Anyone remember the TV Movie "The Day After"

[LynneSin]

Anyone remember the TV Movie The Day After, a depiction of the US after a Nuclear bomb was dropped on a midwestern town.

It had a pretty decent cast with Jason Robards, John Lithgow, JoBeth Williams and Amy Madigan. I also remember that they had problems getting commerical time sold and after the bomb had dropped they ran the movie without commericial breaks.

This movie came out in 1983, anyone else remember watching it??

[GOPisEvil]

1. Yeah, I remember it. Vaguely.

I thought "On The Beach" made a more powerful statement, but then I also read that book.

[LynneSin]

2. I was 16 when I watched it...

and of course 4 years earlier had to deal with TMI (I lived 10 miles from the plant).

I didn't sleep for a week

[MsUnderstood]

3. I watched that movie

And was pretty freaked out by it. I remember Robards wandering around dirty and confused.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

4. i did

and i was probably 10 when i saw it. Freaked me out. I believe it also had (wait for it) Steve Guttenburg in it.

[laruemtt]

5. yeah, i was weirded out

for a few days afterwards. i thought it was very powerful in depicting how complete the end of civilization as we know it would be.

[liberalitch]

6. That really shook me up....

I grew up in Norfolk, Va. (still here now).... and we're... you know "GROUND ZERO" so I remember not sleeping after seeing it.

[Zomby Woof]

17. hey there

I was living in Va Beach back when it aired (high school), and remember how the Reagan-loving pinheads at school thought we should go to war with the USSR. Doubt if the movie changed their minds. You can't argue with that mindset.

Then a year later he wins in a landslide.

I got the hell out of there before Reagan left office.

[Rainbowreflect]

7. My friend was going to school in Lawrence, KS at the time.

That is where it was filmed. She played an extra. She made like $20, but if she would have shaved her head they would have paid her $100.

[FireHeart]

8. Yes indeed.

I remember it well. Gave me nightmares for weeks. It was an excellent film, but from what I recall, Ronald Reagan condemned it.

They had another film..."Testament" that was fairly good, but without the gruesome aspects. It was a more personal film rather than dramatic. They aired it last week on one of the movie channels.

You rarely see "The Day After" anymore.

[Loonman]

9. It coulda been better

"Threads" on the BBC was horrifying.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/

TDA was a little too Hollywood for me.

[GCP]

24. Yes, I believe "Threads" was a much more graphic depiction

Of nuclear holocaust. I remember the scene where a middle-aged woman looks up to see a mushroom cloud forming and drops her ice-cream cone into the rapidly forming puddle of her own urine.
You don't get stuff like that on American TV - it might offend people, don't you know.

[michaelbmoore]

10. It scared the

bejesues out of me. . .the sad thing is that they actually underplayed the actual destruction that would take place. . .

[soleft]

11. I have it on one of the early video discs, I spliced with Gumbi Adventure

In Gumbi adventure, Pokey eats some irradiated grain and grows really tall - there's a shot where Gumbi runs to the door and and flings it open, but in my version, instead of a giant Pokey, he sees a mushroom cloud.


movie also starred Steve Guttenberg, Bebe Besch, and the guy who used to be on Northern Exposure, John Collum

[MissMillie]

12. I remember it.

I remember all the scientist that came on and explained how unrealistic it was, i.e., the nuclear winter lasting only a few hours.....

[Terran]

13. Saw it while in college

in Berkeley. It came out at a time when just about everyone who disliked Reagan was convinced he would start WWIII at any time. So it had quite an impact on me and the friends I watched it with.

It was really pretty horrifying, seeing a football stadium full of people with missiles leaving their silos just a few miles away. It wasn't just one town that got bombed; the implication was that it had happened all over. But locally it was Kansas City, with the fallout drifting toward Lawrence, Kansas, where most of the action takes place.

For realism, it's pretty mild, however. A more realistic scenario is to be found in the British film, "Threads".

[proud patriot]

14. I was 14 when I saw it

It scared me , and it was a month before I
stopped worrying all the time .

My dad spent a lot time trying to help
me come to grips with it .

I think part of Gen X apathy is the knowledge
early on of total destruction being just 20
minutes away at a moments notice .

