'September 5' film revisits 1972 broadcast of Munich Olympics terrorism

His swimming pursuits at the 1972 Olympics complete, Canada’s Byron MacDonald joined some friends one night in Munich for a live viewing of another big sports event on the go at the time — hockey’s Summit Series.

The walk back to the athlete village in the wee hours was a jovial one after Canada’s 4-1 Game 2 triumph over the Soviet Union in Toronto. That journey home would include a brush with terror in what would soon become one of the Games’ darkest days.

“Initially it was surreal,” MacDonald said. “The gravity of the situation didn’t hit right away.”

The behind-the-scenes broadcast coverage of the events that day provides the hook for “September 5,” a new film that takes viewers inside the ABC Sports control room at those Games.

Traditional Olympic sport coverage shifted to live coverage of a nearby hostage situation. The film, starring Peter Sarsgaard and John Magaro, provides a new perspective on the broadcast seen by about 900 million people around the world at the time.

Members of the Palestinian group Black September had broken into the village, killed two athletes from Israel’s national team and took nine others hostage.

The attackers hoped to force the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel as well as two left-wing extremists in West German jails. All nine hostages and a West German police officer died during a rescue attempt by German forces.

MacDonald, who was sixth in the men’s 100-metre butterfly final in Munich, recalled a locked entry area when he returned to the sprawling village’s back gate as dawn approached.

With the front entry over a kilometre away, MacDonald estimated, the back was the preferred option. The Canadian dorm was nearby, not far from the Israeli quarters.

“Nobody was there. Of course it’s 4:30 in the morning,” MacDonald said from Toronto in a recent interview. “We did see three, four guys in generic tracksuits about 100 metres from us down the fence, and they hopped over the fence. And so, it turns out later, I’m sure they were the terrorists. I mean I can’t prove it, but my guess was it certainly was them.

“Once they hopped the fence, we hopped the fence. Again, this is back in the day when security was not thought to be a big deal. Nobody was really worried about security.”

After walking his friends to their rooms, MacDonald went back to his apartment to sleep. Gunshots rang out a short time later.

“We went out into the little walkway outside of my (apartment) and looked around thinking that it was fireworks because obviously gunshots is not the first thing that comes to your mind in an Olympic village,” he said.

“We couldn’t see anything and I remember commenting to (my friend) going, ‘Who are the morons that are setting off fireworks? These guys all still have to compete. Then we went back to bed.

“When we woke up, all hell had broken loose.”

Much of the 91-minute film takes place in a smoky control room with period analog equipment. Producers grapple with how best to cover the drama not far from their building door.

Media ethics are at the forefront during one of the first breaking news events to be televised worldwide.

“”It is, in my opinion, a beautifully done memory of what we went through that day in a very challenging and difficult situation,” producer Geoff Mason, played by Magaro in the film, said from New York.

“It happened so fast that we didn’t really have time to think about it until afterwards.”

The film keeps its focus on the broadcast – mixing in archival footage – that culminated in broadcaster Jim McKay’s announcement of the hostages’ tragic end: “They’re all gone.”

Mason said he consulted as a co-producer on how best to keep the telling of the story on “legitimate lines.”

“I take great pride in how well and how authentic this movie portrays that day,” he said. “They trusted me and I trusted them in how to tell this story the right way.”

“September 5,” presented by Paramount Pictures, was released in select Canadian theatres on Dec. 13.

It’s scheduled for wide release across the country on Friday.