by Ken Johnstone

Created on: June 18, 2009   Last Updated: June 19, 2009

This movie, "The China Syndrome" (1979), about a potential ecological and human disaster at a nuclear powered electricity generating plant opened in the USA on the 12th March 1979. Only 12 days later, on the 28th March 1979, the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania came close to total meltdown in an accident that closely (and somewhat eerily) mirrored the scenario portrayed in the movie. Seven years later, on April 25th 1986, the unthinkable actually happened, when the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Ukraine, again closely following the plot of this movie, spewed its radioactive poison across much of Europe, killing countless thousands of people and leaving the area surrounding the plant a nuclear wasteland for generations to come.

I had been active in the anti-nuclear movement throughout the 1970's in Scotland, and so naturally when this movie was released it was a "must see" for me. I wasn't disappointed, and felt that the hypothetical disaster that it postulated was very lifelike and realistic. So it really came as no great surprise when it later took on real life significance both in the USA and in the Ukraine. Naturally, the disaster at the Three Mile Island plant didn't harm the film at the box office, coming so soon after its cinema release!

The film has three co-stars, Michael Douglas, (who also produced) Jane Fonda, and the brilliant Jack Lemmon. Fonda plays TV reporter Kimberly Wells, who along with her hippie, left wing cameraman Richard Adams (Douglas) is sent to shoot a TV feature on the power plant. Kimberley, while ambitious, is no Pulitzer Prize winner, and is used by the TV station to cover only "soft" stories with no real hard news potential.

While being shown around the plant by the senior shift supervisor Jack Godell (Jack Lemmon) an emergency takes place in the control room, which Adams secretly captures on video despite being ordered to shut down his camera. As the ground trembles and shakes, and technicians run around like headless chickens trying desperately to remedy the problem, it becomes patently obvious that all is not well with the safety of the plant. On this occasion the potential accident is brought back under control, but not before Kimberley and Adams realize they have inadvertently stumbled on what could be a major scoop. But when they excitedly hand in their report and footage to their TV station bosses, they are both amazed and disgusted when the decision is taken to suppress the story for fear of litigation

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