Directed by:
Larry PeerceScreenplay:
Edward HumeCinematography:
Gerald HirschfeldComposer:
Charles FoxCast:
Charlton Heston, John Cassavetes, Martin Balsam, Beau Bridges, Marilyn Hassett, David Janssen, Jack Klugman, Gena Rowlands, Walter Pidgeon, Brock Peters (more)Plots(1)
A psychotic sniper plans a massive killing spree at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum football stadium during a major championship game. The police, led by Captain Peter Holly (Charlton Heston) and SWAT commander Sergeant Button (John Cassavetes), learn of the plot and rush to the scene. Still, they may be too late, as an all-star cast finds itself lined up in the sights of a madman. The gunman has his pick of the targets, the Mayor, the President or merely the innocent? Either way he has to be stopped before all hell breaks loose. (101 Films)
(more)Videos (1)
Reviews (1)
A truly excellent and engrossing affair, and one where the book's origin is very, very evident (and very, very good). It’s sort of a precursor to the even more successful Black Sunday, which John Frankenheimer released a year later. Larry Peerce, a mostly TV director who is not very well-known, was as good as his more famous colleagues. The tension is omnipresent, and if you see the film for the first time, you can't be at all sure what will happen in the next minute; the sniper remains virtually faceless and anonymous from beginning to end, but we get to know a lot of other people in the stadium, whose mini-stories come together in a perfectly terrifying (or terrifyingly perfect) finale. Great, great, great! The only complaint I have is how late (without any explanation for the delay) the helicopter appeared on the scene... But that's really a minor flaw. __P.S.
()
