The China Syndrome (1979)

The China Syndrome is a 1979 American thriller film that tells the story of a television reporter and her cameraman who discover safety coverups at a nuclear power plant. It stars Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, and Michael Douglas, with Douglas also serving as the film's producer.

The cast features Scott Brady, James Hampton, Peter Donat, Richard Herd and Wilford Brimley. The film was directed by James Bridges and written by Bridges, Mike Gray and T. S. Cook.

It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Lemmon), Best Actress in a Leading Role (Fonda), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (George Jenkins, Arthur Jeph Parker) and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. It was also nominated for the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival, and Lemmon won Best Actor for his performance. The film's script won the 1980 Writers Guild of America award.

The film was released on March 16, 1979, 12 days before the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. Coincidentally, in one scene, physicist Dr. Elliott Lowell (Donald Hotton) says that the China Syndrome would render "an area the size of Pennsylvania" permanently uninhabitable.

"China Syndrome" is a fanciful term—not intended to be taken literally—that describes a fictional worst-case result of a nuclear meltdown, where reactor components melt through their containment structures and into the underlying earth, "all the way to China.

Synopsis

While visiting the (fictional) Ventana nuclear power plant outside Los Angeles, television news reporter Kimberly Wells (Fonda), her cameraman Richard Adams (Douglas) and their soundman Hector Salas witness the plant going through an emergency shutdown (SCRAM). Shift Supervisor Jack Godell (Lemmon) notices an unusual vibration while grabbing his cup of coffee which he had set down. He then finds that a gauge is misreading and that the coolant is dangerously low (he thought it was overflowing). The crew manages to bring the reactor under control and can be seen celebrating and expressing relief.

Actors