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. 

FEDORA

Fedora (Marthe Keller) accepts her Oscar

FEDORA (1978). Director: Billy Wilder.

"Moral turptitude. You can have six husbands but you can't have one illegitimate child. Now you can have no husbands and six children and nobody cares."

Years ago Barry Detweiler (William Holden) once had a fling with the famous actress, Fedora (Marthe Keller). Now she's a recluse in Corfu, living on an island with an old countess (Hildegard Knef) and her doctor (Jose Ferrer of The Shrike). Detweiler, who is now a rather desperate producer, tries to use this slender, long-ago connection to the woman to coax her into coming out of retirement, especially as she looks many years younger. But Fedora's associates seem determined to keep her out of the limelight ... Fedora was pilloried by many critics when it came out primarily because it wasn't Wilder's earlier "Hollywood" picture, Sunset Boulevard, which has many similarities to Fedora (Holden stars in both movies and in each gets involved with an aging actress who is no longer in the business.) Taken on its own terms, however, Fedora is a fascinating picture, not quite a Gothic horror story, that examines image vs reality, irresponsible and tragic behavior, and in the end unravels a decidedly bizarre deception. Marthe Keller was criticized for her work in the film, but she actually gives an excellent performance, far outstripping the others, especially Holden, who seems completely listless. Mario Adorf makes an impression as the Corfu hotel manager. Miss Balfour (Frances Sternhagen of Outland), Fedora's companion,  is almost comically evil and the picture is a trifle overlong. Still, it is a worthwhile companion piece to Sunset Boulevard with its twisted and tragic story. Based on the novella from Thomas Tryon's "Crowned Heads."

Verdict: Weird old Hollywood story generally well-told. ***.