Arrow Video, with domestic sales and distribution expertise provided by MVD Entertainment Group, has tabbed Mar. 28 for a new Blu-ray edition of director John Frankenheimer’s film adaptation of Thomas Harris’ debut novel, Black Sunday.
In the 1970s, Paramount was blessed with the ethereal genius of studio head Robert Evans. The Godfather, China Town, Love Story, The Conversation, Urban Cowboy, Marathon Man … are just a few of the many films that he put into production that became theatrical hits. The golden touch … King Midas would have been proud (check out the Paramount mini-series The Offer for an inkling of how mercurial Evans could be).
Evans had a gift for finding books and then putting together the director, writers and cast to bring the film production from the page to the screen. Black Sunday is one of those, and it is a pure Evans production, in that he leveraged the success of The Godfather to structure a new deal at the studio where he would remain the head of production, but could also be the producer of the films he was green-lighting — making him eligible for Oscar consideration.
Ironically, this happened in 1974 when his production of Chinatown was nominated for Best Picture and in head-to-head competition with Paramount’s The Godfather: Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, Gray Frederickson and Fred Roos as producers) … he wins either way!
Black Sunday was an interesting thriller, showing in detail how a member of the Black September Movement, Dahlia (Marthe Keller) was able to manipulate a former Vietnam War POW, Lander (Bruce Dern), into using his unique position as a Goodyear blimp pilot to attempt a terrorist attack on the Super Bowl.
Israeli agent, Kabakov (Robert Shaw) is always just one step behind the pair.
The edge-of-your-seat Super Bowl event that brings the entire cat-and-mouse game to a climax was actually filmed during the January of 1976 Super Bowl game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Dallas Cowboys with a seven-camera set-up … Robert Shaw and Fritz Weaver (playing FBI agent Sam Corley) can be seen moving about the stadium and the sidelines during the actual game.
Bonus goodies include commentary with film scholar Josh Nelson, a vintage biography-production titled “The Directors: John Frankenheimer” and the newly-prepared featurette, “It Could be Tomorrow.”
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