That Day In September

Mr. Holden is back…

William Holden had a long career right up until his death in 1981, and one of his very late credits is 21 Hours at Munich, which chronicles the fateful Munich Massacre on September 5, 1972, right in the middle of what were being called Die heiteren Spiele or Die fröhlichen Spiele, which translate to the Serene Games or the Cheerful Games, respectively. These taglines contain nothing but irony nowadays, as the reverberations of the massacre are still felt.

The movie opens with a montage of various Olympic events and people enjoying themselves. Then we see the Israeli team coming back to their apartments at night and talking about what they’re going to do the next day. One is going to go home for knee surgery. One has a new baby at home. These guys are happy and comfortable in their surroundings, and hopeful in the future.

Meanwhile, a group of guys in orange Puma tracksuits hop over the fence and pass each other suspicious duffels and bundles that obviously conceal firearms. They’re clearly not supposed to be in the Olympic complex, but the athletes are none the wiser and take them for another team.

Actually, this group are members of Black September, an extremist Palestinian group who are out to force Israel to release some of their members. They take the Israeli team hostage, and it’s clear they’re not going to show mercy in any way, shape or form. Anyone who tries to escape is shot multiple times. No one is allowed to leave.

Meanwhile, Polizeichef Manfred Schreiber (William Holden) and his fellow officers at the Munich Police Department are busy trying to figure out how to rescue the Israelis. Among other attempts to negotiate without bloodshed, a policewoman named Annalies Graes (Shirley Knight) makes contact with the terrorists and convinces the leader, Issa (Franco Nero) to talk.

Issa talks, but he’s not open to anything that doesn’t result in his comrades being released from captivity. He wants a plane. And a helicopter. Any false moves and his men will start killing the hostages one by one. He also likes carrying grenades around just in case anyone makes what he thinks is a false move. Anyone who’s familiar with the Munich Massacre knows how this all plays out.

21 Hours At Munich is a pretty one-to-one recreation of what happened on September 5th, and was even filmed in the event’s exact locations. For the most part, anyway. The dormitories at the Olympic complex were turned into apartments the year after the Munich Games, so the place looks a little more lived in and less brand-new, although much more pleasant than it did in 1972. Residents of current-day Munich love it because it’s a great place to retire or raise a family.

The exact apartment where the Israelis were held prisoner, though, is owned by the Max Planck Institute and used as accomodations for visiting researchers. A plaque next to the front door commemorates the slain Israelis.

Munich also takes us on the exact route officers took with Issa when they showed him where the helicopter they had procured for him would land. We also go to the Furstenfeldbruck Air Force Base where the massacre ended. Today, the site has been decommissioned and is awaiting further plans.

Of course there were liberties taken with the film. For one thing, the film doesn’t show how brutal the Black September members were to the Israelis, much of which couldn’t be shown or hinted at on TV. For another, the movie downplays how lax security really was prior to the massacre, and that there were literal warnings that there would be an attack from Palestinian terrorists, all of which were ignored. For yet another, some of the names were changed as efforts to bring the perps to justice were going on in 1976 and there may have been security concerns.

It also doesn’t show how the Munich Police Department behaved after the bungled rescue attempt. According to Der Spiegel, the Munich Police buried contingency plans that had been drawn up in case of an emergency–one of them was even about a possible Palestinian attack–and when asked, they said that the plans were “not available.” These documents have never been found.

Germany is still trying to make amends for the massacre. Family members of the slain athletes weren’t told the details of the attack until decades later, and German officials are only just now seriously pursuing compensation. Security at the Olympic Games is a much higher priority nowadays as well, with millions or billions now spent to keep athletes and staff safe. Munich was also the first time worldwide audiences saw a terrorist attack unfold on live TV and gave rise to counterterrorism forces. The Palestinian government, however, has yet to issue any kind of apology.

Getting back to 21 Hours, while the movie is fairly accurate and pretty hard-core for a TV movie, especially one from the nineteen-seventies, there were some slight missteps, mostly to do with accents. A brief scene with Golda Meir, who was played by Elsa Quecke, shows her speaking in a German accent even though Meir was American-born and sounded like an American. William Holden, despite being in a crowd of Americans, Irish and Brits playing German police, is the only one of the group to not have a German accent. He may as well have been a transplant from Chicago or something.

Speaking of Holden, while he’s very good as the Munich police chief, he almost presents too much strength. A guy like him ought to have been able to take out the terrorists without breathing hard, but instead he’s doomed to fail because his real-life counterpart failed. It feels a wee bit off tonally, because we go through all the buildup just to have everything disintigrate in the end.

I have to wonder how it felt when the film aired, both for Holden and the audiences who saw the film in 1976 when the memories of the massacre were still fresh. Did any of them hope for a different outcome? Maybe. It’s kind of like watching a Titanic movie and hoping the ship won’t sink or more lifeboats will magically appear. In the end we know better because history doesn’t cater to what we want, but the human brain is a funny thing.

For more of the wonderful Mr. Holden, plase see Virginie at The Wonderful World Of Cinema and Emily at The Flapper Dame. Thanks for hosting this, ladies–so glad to hang out with Mr. Holden again! Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you tomorrow for yet another post…

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