Berry (Warren Beatty), until it finally comes home to him how much the older man mistreats women after a tragedy occurs. This is an interesting picture, the kind of movie that passed for “adult drama” back in the sixties, but it hasn't worn well with time. The characters aren't developed enough and we never really learn the reason for Berry-Berry's torment (although it's fairly easy to guess at, given the film is based on a novel by James Leo Herlihy and the screenplay is by William Inge); the whole business has a rather suspect psychology behind it. Angela Lansbury and Karl Malden play the parents, Annabelle and Ralph, and while both actors are good, neither of them could chalk this up as one of their more memorable performances. Beatty offers an effective performance, however, if hardly a brilliant one, and Brandon De Wilde comes off the best and most sensitive out of the major players. But the acting honors have to go to Barbara Baxley as the unnamed teacher who gives Beatty a ride and gets taken for one herself; she's just terrific. Otherwise, this just doesn't make much of an impression today.

Verdict: Only if you're curious or a real big Beatty fan. **.