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''The China Syndrome'' is a 1979 American
disaster A disaster is a serious problem occurring over a short or long period of time that causes widespread human, material, economic or environmental loss which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources ...
thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...
directed by James Bridges and written by Bridges, Mike Gray, and T. S. Cook. The film stars Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon,
Michael Douglas Michael Kirk Douglas (born September 25, 1944) is an American actor and film producer. He has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the A ...
(who also produced),
Scott Brady Scott Brady (born Gerard Kenneth Tierney; September 13, 1924 – April 16, 1985) was an American film and television actor best known for his roles in Western films and as a ubiquitous television presence. He played the title role in the televi ...
, James Hampton,
Peter Donat Peter Donat (born Pierre Collingwood Donat; January 20, 1928 – September 10, 2018) was a Canadian-American actor. Early life Pierre Collingwood Donat was born in Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada, the son of Marie (née Bardet) and Philip Ernst ...
,
Richard Herd Richard Thomas Herd Jr. (September 26, 1932 – May 26, 2020) was an American actor, appearing in numerous supporting, recurring, and guest roles in television series and occasional film roles, from the 1970s to the 2010s. He was well known in th ...
, and
Wilford Brimley Anthony Wilford Brimley (September 27, 1934 – August 1, 2020) was an American actor. After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps and working odd jobs in the 1950s, Brimley started working as an extra and stuntman in Western films in the l ...
. It follows a television reporter and her cameraman who discover safety coverups at a
nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced ...
plant. " China syndrome" is a fanciful term that describes a fictional result of a nuclear meltdown, where reactor components melt through their containment structures and into the underlying earth, "all the way to China". ''The China Syndrome'' premiered at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the
Palme d'Or The Palme d'Or (; en, Golden Palm) is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festival's highest prize was the Grand Prix du Fe ...
while Lemmon received the Best Actor Prize. It was theatrically released on March 16, 1979, twelve days before the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in
Dauphin County, Pennsylvania Dauphin County (; Pennsylvania Dutch: Daffin Kaundi) is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 286,401. The county seat and the largest city is Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's state capital and ninth ...
, which gave the film's subject matter an unexpected prescience. It became a critical and commercial success. Reviewers praised the film's screenplay, direction, and performances (most notably of Fonda and Lemmon), while it grossed $51.7 million on a production budget of $5.9 million. The film received four nominations at the
52nd Academy Awards The 52nd Academy Awards ceremony, organized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored films released in 1979 and took place on April 14, 1980, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles beginning at 6:00 p ...
; Best Actor (for Lemmon),
Best Actress Best Actress is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organisations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actresses in a film, television series, television film or play. The first Best Actress aw ...
(for Fonda),
Best Original Screenplay The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best screenplay not based upon previously published material. It was created in 1940 as a separate writing award from the Academy Award for Best Story. Beginning with the ...
, and Best Production Design.


