To be clear I am speaking of the 1977 thriller directed by John Frankenheimer and not the 1960 horror movie directed by Mario Bava.

In a decade of growing terrorist attacks and twenty-four years before the terrible events of September 11th, Thomas Harris, whose fame as an author would be cemented with his creation of Hannibal Lector, penned his first novel Black Sunday about an attack on that most American of institutions, The Superbowl.

Robert Shaw plays David Kabakov an elite Israeli agent who when leading an assault on a terrorist cell in Lebanon uncovers a plot to attack the United States early in the year. With nothing more to go on that a glimpse of the face of the woman planning the attack David, his partner Robert, and the FBI face nearly insurmountable challenges in thwarting the murderous plans.

As the plot unwinds and mysteries are resolved David’s awareness grows that he has been part of the growing problem and he begins to doubt the righteousness of his prior actions.

Black Sunday seems today like a movie that simply could not be produced. Central to the terrorists’ plot is using the Goodyear Blimp as part of the attack and it is not a no name knock-off in the film but the actual blimp. It is inconceivable that a major public corporation would allow their most recognized symbol used as part of a plan to murder tens of thousands, and yet there it is. A quick bit of research showed that Frankenheimer had good relations with Goodyear and with a few restrictions, such making it clear that Bruce Dern’s deranged blimp pilot was a contractor and not a Goodyear employee, sweet talked the company into cooperating. The massive crowds of a Superbowl were achieved by again getting some unlikely cooperation, the NFL allowed the production to film at the 1976 Superbowl, which accounts for the bicentennial iconography in the movie, which was intercut with staged scenes of panic and chaos during the movie thrilling conclusion.

All in all, Black Sunday is a well-made, well-acted, and entertaining piece of cinema. It is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.