Anyone else remember the TV movie "Special Bulletin"?

[Cheap_Trick]

It was on in May of '83, the week before V premiered. It was a very tense movie, and the ending blew me away.

From the synopsis:
“We interrupt our regular programming….” TV news cameras cover every moment of the mounting crisis as nuclear-armed terrorists hold the city of Charleston hostage. Their demand: disable all 968 nuclear warheads in the area or face annihilation. Written and produced by thirtysomething creators Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick and directed by Zwick (Glory, The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond), Special Bulletin tells its desperate, urgent story as if it were a actual newscast. Taped instead of filmed, sprinkled with minor technical and dialogue glitches, the simulation is so realistic that even on-screen disclaimers could not prevent some viewers panicking – and so visceral, so emotionally intense that it earned a number of prestigious awards, including the 1983 Outstanding Drama Special Emmy®.

It's finally out on DVD. It's available through the Warner Archives site

Check them out. There are a lot of titles that won't be sold in stores. They manufacture these discs on demand. I hear Amazon is doing the same now for some TV series.

[Garbo 2004]

1. Yes, I do remember. It was well done, as I recall. Thanks for the info & link. nt

[cherokeeprogressive]

2. Is that the one where the terrorists were on a tugboat?

If so, I'm definitely going to buy it. I remember not being able to turn away from the TV.

[Cheap_Trick]

3. Yep, that's the one.

I was glued to the tube as well.

[Echo In Light]

4. The War Game/Culloden (1968)

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReview6/wargame.htm

[GliderGuider]

5. Yep. It blew me away too.

The ending was monumental.

It came out in the same year as the TV movie The Day After. It was the worst year for my nuclear fears since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

[soleft]

6. I got in big trouble over that movie

I was working the front desk at my dormatory at NYU. I had a little TV on the desk and I had everyone in the lobby, including the live in Residence Manager believing it was actually happening. I guess I wanted to pull another War of the Worlds. Almost got me fired.

[T Wolf]

7. Very good movie - and the tv-news style was very effective in making it "more real" to

viewers.

The "grittier" shows of this nature are, the more effective in communicating a meessage they can be.