What with presidents Obama and Medvedev’s recent nuclear disarmament discussions, Ahmadinejad’s saber-rattling and subsequent speculation about the possibility of U.S. strikes in Iran in the news lately, I found myself checking my wall calendar to see if it said October 1962, just to make sure I hadn’t fallen into a time warp. I suppose the Cold War has never really gone away; it just goes on sabbatical every now and then. I seem to remember a resurgence back in the early to mid-80s, when the idea of Evil Empire-hatin’ Ronnie Raygun’s finger hovering ever so close to the red button 24/7 spawned a new cycle of Cold War paranoia movies like War Games, The Manhattan Project, Top Gun, Rambo and Red Dawn (good times!). I wonder if we are due for a new wave. We’ll see.
At any rate, the cautionary and/or entertainment value (hey-there’s an upside to everything) of Armageddon-themed scenarios has not been lost on filmmakers over the years, whether they are precipitated by vengeful deities, comets, meteors, aliens, plagues or mankind’s curious propensity to boldly seek out new and improved ways of ensuring its own mass destruction. With that latter joyful thought in mind, I now offer my picks for the Top 10 Nuclear Nightmare Movies (alphabetically). So, enjoy…while you still can.
The Atomic Cafe– Whoopee we’re all gonna die! But along the way, we might as well have a few laughs. That seems to be the impetus behind this 1982 collection of cleverly reassembled footage culled from U.S. government propaganda shorts from the Cold War era (Mk 1), originally designed to educate the public about how to “survive” a nuclear attack (all you need to do is get under a desk…everyone knows that!). In addition to the Civil Defense campaigns (which include the classic “duck and cover” tutorials) the filmmakers have also drawn from a rich vein of military training films, which reduce the possible effects of a nuclear strike to something akin to a barrage from, oh I don’t know- a really big field howitzer. Harrowing, yet quite entertaining. Written and directed by Jayne Loader, Pierce Rafferty and Kevin Rafferty (Kevin went on to co-direct the similarly constructed 1999 doc, The Last Cigarette, a takedown of the tobacco industry).
Black Rain-For obvious reasons, there have been a fair amount of postwar Japanese films dealing with the subject of nuclear destruction and its aftermath. Some take an oblique approach, like Gojira or Kurosawa’s I Live in Fear . Others deal directly with A-bomb survivors and their descendants (sometimes referred to as hibakusha films). One of the better entries in the latter genre is this 1989 drama from director Shomei Imamura (The Ballad of Narayama, Vengeance Is Mine) which tells a relatively simple story of three Hiroshima survivors: an elderly couple and their niece, whose scars go much deeper than the visible kind. It may be a simple story, but has more layers than an onion (especially when you consider the complexities of Japanese society). Most interestingly, Imamura uses his movie to point an accusatory finger in a direction that that you may least expect.
Day After Trinity-This thoughtful and absorbing film about the Manhattan Project and its subsequent fallout (literal, historical, political and philosophical) is one of the best documentaries I have ever seen, period. At its center, it is a profile of project leader Robert J. Oppenheimer, whose moment of supreme scientific triumph (the successful test of the world’s first atomic bomb, just three weeks before one was dropped on Hiroshima) also brought him an unnerving precognition about the destructive horror he and his fellow physicists had enabled the military machine to unleash. Oppenheimer’s journey from “father of the atomic bomb” to anti-nuke activist (and having his life destroyed by the post-war “Red hysteria”) is a twisted and tragic tale of Shakespearean proportions. And if you can spare the time, the BBC produced an exemplary mini-series in 1980 called Oppenheimer (with Sam Waterston in the lead) which is also worth your while.
Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb-“Mein fuehrer! I can walk!” Although we have yet (knock on wood) to experience the global thermonuclear annihilation that ensues following the wheelchair-bound Dr. Strangelove’s joyous (if short-lived) epiphany, so many other depictions in Stanley Kubrick’s seriocomic masterpiece about the tendency for men in power to eventually rise to their own level of incompetence have since come to pass, that you wonder why the filmmakers even bothered to make all this shit up. In case you are one of the three people reading this who have never seen the film, it’s about an American military base commander who goes a little funny in the head (you know…”funny”) and sort of launches a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. Hilarity (and oblivion) ensues. You will never see a cast like this again: Peter Sellers (absolutely brilliant, playing three major characters), George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens (yee-HAW!), Keenan Wynn, James Earl Jones and Peter Bull (who can be seen breaking character as the Russian ambassador and cracking up during the scene where Strangelove’s prosthetic arm seems to take on a mind of its own). There are so many quotable lines, that you might as well bracket the entire screenplay (by Kubrick, Terry Southern and Peter George) with quotation marks. I never tire of this film.
Fail-safe – Dr. Strangelove…without the laughs. This no-nonsense 1964 thriller from director Sidney Lumet takes a more clinical look at how a similar wild card scenario (in this case, a simple hardware malfunction) could ultimately trigger a nuclear showdown between the Americans and the Russians. Talky and a little stagey at times; but riveting nonetheless thanks to Lumet’s skillful pacing (and trademark knack for bringing out the best in his actors), Walter Bernstein’s intelligent screenplay (with uncredited assistance from Peter George, who also co-scripted Dr. Strangelove) and a superb cast that includes Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau, Fritz Weaver, and Larry Hagman. There’s no fighting in this war room, but plenty of suspense. The film’s final scene is chilling and unforgettable.
