The Day After (1983)

 

            As a baby boomer and an avid TV viewer, I grew up during the period of time when there were television events like “Roots”.  People tend to remember the miniseries that the 1970s and 1980s were noted for, but sometimes it was made-for-tv movies that became water cooler fodder.  I saw most of those, like “The Night Stalker” and “Tribes”.  The biggest TV movie of the Cold War was a movie about the Cold War.  “The Day After” reached a massive audience.  More than 100 million Americans watched it when it appeared on Nov. 20, 1983.  62% of televisions were tuned to it.  The idea for the movie came from ABC’s Motion Picture Division President Brandon Stoddard.  Stoddard had seen the movie “The China Syndrome” which nailed the nuclear power industry.  He was inspired to develop a movie about nuclear war.  Specifically, the aftermath of a nuclear war, hence the title.  Edward Hume was tapped to write the screenplay.  He did a massive amount of research.  Nicholas Mayer was hired to direct.  He was coming off a big hit with “Star Trek 2:  The Wrath of Khan”.   He and producer Robert Papazian did a lot of research, too.  So much that Mayer suffered from depression.  They visited a FEMA facility and were told by an official that they were working on putting evacuation information in telephone books.  He estimated it would get done in 6 years!  Clearly a movie was needed to show Americans what could happen in a catastrophe.  In order to be realistic, the movie would end up being hard to watch.  ABC was naturally worried about a movie that would be shown to families in prime time.  Mayer had a lot of push back from the censors.  The movie was first intended to be a two-night event, but Mayer thought getting it to 4 hours would mean a lot of padding.  It was determined to be better as a two-hour movie.  This meant the editing would remove a lot of the grosser images and some scenes.  Mayer fought hard to retain some scenes that the network felt were too intense.  He ended up walking away from the editing, but the network begged him to come back and they compromised on the final product.  The TV version ended up being 122 minutes long.  One scene that was cut (thankfully) had the athletes at a college fighting the science students for food.  They should have that scene in a remake because it fits our society today. 

            ABC launched a large promotion campaign which included commercials months before the air date.  A half million viewer guides were distributed to highlight the fact that the movie would be informative about the effects of nuclear war.  A hot line was set up to handle calls from distraught viewers.  The showing was more sobering than depressing.  It did open up conversations about our policy of mutually assured destruction and debates about whether surviving a nuclear war was better than dying instantly.  It even had an impact within the American government.  The movie was screened for Pres. Reagan.  He commented that it was “powerfully done, very effective … and left me greatly depressed.”  It may have had an impact on the nuclear weapons reduction talks with the Soviets.  The Joint Chiefs of Staff were shown it and they were impressed with depiction of what could happen if they did not put peace ahead of war.  The showing was a big event that transcended the vast majority of TV programming.  And it was critically acclaimed.  It was nominated for 12 Emmys, including Hairstyling, Makeup (which it definitely should have won), Directing, Cinematography, Writing, and Supporting Actor (John Lithgow).  It won for Sound Editing and Special Visual Effects.

            The movie can be divided into two parts.  Although it was advertised as a movie about the aftermath of a nuclear war, it does spend time on the characters that will be impacted by the war.  The movie is set in Lawrence, Kansas because it is geographically in the middle of America and it is a typical Middle America city.  Some of the characters include a well-respected doctor (Jason Robards), a farm family (the Dahlbergs), an Air Force airman who was stationed at an ICBM base, and college student Stephen Klein (Steve Guttenberg).  The opening scene has a documentary feel as an Air Force general boards one of the aircraft that orbit America in case of a nuclear attack.  This is a reminder of the Cold War.  News reports in the background announce a buildup of Soviet forces along the West German border.  The residents of Kansas are not really paying attention.  The Dahlbergs are preparing for the wedding of their oldest daughter.  The news is just background noise for most Kansans.  However, those missile silos in their vicinity are foreboding.

            As people go about their everyday lives, events escalate.  Shots are fired in Germany.  Berlin is blockaded.  Moscow begins evacuating.  Some jumpy residents of Kansas City pack up and hit the road.  The Soviets invade West Germany.  NATO has to use tactical nukes to stop them.  The Soviet Union retaliates by sending a nuke to destroy NATO headquarters.  Now people are paying attention.  Hoarding begins.  A hurricane style evacuation fills the interstate.  The tension is reaching a boiling point.  And then the pot boils over.  The rest of the movie depicts the effects of nuclear exchange on the various characters.  Not all will survive.  And some will wish they didn’t.

            I saw this movie when it first was shown and have wanted to see it again since I started this blog.  It is not an easy movie to find if you are not willing to spend a lot on a DVD.  For such a huge movie, it is seldom shown on TV.  It is not on any streaming service and Netflix does not even have the DVD.  Thankfully, YouTube finally got it and it is the expanded `127 minute version.  I was skeptical whether it would hold up over all these decades.  It does and still packs a wallop.         

            Papazian told the casting director to avoid well-known actors because he wanted the story to stand on its own.  Mayer was on a plane flight with Robards and asked him on the spur of the moment to be in the film.  He is outstanding and the rest of the cast is good. Some went on to nice careers, like Gutenberg, Lithgow, and JoBeth Williams and Amy Madigan.  The movie used a lot of locals for the cast.  Many were given speaking roles.  Some were paid $50 to go bald and all were encouraged to stop bathing.  The cast is ably served by a great makeup team.  The effects of nuclear war on a person’s body are visceral.  And it could have been worse.  The censors cut the scenes in Kansas City when the bomb hit it.  The effects of radiation sickness were downplayed.  And the lawlessness.  Mayers had to be content with a statement at the end of the movie that told viewers what they had seen was probably not as bad as it will be.  If you know anything about nuclear weapons, that was a “no? duh!” comment.           

            The movies format works well.  We get to know these typical Americans with their typical American lives.  This allows us to wonder how we would do in their shoes.  The plot does not leave you confident that you and your family will be fine.  It does make you want to follow the war in Ukraine more closely and you might have more trouble sleeping.  It’s a good reminder of how tense the Cold War was.  I used to teach a sub-unit on the effects of nuclear war.  Even sleepy little New Iberia was not safe.  In a large-scale attack, no American would be safe.  I wanted my students to be able to read the signs and be prepared, but if they see this movie, I wonder if they would want to survive.  I believe most informed Americans were already aware that a nuclear war would be devastating, but this movie brings the possible into your home.  And I am sure even informed Americans were not aware that you could be evacuating a target area and have your car stop and never start again.  Do people even today know that?  We can be complacent now that the Cold War is over.  New Iberia is a much safer place.  But the use of tactical nukes in Ukraine could put us in Lawrence, Kansas.  In conclusion, let me end on a positive note.  The movie concludes with a Morse code spelling M-A-D.  This was a reference to the policy of “mutually assured destruction”.  Both the U.S. and USSR leadership kept their fingers off the button because they knew there would be no pulling back once the first nukes were fired.  As insane as the strategy sounds, it worked.  Maybe partly because of this movie.

 

GRADE =  A