Ron O'Neal | Through the Shattered Lens

1980’s The Final Countdown opens with a series of stunning overhead shots of Pearl Harbor. Warren Lasky (Martin Sheen), a systems analyst for Tideman Industries, is sent by his mysterious employer to observe operations on the USS Nimitz. Captain Yelland (Kirk Douglas), the commanding officer of the Nimitz, is polite to Lasky, even if he doesn’t quite understand why he’s been sent. For that matter, Lasky’s not sure what he’s supposed to do either. When the Nimitz is surrounded by a sudden storm and programs from 1941 start playing over the radio, Yelland suspects that it’s some sort of test and that Lasky has been sent to see how they react. However, when two Japanese airplanes are spotted overhead, it becomes clear that the Nimitz has somehow traveled through time. The date is December 6th, 1941 and, in just 24 hours, the Japanese are going to attack Pearl Harbor.

Commander Dick Owens (James Farentino) argues that it would be dangerous to try to change history by attacking the approaching Japanese fleet. However, it appears that the Nimitz has already changed history by saving the life of U.S. Senator Samuel Chapman (Charles Durning), who Owens believes would have been Roosevelt’s running mate in 1944 if he hadn’t been killed the day before Pearl Harbor. With Chapman demanding that Pearl Harbor be warned and Lasky arguing that the Nimitz should try to change history by preventing the attack, Captain Yelland has a decision to make.

The Final Countdown was made with the full support of the U.S. Navy. The production was allowed to film on the Nimitz and, outside of the main stars, the crew of the Nimitz played themselves. As a result, there’s a lot of awkward line deliveries amongst the minor characters but there’s also an authenticity to the film that elevates the story. Even when it becomes obvious that the Nimitz has traveled back to 1941, the crew handles things in a professional manner. One comes into the film expecting a good deal of panic and freaking out and instead, the movie offers up a ship of people who play it cool and who get the job done and it’s kind of nice to see. As for the professional actors, they all play their parts well enough. Charles Durning gets to bluster a bit as the senator and Katharine Ross (playing the senator’s secretary) looks like she’d rather be anywhere but on a aircraft carrier but Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, James Farentino, and Ron O’Neal all give solid, if not particularly memorable, performances.

The film asks an interesting question. Would you change history? For that matter, can history actually be changed? If the Nimitz prevented the attack on Pearl Harbor, would it have changed history for the better (as Lasky suggests) or would it have just kept America out of the war for a longer period of time? Would Japan have given up its plans to attack America or would its leaders have tried again? On a personal note, I’ve been to Pearl Harbor and it’s a moving experience. It’s hard not to look down at the remains of the USS Arizona and not feel something. I remember that, when I looked down at the Arizona, the first thing that I felt was anger that a ship that was sunk in an unprovoked attack also served as the tomb so many men who served their country. But then I felt a certain pride in the fact that, in the 1940s, America didn’t take that attack lying down. America didn’t make excuses or surrender. America stood for itself and kicked some ass and the world was and is better for it.

As for The Final Countdown, Don Taylor’s direction is fairly stolid (Taylor was no visual stylist) and there’s never really any explanation as to why the Nimitz went into the past in the first place. That said, I enjoyed the film. The premise is an intriguing one and the final twist works far better than one might expect. The Final Countdown is a good film that gets the job done.

“Have you checked the children?” the stranger on the phone asks the terrified babysitter, who is unaware that the children are already dead and that the call is …. COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!

That’s the premise behind both an oft-repeated urban legend and the opening of the 1979 film, When A Stranger Calls. I’ve often seen the original When A Stranger Calls described as being one of the scariest films ever made. That’s not quite true, of course. The first 20 minutes or so are effective. The final scene has a few intense moments. The majority of what lies in-between feels like filler, albeit well-acted filler.

When A Stranger Calls opens with Carol Kane as Jill, a teenage babysitter who is terrified one night by a caller who keeps asking her if she’s checked on the children. This sequence — really, a mini-movie all of its own — is so well-executed and suspenseful that many people assume that the entire film is just Jill dealing with the mystery caller. Actually, that’s just the first few minutes and, once the location of the killer has been revealed, Kane disappears from the film for an extended period. That’s a shame since Kane’s empathetic performance is perhaps the best thing that When A Stranger Calls has going for it. She’s so convincing as the emotionally shattered babysitter that it doesn’t matter that, at the start of the film, she’s obviously not a teenager.

Instead, the middle part of the film focuses on John Clifford (Charles Durning). Clifford is a former policeman-turned-private investigator. He is obsessed with Duncan (Tony Beckley), the man who called Jill at the start of the film. Duncan has just escaped from a mental institution and Clifford has been hired to track him down. Clifford is convinced that Duncan will try to find Jill. Duncan, meanwhile, wanders through the sleaziest sections of downtown Los Angeles, briefly living with a pathetic alcoholic named Tracy (Colleen Dewhurst). Clifford, of course, is right about Duncan wanting to find Jill. And Clifford is so determined to kill Duncan that he might even be willing to use Jill as bait….

After the brilliantly horrific opening sequence, it’s impossible not to be disappointed with the drawn-out middle section of When A Stranger Calls. Durning, Dewhurst, and especially Beckley all give good performances and downtown Los Angeles is so repellent that you’ll want to take a shower afterwards but, narratively, there’s really not much happening. Clifford finds Duncan. Duncan runs away. Duncan acts like a jerk and gets in a fight. Tracy drinks. The old school cop Clifford scowls at the sleaziness of the world while Duncan continues to lose what little sanity he has left. Give the film some credit for not portraying Duncan as being some sort of charming, loquacious master criminal. He’s a total loser, as all serial killers are despite the later popularity of fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. Duncan hates both himself and the world with equal fury. But, that said, the narrative stalls during the middle part of the film. There’s only so many time you can watch two men chase each other down a trash-strewn street before it gets dull.

Fortunately, Jill does eventually show up again and, after an hour of relentless sleaziness, you’re happy to see Carol Kane, again. Jill is now married and has children of her own. And soon, she’s again getting a phone call asking if she’s checked on the children….

And, again, the closing sequence is scary, even if it’s not quite as intense as the opening. (The opening was scary because we didn’t know what the killer looked like. By the time Duncan finds Jill a second time, we now know that Duncan is a sickly-looking alcoholic who can’t handle himself in a fair fight.) The film does have one great jump scare left in its arsenal of tricks. And yet, it’s impossible to watch When A Stranger Calls without wishing that the whole thing had just focused on Jill instead of getting sidetracked with Clifford searching Los Angeles.

When A Stranger Calls will always have a place in horror history. “Have you checked the children?” will always produce chills. It’s just unfortunate that the film spends a good deal of its running time ignoring what makes it scary in the first place.