Plot

While visiting the (fictional) Ventana nuclear power plant outside
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
, television news reporter Kimberly Wells, her cameraman Richard Adams and their soundman Hector Salas witness the plant going through a turbine trip and corresponding
SCRAM A scram or SCRAM is an emergency shutdown of a nuclear reactor effected by immediately terminating the fission reaction. It is also the name that is given to the manually operated kill switch that initiates the shutdown. In commercial reactor ...
(emergency shutdown). Shift Supervisor Jack Godell notices an unusual vibration in his cup of coffee. In response to a gauge indicating high water levels, Godell begins removing water from the
core Core or cores may refer to: Science and technology * Core (anatomy), everything except the appendages * Core (manufacturing), used in casting and molding * Core (optical fiber), the signal-carrying portion of an optical fiber * Core, the centra ...
, but the gauge remains high as operators open more valves to dump water. Another operator notices a second gauge indicating low water levels. Godell taps the first gauge, which immediately unsticks and drops to indicate very low levels. The crew urgently pumps water back in and celebrates in relief at bringing the reactor back under control. Adams has surreptitiously filmed the incident, despite being asked not to film for security reasons. Wells' superior refuses her report of what happened. Adams steals the footage and shows it to experts who conclude that the plant came perilously close to meltdown – the China syndrome. During an inspection of the plant before it is brought back online, Godell discovers a puddle of radioactive water that has apparently leaked from a pump. He pushes to delay restarting the plant, but the plant superintendent wants nothing standing in the way of the restart. Godell finds that a series of
radiographs Radiography is an imaging technique using X-rays, gamma rays, or similar ionizing radiation and non-ionizing radiation to view the internal form of an object. Applications of radiography include medical radiography ("diagnostic" and "therapeut ...
supposedly verifying the welds on the leaking pump are identical – the contractor simply kept resubmitting the same picture. He brings the evidence to the plant manager, who brushes him off as paranoid, stating that new radiographs would cost $20 million. Godell confronts Royce, an employee of Foster-Sullivan who built the plant, as it was he who signed off on the radiographs. Godell threatens to go to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but Royce threatens him; later, a pair of men from Foster-Sullivan park outside his house. Wells and Adams confront Godell at his home and he voices his concerns. Wells and Adams ask him to testify at the NRC hearings over Foster-Sullivan's plans to build another nuclear plant. Godell agrees to obtain, through Salas, the false radiographs to take to the hearings. Salas' car is run off the road and the radiographs are taken from him. Godell is chased by the men waiting outside his home. He takes refuge inside the plant, where he finds that the reactor is being brought up to full power. Grabbing a gun from a security guard, he forces everyone out, including his friend and co-worker Ted Spindler, and demands to be interviewed by Wells on live television. Plant management agrees to the interview in order to buy time as they try to regain control of the plant. Minutes into the broadcast, plant technicians deliberately cause a SCRAM so they can distract Godell and retake the control room. A SWAT team forces its way in, the television cable is cut, and Godell is shot. Before dying, he feels the unusual vibration again. The resulting SCRAM is brought under control only by the plant's automatic systems, and the plant suffers significant damage as the pump malfunctions. Plant officials try to paint Godell as emotionally disturbed, but are contradicted by a distraught Spindler on live television saying Godell was not crazy and would never have taken such drastic steps had there not been something wrong. A tearful Wells concludes her report and the news cuts to a commercial for microwave ovens.


Cast


Reception

Roger Ebert reviewed it as: Movie Reviews UK noted the film is: The acting is also credited: John Simon said ''The China Syndrome'' was a taut, intelligent, and chillingly gripping thriller till it turns melodramatic at its end. He called the ending both false and bathetic. The film has a rating of 88% on
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
based on reviews from 40 critics. The critical consensus reads: "With gripping themes and a stellar cast, ''The China Syndrome'' is the rare thriller that's as thought-provoking as it is tense". On
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
it has a score of 81 based on reviews from 16 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".


Box office

The film opened in 534 theatres in the United States and grossed $4,354,854 in its opening weekend.


Response of nuclear industry

The March 1979 release was met with backlash from the nuclear power industry's claims of it being "sheer fiction" and a "character assassination of an entire industry". Twelve days later, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident occurred in
Dauphin County, Pennsylvania Dauphin County (; Pennsylvania Dutch: Daffin Kaundi) is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 286,401. The county seat and the largest city is Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's state capital and ninth ...
. While some credit the accident's timing in helping to sell tickets, the studio attempted to avoid appearing as if they were exploiting the accident, which included pulling the film from some theaters.'' Movies That Shook the World'',
American Movie Classics AMC is an American multinational basic cable television channel that is the flagship property of AMC Networks. The channel's programming primarily consists of theatrically released films, along with a limited amount of original programming. T ...
2006.


Accolades


See also

* ''Chernobyl'' (miniseries) *
Nuclear and radiation accidents and incidents A nuclear and radiation accident is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "an event that has led to significant consequences to people, the environment or the facility. Examples include lethal effects to individuals, lar ...


Explanatory notes


References


External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:China Syndrome, The 1979 films 1970s disaster films 1970s thriller drama films American disaster films American thriller drama films Anti-nuclear films Columbia Pictures films Films about journalists Films about television Films about whistleblowing Films directed by James Bridges Films produced by Michael Douglas Films set in California Films shot in Los Angeles Three Mile Island accident Films about nuclear accidents and incidents 1979 drama films 1970s English-language films 1970s American films