The China Syndrome
Short description
A Los Angeles television reporter and her camera operator visit a nuclear power plant while preparing a routine feature on energy. During the tour, an incident occurs in the control room, and the crew secretly records what happens. Their footage points to something more serious than the plant's management admits, and the two journalists try to get it broadcast. A plant engineer who has found evidence of dangerous defects turns to them when no one inside the company will listen.
James Bridges directed the film and wrote the screenplay with Mike Gray and T.S. Cook; Michael Douglas produced it and appears in it. Chronologically, Bridges' directed features are The China Syndrome, Urban Cowboy, Perfect and Bright Lights, Big City, so this was the first of the four. Jane Fonda plays Kimberly Wells, Douglas plays Richard Adams, and Jack Lemmon plays Jack Godell, with Scott Brady, James Hampton and Peter Donat in supporting roles. The credited cast runs to 65 names and the credited crew to 66. Made for about 6 million dollars, it returned roughly 52 million worldwide. On IMDb it holds 7.4/10 from 36,000 votes; on TMDB it has 7.1/10 from 539 votes, while the critics' rating stands at 7.7/10 from 42 reviews, the highest of the three. Running 122 minutes, the film mixes drama and thriller elements.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film's title comes from a slang term used by American physicists – the China syndrome. One of the film's characters describes the consequences of a possible nuclear accident as the danger of a reactor meltdown. It is claimed that a reactor melting down in the US could burn through the Earth, “theoretically all the way to China.”
- The film was released in the US on March 16, 1979, just days before the actual events at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
