"The War Game" - directed by Peter Watkins - Excerpt 1 of 2

Clip from Peter Watkins' 1965 docu-drama about a nuclear attack on Britain.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• nuclear
• warfare
• attack
• hiroshima
• dresden
• peter
• watkins
• bbc
• tv
• dr
• strangelove

[Georgiahulse]

Why? Doctors made house-calls back in the mid-sixties. They still do.

[Fragonwagon]

I still can't believe that the BBC refused to show this...Why? To keep morale up? To keep troops fighting, the public never find out anything until the alarm's raised and it's too late.

[misr91]

You should see what we did to the other guys...

[dergeier117]

That very last frame is going to keep me awake tonight.

[Salem2322]

@Fragonwagon except after they watch this......

[anthonythirteen]

@walleyrt69 I think the concern was to challenge the idea of WW3 being like WW2 e.g. in the latter they hit us first, whereas the strategic thinking post-1950 was that a conventional war wouldn't be possible against the massed Russian armour. In fact, the sheer shock of seeing the latter in the 1945 victory parades probably encouraged this thinking before the hydrogen bomb.

[anthonythirteen]

@plusplusplusplusp Exactly. Nothing could be gained by ordinary people watching this in the mid-1960s. The only benefit may have been if all leaders themselves watched this: as I believe Reagan stopped joking about 'nuking in 4 minutes' after he'd seen 'The Day After'. Even so, by the 1960s the public understood that WWIII would be worse than WWII. Perhaps the Baby Boomer generation forgot what their parents had gone through 1939-1945, mistaking the "mustn't grumble" attitude for ignorance?

[ryko26]

@RaySquirrel no

[RaySquirrel]

That guy being interviewed at 1:03, is that John Hurt? The actor who played the role of Winston Smith in the 1984 film adaptation of 1984.

[vliet2]

@johngreen120 What's cheesy about ignorant people speaking into a camera. I don't think there's anything cheesy about the movie, maybe you find the accents "cheesy".

[lexo30]

@Fragonwagon I'm not defending the BBC's decision not to show this, but they aren't free to do whatever they want. The government can always threaten them with cutting or abolishing licence fees, forcing them to accept commercials etc. and so the BBC is not as free as it ought to be. This means that sometimes it can be brave but sometimes it has to give in to fight another day. This was one of those times.

[youngian67]

The War Game was eventually shown by the 1980s they had made Threads which is seen as a more accurate and up to date version. If anything the War Game underplayed the effects of a nuclear aftermath.