[CrownPrinceBandar]

23. Thats a really good observation...

I think having global destruction hanging so close over our heads gave some of us (Gen X'ers) a sort of a dispassion toward events. Thinking that we were all going to die anyway, so whats the point of trying. I guess the joke's on us, huh?

"TDA" was a great film, inaccuracies and all. I remember that I had a morbid anticipation waiting to watch it. I was in Jr. High, and I made my parents let me stay up to watch the whole thing. Good movie, good warning.

[GCP]

26. Gimme a break - we had a FOUR MINUTE warning in the UK

I'm a boomer. We lived with it throughout the 50s and 60s. I remember being in history class in 1962 when the teacher came in and said, "Well, today we'll find out if we'll have a nuclear war or not" - it was the Cuban Missile Crisis.
I'm not apathetic, and neither are most boomers I know. Gen Xers may be apathetic, but I don't think you can put it down to fear of nuclear holocaust.
Been there, done that.

[SoCalDem]

27. I lived a few miles from the Panama Canal in the 50's & 60's

Think THAT would not have been a target ???

[GCP]

28. But are you apathetic because of it?

I'd guess not.

[SoCalDem]

29. No way

We were scared to death :(

[Wonco_the_Sane]

15. I wasn't allowed to watch

:(

[MuseRider]

16. Yes, it rekindled

all the bad dreams of my childhood (duck and cover). It was filmed about 30 miles from where I live. I thought it was OK but then I think I watched it out of the corner of my eye, just a little too nervous about it.

[RebelOne]

18. Yes, I remember.

But it's been so long ago that I have forgotten the story line.

[Loonman]

19. You know who objected most to the film being shown?

Reagan Republicans.

[Kazak]

20. Yeah, I remember...

That was required television viewing for that day. Didn't really help much as I recall...

[SoCalDem]

21. I lived in Kansas.. We had silos ALL OVER the plpace

Testament and On the Beach are my two favorite "Nuke" movies..

[name not needed]

22. Yep

Haven't seen it in years

[TXlib]

25. Absolutely.

Gave me nightmares for weeks.

A far better movie, though, was the British version, Threads.

[stopbush]

30. I was visiting my folks in Ohio when it originally aired.

My born-again mom refused to watch - it was all the work of some "Godless communist" who hated Reagan (btw, isn't capitalism just as godless as communism?).

I also remember TDA being rebroadcast on some national cable network maybe 2 years ago. I was sort of surprised they were reshowing it. Maybe it was some kind of anniversary (or maybe bush had scared the bejeesus out of some network programming type!).

[populistmom]

31. Yes, scared the crap out of me

I was only 11. I don't think I'd necessarily want my children to see something like that until high school age at least.

[Parrcrow]

32. Jerry Fallwell and his crowd made a big stink about it

It was a preposterous situation that is now all too common. Apparently a film showing the effects of nuclear war would weaken American resolve (in case it was necessary to start a nuclear war).

Oddly enough they screamed for equal time and we ended up with the absolutely ridiculous Amerika. <----Liberals kowtowing to commies.

[tigerbeat]

33. thought it was excellent....

...when i was 16 or 17. i think it's really hackneyed now. (fun fact: it was directed by nicholas meyer, the director of "star trek II: the wrath of khan") but i think it did a good job in trying to educate people about the realities of nuclear holocaust. (i recall a panal discussion after it w/ carl sagan....thought that did the job more effectively)

both "threads" and "testament" are better and far more harrowing i think. (TDA just seemed to me like "the stand" without the supernatural elements).....but for something *really* unexpectedly nerve-wracking and tear-jerking, check out a british animated film called "when the wind blows". it centers on an elderly british couple and thier cock-eyed optimism/ignorance in the face of a nuclear war. totally freaked my stuff out when i saw it.

[skypilot]

34. There was a SOUND in that movie...

...that freaked me out then and now. It is the scene where the bombs start falling and Jason Robards is in his car. He lies down on the car seat so as not to see the flash and there is this very sinister groaning sound just after each bomb hits. I saw this movie in 1983 and I rented it last year. That sound still gets to me.