Totally forgot to mention this one: The Atomic Cafe.
It's a bunch of old propaganda films and public service shorts stitched together into a 90 minute presentation of nuclear insanity. Educational, chilling and darkly funny.
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Location: A simple man leading a complicated life....
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I'm reminded of the 1985 post apocalyptic movie, "The Quiet Earth." The story of Scientist Zac Hobson where awakens awakens to discover that he may be the last man on earth. Homes, highways and entire cities are deserted, every living thing has disappeared. As the movie progresses we watch as his mental health deteriorates, how it affects him and how he deals with being the last person earth until.....
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Always annoyed me that Bruce Greenwood and Stephen Culp played JFK/RFK straight and Costner just couldn't help himself and put on just the worst Baaahstahn accent he could muster.
There were lots of near misses and I'm going by memory.
1983 - there was a tech error in the Russian nuclear warning system, it reported the launch of 5 nuclear missiles from the United States. A Russian Col kept his cool and didn't acknowledge the threat until he got actual confirmation.
1979 - a computer error at Norad and strategic air command reported a large scale missile launch from the Soviet Union. The President was put on warning and SAC postured their bombers. Fortunately an American Satellite couldn't confirm that misiles were in the air. When the American's investigated I think they found that someone had left a war game simulation running .
1967 - A solar flare blinded the Norad Radars. This was interpreted as intentional jamming by the Soviets and again American Bombers were prepped and manned.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, a Soviet Sub was harrassed by American Naval Forces. The Captain of the sub loaded one of his nuclear torpedoes designed to destroy a US Carrier group. The sub was having electrical and life support problems and couldn't contact Moscow. The Captain interpreted this as Moscow being attacked and destroyed. The Sub's political officer agreed with the Captain and they managed to contact the Commander of Russian naval forces in the area and asked for permission to fire. The area commander convinced the Captain that Moscow was still there and he needed to calm down and surface his boat and contact Moscow.
In 1995 Boris Yeltsin activated the Russian Nuclear briefcase after Russian rads detected the launch of a research rocket that looked like a first strike. Russian Ballistic Missile Submarines were give prepatory launch orders which means they came to launch depth, spun up their missiles and put up their antennae to wait for fire orders. This is pretty much a cocked gun with pressure on the trigger.
I think the 1995 incident might be the closest we've come, yet it's relatively unknown. Going off of memory here but I believe the research rocket was a multi stage one launched from near the Norwegian coast, an area where US subs were known to patrol. It looked like an EMP attack on Moscow which is probably how a first strike would have begun. Yeltsin was being advised to hit back while they could incase the EMP crippled them but he decided to risk it and wait a few minutes. He probably had just enough vodka in his system to stay calm.
The Russians were advised of the research rocket well in advance but the information didn't get to the right people. To me it seems reckless to launch a rocket that looks exactly like the first shot of a surprise nuclear attack on Russia especially if you consider how their government was functioning at the time.
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I think the 1995 incident might be the closest we've come, yet it's relatively unknown. Going off of memory here but I believe the research rocket was a multi stage one launched from near the Norwegian coast, an area where US subs were known to patrol. It looked like an EMP attack on Moscow which is probably how a first strike would have begun. Yeltsin was being advised to hit back while they could incase the EMP crippled them but he decided to risk it and wait a few minutes. He probably had just enough vodka in his system to stay calm.
The Russians were advised of the research rocket well in advance but the information didn't get to the right people. To me it seems reckless to launch a rocket that looks exactly like the first shot of a surprise nuclear attack on Russia especially if you consider how their government was functioning at the time.
Your recollection is pretty good in all aspects. There was a lot of disconnects in the Russian Government. Also the relationship between Yeltsin and the Military and the security services could best be described as shakey and chaotic.
Once that suitcase is opened, any liquid fueled missiles are fueled, the rockets are spooled up, submarines get a firing warning and move to the surface for the next message which could be a fire authorization.
Was it the closest to war? Was the doomsday clock moved to 10 seconds before midnight? You could argue that some of the incidents in the 50's and 60's where the American's actually scrambled their bombers which moved to prepositioned launch points was just as close.
To put things in perspective. Right now with the issues between the US, China and Russia. All three companies updating their nuclear arsenals or modernizing them, the push for hypersonic stealthy long range missiles, and research into advanced anti-satellite weapons. The push in North Korea to increase the range of their nuclear arsenal and Iran's push to build theirs. The failure in the battle against Climate Change. The economic downturn globally and of course Covid 19. The Doomsday clock as of last week was at a 100 seconds to midnight.
I think the 100 minutes to midnight that we're at is the closest in history, with the next nearest being 2 minutes to midnight in 1953 when both Russia and the US started testing Hydrogen Bombs, and 2018 at the height of the Trump Presidency.
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Your recollection is pretty good in all aspects. There was a lot of disconnects in the Russian Government. Also the relationship between Yeltsin and the Military and the security services could best be described as shakey and chaotic.
Once that suitcase is opened, any liquid fueled missiles are fueled, the rockets are spooled up, submarines get a firing warning and move to the surface for the next message which could be a fire authorization.
Was it the closest to war? Was the doomsday clock moved to 10 seconds before midnight? You could argue that some of the incidents in the 50's and 60's where the American's actually scrambled their bombers which moved to prepositioned launch points was just as close.
