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The End of the World on Drive-In Saturday NightThe Apocalypse. Nuclear Holocaust. We cold-war babies grew up with the concept. In fourth grade it was “duck and cover” and survival skills that included wiping nuclear fallout off canned good before opening and consuming them. Right. Okay. Got it. Then there was the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, when teachers had us write our names in our clothes so that if we were nuked while walking home from school our bodies could be identified (we lived at the bottom of a hill, less than a mile from a strategic site). Yup. Got that too. It all seems so silly now. But those times spawned a generation of classic films, some a lot better than others, but all eminently entertaining (and some still downright scary)! At the top of my list is Testament. It didn’t get wide play, so I am continually surprised at how many people know this film. Testament is understated. It doesn’t have the huge explosions, the mushroom clouds and the flattening of buildings. It’s much subtler. Ordinary people, ordinary families, going about their lives. It all changes in a flash. Literally. A quick burst of emergency warnings, a brilliant light, and the world changes forever. The horror is in the innocence of the people, who wander out of their homes, into the invisible fallout and killing radiation, still blissfully unaware that they are dying. We watched, mesmerized as food supplies dwindle, as husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, babies and children begin to die. We watch a mother sew a shroud around a teenaged daughter, a father use a bureau drawer as a coffin for his infant, n old man stand watch at a ham radio, trying to reach anyone. Anywhere. The question of the day remains unanswered: Who started it?Jane Alexander, William Devane and a very young Kevin Costner and Rebecca DeMornay star. This is one single best nuclear film to see, simply because of its humanity. (1983) As for the rest of the list:
A Boy and His Dog: Harlan Ellison’s tale of the telepathic connection between a boy and his dog scrounging for food and sex. The boy finds both as they stumble into an underground society where citizens are unable to reproduce. They plan to use him, then kill him. Escape is mandatory, hurling the telepathic duo back into the landscape they fled. (1975)
Other films on my nuclear hit list include: War Games: Teen hacker Matthew Broderick invades a military weapons system only to learn that “the only way to win is not to play.” (1983) The War Game: A fictional worst-case depiction of nuclear war in England. Oscar-winner for Best Documentary despite the fact that it is fiction (intended as a one hour BBC production). Convincingly real. (1967) When the Wind Blows: This 1986 film follows an elderly couple preparing for nuclear war using government issued pamphlets. They survive the blast, and wait for government help that will not come, unaware that even as they wait, they are dying. By Dawn’s Early Light: Televised in 1990, this film follows the role of the SAC mobile command post. One of the better known quotes:
Mad Max, The Road Warrior, and The Road Warrior: Beyond Thunderdome: Mel Gibson is proof of survival of the fittest (and the most violent) in post-apocalyptic Australia. These three tales are created in a new world where brutality rules, commodities are up for grabs, and nothing is sacred except vengeance and protecting what’s left of the innocent… (1979, 1981, 1985)
Panic in the City: One bomb, one agent, one million lives at stake. Is there any way to win? (1968) Threads: Documentary style view of nuclear holocaust as it happens in Sheffield, England. It asks the question: “what are the long term effects of nuclear war on civilization?” (1984) The Noah: What if you are the last one left? This is truth for Noah, who copes with his loneliness be creating an imaginary friend, then a friend for his friend, and finally an entirely new civilization that lives only in his mind. (1975) 2019: After the Fall of New York: Society responds to holocaust by forming two factions, the evil Euraks and the rebel Federation. The federations goal: to rescue the only fertile woman left on earth. (1984) Drive-In Saturday is published every Friday through Labor Day to give you time to find your movies, stock up on popcorn and settle in for a night “B” movies with a few “A”s and plenty of “C”s and “D”s thrown in for good measure. SectionsArts and LeisureTopicsCommentary, Culture, Film |
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