WORLD WAR III
US, 1982,103 minutes, Colour. Mini-series: 200 minutes.
Rock Hudson, Robert Prosky, David Soul, Brian Keith, Cathy Lee Crosby.
Directed by Boris Sagal (he was killed during production); David Greene (film completed generally in studios).
Directed by Boris Sagal (on location, where World War III is a telemovie, slightly abridged from a two-part television mini-series. The film was shown on television in 1982, just preceding the interest in nuclear films in cinema: Silkwood, Testament. In 1983 The Day After made its immediate impact on American television.
The director of the film, Boris Sagal, was killed during the filming and it was taken over by David Greene, who directed such films as The Strange Affair, The Shuttered Room and television series such as Roots.
The screenplay in its first half resembles Ice Station Zebra and other Alistair MacLean? stories. The focus is on an international incident in Alaska. The possibility of world war is in the background. This comes to centre screen in the second part of the film. The mission in Alaska goes wrong, the American President (played by Rock Hudson) tries to avert war but militaristic forces in Russia kill the Secretary (played effectively by Brian Keith) and the film ends with a collage of ordinary life throughout the world as both Soviet Union and the United States push the nuclear buttons. The effect is sobering - a kind of Day Before. The film is presented in television style for the widest audience and has David Soul and Cathy Lee Crosby as hero and heroine. While too much time, perhaps, is spent on the Alaskan sequences, the film is very sobering and completely pessimistic in its presentation of nuclear danger and holocaust.
1. Interesting, entertaining telemovie? For home audiences? As a mini-series, as a film? Serious issues for home viewing? Persuasive?
2. A film of the early '80s? The concern about nuclear issues? The Day After on television? Silkwood, Testament and other films on the screen? The contribution of this film to the trend?
3. The background of the Alaskan confrontation, location photography? A conventional war encounter? The presentation of Washington and Moscow? The rooms, the maps, technological information and communications - the background for nuclear warfare?
4. The audience for the film - the widest possible audience, home viewers? Audiences interested in action, soap opera? The impact of the collage at the end - for emotional response to nuclear issues? Doomsday tone?
5. Audience response to the Alaskan incident? The overtones of Ice Station Zebra and Alistair MacLean? The traitor shooting his co-workers in Alaska? The invasion of the Russians? The massacre of the Americans? The American corps entering and attacking the Russians, the death of the Russian soldiers? The two crack squads? The issue of the pipeline, fuel and energy, the potential for the destruction of the pipeline by detonation? The atmosphere of snow, the cold, clouds and weather? Shooting, hand to hand fighting? The echoes of conventional war films?
6. Jake as hero, Cathy as heroine? The establishing sequences, socialising in the north, memories of the past, their relationship, separations? Cathy as ambitious? Jake as genius? The other members of their team? On the mission, the journey, the hut and the pipeline, the defence?
7. Their involvement in action, dying? Jake and the negotiations with the Russians - futile hopes, death? The Russian subordinate shooting his superior officer? The attack on peace?
8. Rock Hudson as the American President? Concern, advice, meetings and discussions. Hawks and Doves? Technological know-how? The meeting in Iceland - standing on points of view, intransigence, negotiation? Bluff, timing? The escalating of strategies - for deterrence? The grief as the President could not believe the Russians and pushed the button - "God forgive me"?
9. The comparisons with the Russians: the committee secretary, the committee and the discussions and the parallels with the American point of view? The military and the General's attitude the possibilities of Russia surviving the nuclear strikes? The questions of first and second strike? The killing of the Russian Secretary - with the human touch on his going to his son's school? The Americans not believing the Russians about his ill health?
10. The picture of the Russians as the villains? The Americans as heroes - innocent?
11. The impact of the collage - the activities of ordinary human beings throughout the world, the pathos of the musical score, the prospect of the world as we know it being annihilated? To what purpose? Mutual mistrust? Ambition? Defence? Escalation of power?
12. The pessimistic tone of the film - Doomsday and the destruction of the world?
13. The effect of the film as a warning? On the issues of nuclear build-up, developments of technology, bluff, escalation, mutual knowledge of military secrets, the potential of planes, missiles, bombs? The value of this kind of telemovie for the popular audience, seeing it at home? Consciousness-raising?