To put things in perspective. Right now with the issues between the US, China and Russia. All three companies updating their nuclear arsenals or modernizing them, the push for hypersonic stealthy long range missiles, and research into advanced anti-satellite weapons. The push in North Korea to increase the range of their nuclear arsenal and Iran's push to build theirs. The failure in the battle against Climate Change. The economic downturn globally and of course Covid 19. The Doomsday clock as of last week was at a 100 seconds to midnight.
I think the 100 minutes to midnight that we're at is the closest in history, with the next nearest being 2 minutes to midnight in 1953 when both Russia and the US started testing Hydrogen Bombs, and 2018 at the height of the Trump Presidency.
I'm not really sure how the midnight doomsday clock could update in real time for the 7 minutes that Russia thought they were under attack. Or the maybe 4 minutes while the briefcase is open and pressure is on the button, that's when the clock should be closest to midnight I would think. How would whoever runs it even know what's going on?
In any event I'm sure the real "closest we've ever come" is only known by a handful of people.
Threads came out a year after The Day After and it was somewhat inspired by it but in typical British fashion as they had little money to spend they had to make it about people, it was a psuedo documentary it sort of follows the story of the people living in Sheffield as it is all but wiped out while also following the futile efforts of the local council trying to cope with it all, the images that still stick with me 40 years later were of a middle aged woman holding her shopping bags and wetting herself as she watches the first bomb go off, it was just this very ordinary middle aged women standing their with a puddle of urine spreading out below her, you just didnt see anything like that on TV, their is also the image of the traffic warden covered in bandages with a gun guardinga food depot, it was all so incogruous, we would laugh at traffic wardens but in this hellish future they will be armed and shooting people for almost anything as there will be so little authority left.
It scared the bejusus out of the whole country, we all knew in a war the UK would be screwed, it's basically one big military base/stationary aircraft carrier for the US so we knew we were all dead in a few minutes and in my teens I never thought I would survive into my thirties, I always assumed I would be killed by a nuke.
You made me go find it on youtube for a re-watch, its been years.
This film has many potent short images like the middle aged woman you described that capture the experiences and feelings well. The woman rocking the charred baby and staring at Ruth as she walks by, the old lady needing to be cleaned up after messing the bed, the ending many years after the attack where Ruths daughter (and not the audience) see's her newly delivered stillborn...so many.
I think I like this one better than the day after because it goes much further into the future and depicts the medieval agrarian and radioactive society we'd live in.
It doesn't seem like that low budget of a movie, just very early 80s. They did a great job.
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There is an anime film from the 1980s called The Grave of the Fireflies. I haven't seen it in years, but I recall it being pretty good and really sad. The story isn't specifically about nuclear war so I am probably stretching the definition a little, but the nuclear attacks on Japan hang in the background.
Set in the city of Kobe, Japan, the film tells the story of two siblings, Seita and Setsuko, and their desperate struggle to survive during the final months of the Second World War. Grave of the Fireflies received critical acclaim and has been ranked as one of the greatest war films of all time and has been recognized as a major work of Japanese animation.
PLOT
In 1945, teenager Seita and his younger sister Setsuko's house is destroyed in a firebombing along with most of Kobe. They escape unharmed, but their mother dies from severe burns. Seita and Setsuko move in with a distant aunt, and Seita retrieves supplies he buried before the bombing and gives everything to his aunt, save for a tin of Sakuma drops. The aunt convinces Seita to sell his mother's silk kimono for rice as rations shrink and the number of refugees in the house grows. Seita uses some of his mother's money in the bank to buy supplies, but eventually, the aunt becomes resentful of the children, deeming them unworthy of earning her food.
Seita and Setsuko decide to leave the aunt's home after excessive insults, and they move into an abandoned bomb shelter. They release fireflies into the shelter for light. The next day, Setsuko is horrified to find that the insects have died. She buries them in a grave, asking why they and her mother had to die. As they run out of rice, Seita steals from farmers and loots homes during air raids, for which he is beaten by a farmer and turned into the police, but he is released by a sympathetic officer. When Setsuko falls ill, a doctor explains that she is suffering from malnutrition. Desperate, Seita withdraws the last of the money in their mother's bank account. After doing so, he becomes distraught when he learns that Japan has surrendered, and that his father, an Imperial Japanese Navy captain, is most likely dead, as most of Japan's navy has been sunk. Seita returns to Setsuko with food, but finds her dying. She later dies as Seita finishes preparing the food. Seita cremates Setsuko's body and her stuffed doll in a straw casket. He carries her ashes in the candy tin along with his father's photograph.
Later on 21 September, shortly after the end of World War II, Seita dies of starvation at a Sannomiya train station. A janitor sorts through his possessions and finds the candy tin, which he throws into a field. Setsuko's ashes spread out, and her spirit springs from the tin and is joined by Seita's spirit and a cloud of fireflies. They board a ghostly train and, throughout the journey, look back at the events leading to Seita's death. Their spirits later arrive at their destination, healthy and happy. Surrounded by fireflies, they rest on a hilltop bench overlooking present-day Kobe.
It looks like the whole movie is uploaded to Youtube.
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Well, I watched "The Day After" and if it's supposed to be easier to digest than Threads, I'm not sure I want to watch that one. Absolutely chilling and gut wrenching.
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I own it on DVD, and I pulled it out to watch it last year. It certainly didn't have the same effect as when I watched it the first time, because there wasn't the shock and really viceral reaction to what was happening on the screen. While it was still terrifying, it became more of an academic viewing to me, then an emotional viewing.
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