Before Their Time: The China Syndrome

By Daniel MacDonald

June 18, 2009

Lemmon could rock a vest like nobody's business.

New at BOP:
Share & Save
Digg Button  
Print this column
Talk about visionary: The China Syndrome, a taut and intelligent thriller starring Michael Douglas, Jane Fonda, and Jack Lemmon, was released to theatres on March 16, 1979 with the tagline, "Today, only a handful of people know what it means... Soon you will know." The movie depicts a near-meltdown at a nuclear reactor near Los Angeles, with Douglas and Fonda as a cameraman and reporter who stumble upon the story and refuse to stop digging, and Lemmon as a Shift Supervisor who thinks the public has a right to know what happened and fights to reveal the truth at great personal risk. In describing the China Syndrome, a character remarks that it would render uninhabitable "an area the size of Pennsylvania."

Twelve days later, at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, a nuclear reactor had a near meltdown, in what has been called the most significant accident in the history of the American nuclear power industry. An inaccurate gauge leading to the reactor core being exposed played a key role in both The China Syndrome and the real-life Three Mile Island incident.

It's a spooky coincidence, and is telling of the level of detail and authenticity with which The China Syndrome was constructed. It also makes The China Syndrome eerily prescient, and at least 12 days before its time.

Directed and co-written by James Bridges, who had another hit the following year with Urban Cowboy, The China Syndrome is among the best of the 1970s thrillers, giving us an inside look at news-gathering (a la All the President's Men) and teaching us a thing or two about the science behind nuclear energy, while simultaneously playing into the public's natural discomfort with the topic. The action is decidedly low-key, yet the tension is nearly unbearable as we wonder if the plant's operators will be able to stop the terrifying chain reaction set into motion by a sticky dial. That tension drives the rest of the film as political fallout takes the place of the nuclear variety. No one's fate seems certain: not Fonda's plucky reporter, relegated to "soft" news because of her looks but acutely aware that this story could make her career; not Douglas' wild-card cameraman, surreptitiously filming plant employees trying to solve and cover-up their error; and certainly not Lemmon's conscience-stricken manager, whose desperate measures speak to the severity of the situation. The stakes are as high as the drama, yet The China Syndrome never crosses the line into unbelivability. Smart, clever, dramatic thrillers of today - the underrated Michael Clayton comes to mind - owe a great debt to The China Syndrome.




Advertisement



With almost no music, and little time for comic relief or romantic subplots, The China Syndrome is as serious as a heart attack, expertly dolling out detail in bite-sized but not oversimplified chunks. The inciting incident at the power plant is played out slow and steady, with reaction shots carrying much of the dramatic weight. A later plot point involving getting key testimony on the record at a hearing recalls drama wrested from a similar situation in The Insider, but with a much different outcome. There's just so much to admire in The China Syndrome: the only element that rings slightly false is a sequence involving hit men running a character off the road - feeling a bit like the result of a studio note calling for more action - but that weakness is easily outweighed by the film's significant strengths.

Grossing over $50 million at the domestic box office - in 1979 dollars - The China Syndrome was undeniably a hit, capturing the imaginations of North American moviegoers. Whether or not the Three Mile Island accident boosted the movie's take is up for debate. Some would argue that, without its real-life counterpart, The China Syndrome could have been an even bigger success, as it was pulled from some theatres out of respect, and marketers did what they could to avoid seeming opportunistic. Yet, how could there not have been increased interest in the film? Every once in a while, life is shown to imitate art in a way that has to be seen to be believed, and The China Syndrome was likely no exception. I doubt very much that the added attention hurt the film's fortunes.

The China Syndrome was a critical hit too, amassing an impressive round-up of awards and nominations: four Oscar nods, five Golden Globe nominations, two BAFTA awards for best actor and actress along with two other nominations, a Director's Guild nomination, and consideration for the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival (in which Jack Lemmon also received a best actor award). Roger Ebert called The China Syndrome, "a terrific thriller that incidentally raises the most unsettling questions about how safe nuclear power plants really are." His was not a minority opinion.

The disaster film grew to prominence as a vehicle for ensemble casts of major stars with pictures like The Towering Inferno, then turned into bloated special effects showcases like Volcano (although that's a bit of a guilty pleasure for me), and the lame The Day After Tomorrow. Were The China Syndrome made during the past ten or 15 years, it too would probably have ended up a thrill-a-minute disaster film, Jack Lemmon's role re-imagined for some hot 25-year-old actor who, in the third act, must don a radiation suit to personally prevent the core from melting down while also rescuing his best friend, trapped under a falling pipe, whose wife is pregnant and has just gone into labor. Maybe that would've been a good film too - I like a little melodramatic action as much as the next guy. But thankfully we'll always have the original, the product of late-70s filmmakers using the movies to make people think, not just gasp. And thanks to the unlikely real-life drama that played out just 12 days after its release, The China Syndrome earned its bona fides and deserves a place in any moviegoer's heart.


     


 
 

Need to contact us? E-mail a Box Office Prophet.
Thursday, March 28, 2024
© 2024 Box Office Prophets, a division of One Of Us, Inc.