The China Syndrome (1979)

User Rating:

7.3/10   

Director:

James Bridges

Writers:

Mike Gray (written by) &
T.S. Cook (written by) ...

Release Date:

16 March 1979 (USA)

Genre:

Thriller | Drama

Tagline:

Today, only a handful of people know what it means... Soon you will know.

Plot:

A reporter finds what appears to be a cover-up of safety hazards at a nuclear power plant.

Plot Keywords:

Nuclear Power | Reporter | Cameraman | News | Cover Up

Awards:

Nominated for 4 Oscars. Another 6 wins & 13 nominations

Cast

Jane Fonda	...	Kimberly Wells
Jack Lemmon	...	Jack Godell
Michael Douglas	...	Richard Adams
Scott Brady	...	Herman De Young
James Hampton	...	Bill Gibson
Peter Donat	...	Don Jacovich
Wilford Brimley	...	Ted Spindler
Richard Herd	...	Evan Mc Cormack
Daniel Valdez	...	Hector Salas
Stan Bohrman	...	Pete Martin
James Karen	...	Mac Churchill
Michael Alaimo	...	Greg Minor
Donald Hotton	...	Dr. Elliott Lowell
Khalilah Ali	...	Marge
Paul Larson	...	D.B. Royce

Runtime:

122 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:PG | Australia:PG | Argentina:13 | Chile:14 | Finland:K-12 | Norway:12 (original rating) | Norway:15 (re-rating) | Sweden:11 | USA:PG | West Germany:12 | Singapore:PG | Netherlands:AL

Filming Locations:

1000 N. Crescent Drive, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

IPC Films

Trivia:

Stephen Bishop was brought on late in production to write the film's title song, "Somewhere In Between." Producers wanted a song to replace the one originally chosen for the titles, which they felt didn't fit the film. The original song was a then-unknown song called "What A Fool Believes" by The Doobie Brothers.

Goofs:

Factual errors: When a reactor is "SCRAM"ed it does not initiate the use of massive cooling systems. The SCRAM process is the rapid (4 second or less) insertion of the control rods into the core which shuts the reactor down by absorbing the neutrons. If the control rod SCRAM fails, then the reactor can be SCRAMed by using a neutron absorbing liquid injected into the core from pressurized tanks (no pumps.) Also, in addition to the cooling pumps, there is an Emergency Core Cooling System which injects a large amount of cooling water into the core if the primary colling system fails.

Quotes:

Greg Minor: [re evidence of a nuclear power plant accident] I may be wrong, but I'd say you're lucky to be alive. For that matter, I think we might say the same for the rest of Southern California.

Movie Connections:

Featured in The China Syndrome: Creating a Controversy (2004) (V)

Soundtrack:

Somewhere in Between

Press Censored even in 1979

AS poor and as distorted as the news in the U.S. is today, I find it refreshing that there were cover-ups and 'arrangements' being made over nuclear plants even in the 70's. Having worked on the software for control systems that theoretically control the nuclear plants, I know that any day now, the 'holes in the Swiss cheese slices' will all line up, and boom!!!! No one is taking the time to provide the care in that software that is continually being 'improved' and building like a house of cards. Safety software engineers are paid NOT to care about the quality of the work, but to rubber stamp the specs.

The inspectors they showed there are today even more incompetent and apathetic. As long as they find a few cosmetic problems to bitch about (e.g., coffee cups hiding alarm buttons), they don't peer any further. And of course, they wouldn't examine the X-rays, or know what they were looking for, if they did. The fox is guarding the henhouse in many areas in which we foolishly think we are protected. This movie attempts to unveil that danger, something movies are no longer allowed to do, since they are made by the same Big Business conglomerates that give you the nuclear plants, the Keystone tires, the Ford roll-overs.

Jane Fonda does a fantastic job of playing the innocent ingenue, something that hard-brained tough lady isn't in real life. And of course, Jack Lennon, dear departed, did one fantastic job as the ill-fated conscience of the nuclear plant. Check this one out of the video store....before all the copies are ordered destroyed. (I'm kidding, but not by much.)

Collusion between the information distorters and dispensers AND Big Business is just one of the themes in this movie, but something that's much more prevalent now than then. Well-written, I want to now see, "The Making of the China Syndrome" to find out what was cut out of it, and how much pressure the makers of this movie were under.

Just one thing: The movie Cher was in, in which she's run off the road, was also about a nuclear plant, and a worker who knows the truth about the apathy to safety at high levels of the plant. Which one copied the other?