Victory at Entebbe (1976) (TV)

Director:

Marvin J. Chomsky

Writer:

Ernest Kinoy (writer)

Release Date:

13 December 1976 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama | History | Thriller

Plot:

An Air France airplane is hijacked by the PLO due the large number of Israeli and Jewish passengers...

Plot Keywords:

Airplane | Daughter | Loss Of Boyfriend | Hotel | Mother Son Relationship

Awards:

Nominated for 4 Primetime Emmys. Another 1 nomination

Cast

Helmut Berger	...	German Terrorist
Theodore Bikel	...	Yakov Shlomo
Linda Blair	...	Chana Vilnofsky
Kirk Douglas	...	Hershel Vilnofsky
Richard Dreyfuss	...	Colonel Yonatan 'Yonni' Netanyahu
Stefan Gierasch	...	General Mordecai Gur
David Groh	...	Benjamin Wise
Julius Harris	...	President Idi Amin
Helen Hayes	...	Etta Grossman-Wise
Anthony Hopkins	...	Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
Burt Lancaster	...	Shimon Peres
Christian Marquand	...	Captain Dukas
Elizabeth Taylor	...	Edra Vilnofsky
Jessica Walter	...	Nomi Haroun
Harris Yulin	...	General Dan Shomron

Runtime:

119 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:12 | West Germany:12 (nf) | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 | Sweden:15 | USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA

Company:

David L. Wolper Productions

Trivia:

Actor Godfrey Cambridge was selected to the play the role of Gen. Idi Amin Dada, but died on the set from a heart attack early in the filming. Julius Harris took over the part.

Goofs:

The footage used to depict flight 139 on the ground shows a plane with the test color scheme Air France adopted only on its Airbus A300 (light blue line under the windows). All the other scenes show the older Air France colors (navy cheat-line on the windows).

Quotes:

[after hearing the female terrorist yelling orders in German]
Etta Grossman-Wise: The woman is a Nazi.
Benjamin Wise: Mother, now don't get excited!
Etta Grossman-Wise: I'm not excited. I took a Valium. The woman is still a Nazi.

Movie Connections:

Version of Mivtsa Yonatan (1977)

Great story, bad movie

This is a bad movie. The real story of the Entebbe rescue was much more exciting and interesting than this. Everything about the movie, apart from the star-studded cast, screams low-budget. But even the stars can't save this movie: Kirk Douglas and Liz Taylor overact horribly. So does the guy who plays Idi Amin, but I suspect Amin was even worse in real life so I'll cut him some slack. Anthony Hopkins and Richard Dreyfuss perform well, though. The woman who plays the female German terrorist is a caricature of a Nazi. The characterization is paper-thin, though that is perhaps understandable given the number of characters. A lot of the dialogue is awful, a part near the beginning where Linda Blair is having an insipid conversation with her new beaux actually made me laugh out loud. The effort to humanize the male German terrorist was silly and pointless. I haven't seen the other two movies about Entebbe, but don't watch this one. Read a book about it instead.