Quick Blu Review: Superdome (1978)

Made-for-TV movies were a big part of life in the 1970s. It seemed every week at least one of the networks (there were only three back then) had some star-studded drama or adventure to glue us to our television sets from 9-11PM each Sunday and Monday night. They were always heavily promoted and in most cases even bigger spectacles than the films playing in theaters.

I didn't catch many of them as a child, as I usually was in bed by 9PM on school nights, but I do remember marveling at all the full-page TV GUIDE ads each week, imagining my own plots and characters. 1978's Superdome was one of those movies. 

Directed by Jerry Jameson (Airport '77, Raise the Titanic), Superdome unfolds in New Orleans a few days before the Super Bowl and follows The Los Angeles Cougars as they prepare for the big game. There's general manager Mike Shelley (David Janssen), juggling both the needs of the team and a amorous reporter (Donna Mills), veteran receiver Dave Walecki (Ken Howard), battling through knee pain and a neglected wife, suave quarterback Tom McCauley (Tom Selleck), fending off both groupies and the daughter of a persistent advertising executive and beloved former player P.K. Jackson (Clifton James), wading through a sea of parties and mounting debt.  

The drama soon turns deadly when a league security man and team trainer are mysteriously taken out by an unseen assailant and soon we learn a national gambling syndicate has a vested interest in keeping the heavily favored Cougars from winning the game. Everyone is now a target, and a suspect, as the clock ticks down to kickoff. 

Superdome was ABC's attempt to cash in on the building pigskin fervor the week of Super Bowl XII (the game was actually played at the newly opened Louisiana Superdome that year). The plot is predictable, as are the plethora of one-dimensional characters, but the swiftly paced 97-minute telefilm is undeniably entertaining, featuring smile-inducing performances from some of television's biggest past and future stars.

Recently released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber, Superdome features a new 2K scan and is presented in its native 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The picture is well defined and devoid of any scratches for the most part, but this is '70s-era television so don't expect a lot of vibrant colors and pop. Overall, a nice transfer for a film that hasn't received much love on home video since it first aired over 40 years ago.

The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track sounds great and both dialog and John Cacavas' score are clear and immersive at minimal levels.

Extras include trailers and an audio commentary with director Jameson and film historians Howard S. Berger and Steve Mitchell. 

Superdome isn't television's finest hour but it is a fun little reminder of the era and for under $10 on Amazon, an inexpensive discovery/diversion if you've never seen it.

Happy Thanksgiving! 

Remembering Sean Connery

Like most, I woke Saturday morning to the news beloved screen icon Sean Connnery had passed away at 90. 

 As a child of the 1970s, I probably first took notice of the charasmatic leading man with the commanding Scottish brogue in Michael Crichton's 1978 Victorian-era adventure The Great Train Robbery with Donald Sutherland, one of the many matiness my mom and I enjoyed Saturday afternoons after errands.  

I can then remember catching 1965's Thunderball on HBO at my dad's one summer afternoon in 1980. Roger Moore had been my only exposure to British superspy James Bond up until that point and I marveled at the fact that there were actually earlier, rather cool adventures with another dashing actor originating the role of 007. 

From there Connery popped up in smaller, independently produced films the next few years, providing memorable turns in Time Bandits, Outland, Never Say Never Again, Higlander and In The Name of the Rose.

It wasn't until his Oscar-winning performance as Jimmy Malone in 1987's The Untouchables that Connery became a sought-after Hollywood A-lister at age 57, headlining major studio films like The Presidio, Indiana Jones and Last Crusade, Family Business, The Hunt For Red October, Rising Sun and The Rock. Seriously, the guy made a film a year for the next 13 years until age 70. Just remarkable. 

Sean Connery meant different things to many genrations of film fans. To me, in addition to being the best Bond ever, he'll always be remembered as a towering prescence on screen, an actor who gave us some of the best and oft-quoted characters in the history of cinema and made every film he appeared in a little better and infinately more intresting.