The Day After

Movie Trailer

Released: November 1983

Director: Nicholas Meyer

Unrated

Cast:
Jason Robards: Dr. Russell Oakes
JoBeth Williams: Nancy Bauer
Steve Guttenberg: Stephen Klein
John Collum: Jim Dahlberg
John Lithgow: Joe Huxley
Bibi Besch: Eve Dahlberg

“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

A quote from a Hindu holy book, these words entered the mind of Dr. Julius Oppenheimer in 1945 during the Manhattan Project and the creation of the first atomic bomb.  The people behind this project knew that the world would never be the same.  After a successful test of the bomb in New Mexico, President Eisenhower gave the go-ahead to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.  When Japan refused to surrender, we dropped another one, this time on Nagasaki.  People knew that the explosions were going to be massive, but they didn’t realize the extent of the damage that an atomic could have.  The size of the explosion wiped out both cities and killed hundreds of thousands of people.  But there was a side effect of the weapon that was not accounted for: Nuclear fallout.  Nobody survived the bomb within the blast radius, but the amount of radiation from the explosion was unexpected, and its effect on people was horrific.  A Cold War began in 1947 when the Soviet Union started developing their own nuclear weapons.  It was a massive game of chicken to see who blink first and fire the first shot.  In 1962, Moscow placed nuclear missiles in Cuba to deter the United States harassment of the country.  This was the closest we came to a full-on nuclear war.  It became known as the Cuban Missile Crisis.  There have been numerous films about the possibility of nuclear war.  It’s a topic that’s been used as a backdrop for multiple science fiction movies including Logan’s Run and Terminator.  But until 1983’s The Day After, there really hasn’t been a movie that actually depicted the aftermath and the horror of a nuclear war.

As the film opens, we see several Air Force officers talking amongst themselves about the state of things in Europe with Russia coming across as fairly aggressive.  The film cuts to Dr. Russell Oakes as he’s heading towards a hospital in Kansas City, Missouri when he starts hearing reports of Russian troops invading West Germany and the United States amping up for a full military conflict using nuclear weapons.  For a TV movie, the story isn’t half-bad.  It’s shown from multiple perspectives, including a family that’s hiding in the cellar as well as a soldier who takes off when the bombs start to fall.  It’s also very interesting, because we don’t see the war taking place, but we hear it from the radio and TVs as the characters do.  It’s effective, because that’s how we got our information at the time.  True, today we have the Internet, but we still rely on radio and TVs for information.  So, by hearing about the events going on in Europe we get to feel the desperation and fear of what could be coming next.  Because of the way the news is dispersed and that we don’t actually see the fighting, The Day After avoids taking sides.  This is 1983, we’re still in the Cold War at this point and tensions are still high.  The Day After is more of a cautionary tale and a warning about nuclear war and how catastrophic it could be.

The film gained a level of controversy because of how it portrayed the aftermath of a full-scale nuclear strike.  The attack itself is spectacular, but disturbing because not only do we have the big mushroom clouds, we see destruction on a massive scale, and we get to see people get vaporized by the blasts.  Combining special effects with actual declassified footage from nuclear tests, we see the destruction of a major US city.  The visual effects were spectacular for 1983.  In fact, The Day After won several awards including two Prime Time Emmies.  One of the main reasons why it was controversial was because the film was fairly graphic.  It’s a movie about the aftermath, so it stands to reason that you need to show what happens to people during nuclear fallout, and the make-up effects are fantastic and gruesome at the same time.  This was a movie made for TV, and it was not a pleasant experience to watch.  Over the course of the film, we get to see the effects that radiation has on people and animals, it’s not pleasant.  It wasn’t meant to be.  This was director Nicholas Meyer’s first foray into TV and his last.  Why?  He had issues with the studio who wanted to edit his movie all to hell and he wanted to keep certain things in that were very relevant.    Yeah, the film had issues during production, but the results speak for themselves.  Nearly 100 million Americans saw it when it was released.

For the most part, the acting is fantastic, with Jason Robards taking the lead as Dr. Russell Oakes.  He’s fantastic as a doctor who actually cares about his patients, but is willing to make sacrifices to save those that he can after the bombs fall.  The film utilized mostly unknowns at the time with the exception of Jason Robards.  Some of the unknowns were Steven Guttenberg and John Lithgow.  It’s fantastic seeing Guttenberg in a film that isn’t Police Academy for which he is known for.  If there’s a gripe that I have with the acting, is that Denise Dahlberg is extremely irritating.  The music is what you would expect for a TV movie during 1983, somewhat inappropriate, but not completely over-the-top.  The sound is fantastic, especially during the attack.  That’s one of the Emmies that The Day After won.

The Day After came out during a time when people were still freaked out about the possibility that Russia could launch a full nuclear strike against the United States, and vice versa.  This was before the Soviet Union collapsed so it was very scary idea.  People were afraid of something like this happening ever since we created the atomic bomb, and thankfully, nobody pushed the big red button.  I guess they didn’t want to find out what would happen.  The idea of a third World War was, and quite frankly, still is a real possibility.  But I don’t think nuclear weapons are going to be used, not to the degree that The Day After has shown, and nobody is certain if the damage will be as catastrophic.  The damage would be enormous, make no mistake about it.  But I think The Day After is an important film that realistically depicts how people would react to an event like that.  I haven’t seen a movie quite like this.  It’s bleak, it’s depressing but it does send an important message about the dangers of nuclear warfare.  The Day After is basically a feature-length Public Service Announcement with fantastic special effects.  I’m giving this one a 9/10.  It’s not for kids, really, but I think everybody should watch it at least once.

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