Miracle Mile– Depending on your view regarding the “half-empty/half-full” paradox, this is either an “end of the world” film for romantics, or the Perfect Date Movie for fatalists. Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham give winning performances as a musician and a waitress who Meet Cute at L.A.’s La Brea Tar Pits museum. But before they can hook up for their first hot date, Edwards inadvertently stumbles onto a fairly reliable hot tip that L.A. is about to get hosed…in a major way. The resulting “ticking clock” scenario is a real nail-biter. This modestly budgeted, 90-minute sleeper offers more genuine heart-pounding excitement (and much more believable characters) than any bloated Hollywood disaster epic from the likes of a Michael Bay or a Roland Emmerich. Puzzlingly, writer-director Steve De Jarnatt stopped doing feature films after this 1988 gem (his only other film was the guilty pleasure Cherry 2000); opting for TV instead (pays better, maybe?).
On the Beach– Compared to many of the films on my list, this 1959 network narrative drama takes a relatively low-key approach, yet still delivers a powerful message and quite the emotional punch. A global nuclear exchange has virtually wiped out the populations of all the continents, with the exception of Australia and Antarctica, which now await the imminent blanketing of deadly fallout over the Earth’s southern hemisphere. The U.S. naval fleet is reduced to a single submarine (commanded by Gregory Peck) which has made its way to Australia. Ava Gardner provides a love interest, and Fred Astaire gives one of his best dramatic performances (atypically, he plays a very cynical character). Anthony Perkins and Donna Anderson are particularly affecting and heart wrenching as a young couple with a newborn child. It borders on soap opera at times, but the earnest performances, John Paxton’s thoughtful screenplay (adapted from Nevil Shute’s novel) and Stanley Kramer’s assured direction keep your attention throughout. The film picked up two Oscars-for best editing (Frederic Knudtson) and best music score (Ernest Gold).
Testament– Originally an “American Playhouse” presentation, the film was released to theatres and garnered a well-deserved Best Actress nomination for Jane Alexander (she lost to Shirley MacLaine). Director Lynne Littman takes a low key, deliberately paced approach, but pulls no punches. Alexander, her husband (William DeVane) and three kids live in sleepy Hamlin, California, where the afternoon cartoons are interrupted by a news flash that a number of nuclear explosions have occurred in New York. Then there is a flash of a whole different kind when nearby San Francisco (where DeVane has gone on a business trip) receives a direct strike. There is no exposition on the political climate that precipitates the attacks; a wise decision by the filmmakers because it helps us zero in on the essential humanistic message of the film. All of the post-nuke horrors ensue, but they are presented sans the histrionics and melodrama that informs many entries in the genre. The fact that the nightmarish scenario unfolds so deliberately, and amidst such everyday suburban banality, is what makes it all so believably horrifying and difficult to shake off.
Thirteen Days-I will confess that I had a block against watching this film about the 1962 Cuban missile crisis until just a few months ago (it was released in 2000), for several reasons. For one, director Roger Donaldson’s chequered output (for every Smash Palace/or No Way Out, he’s got a Species or a Cocktail to kill the buzz). Then, there was the matter of “Kevin Costner? In another movie about JFK?! Give it a rest!” Finally, I felt that the outstanding 1974 made-for-TV film, The Missiles of October would be hard to top. But to my surprise-I found this to be one of Donaldson’s better films, and completely absorbing. Bruce Greenwood and Steven Culp make a very credible JFK and RFK, respectively. The film is paced like a tense and exciting political thriller, yet it is also intimate and quite moving at times (especially in the Oval Office scenes between the brothers). Costner provides the “fly on the wall” perspective as Kennedy insider Kenny O’Donnell. Costner gives a compassionate performance; on the downside he proves once again that he has a tin ear for regional dialects (that Hahvad Yahd brogue comes and goes of its own free will). According to a tidbit of trivia posted on the Internet Movie Database, this was the first film to be screened at the White House by George and Laura Bush in 2001. Knowing this now…I don’t know whether to laugh or cry myself to sleep.
Threads -Out of all of the selections on my list, this is arguably the grimmest and most sobering “nuclear nightmare” film of them all. Originally produced for British television in 1984, it aired that same year here in the states on TBS (say what you will about Ted Turner-but I always admired him for being the only American TV exec with the balls to run it). Mick Jackson directs with an uncompromising sense of docu-realism that makes The Day After (the similarly-themed U.S. television film from the previous year) look like a Teletubbies episode. The story takes a run-of-the-mill, medium sized city (Sheffield, England) and shows what would happen to its populace during and after a nuclear strike…in graphic detail. The filmmakers make it very clear that, while this is a dramatization, it is not designed to “entertain” you in any sense of the word. Let me put it this way-don’t get too attached to any of the main characters. The message is simple and direct-nothing good comes out of a nuclear conflict. It’s a living, breathing Hell for all concerned-and anyone “lucky” enough to survive will soon wish they were fucking dead.
