The War Game

I just saw this for the first time and more than once while watching it I felt my body go ice cold. This was surely THE DAY AFTER of its time. Presented in a matter-of-fact documentary style it shows people blissfully ignorant of what could happen in the event of a nuclear attack. Sure enough, quicker than you can say "On The Beach" an attack comes and the lives of the people who couldn't care less a moment before are changed forever.

Some scenes are still truly jolting. Looters trying to get away with the only thing of value left in the world, tinned food, are gunned down by expressionless British police. A man displays a shotgun and declares there is only room in his shelter for his family and he will not hesitate to shoot his neighbours if they try to get in. A doctor laments that severely injured people are taken to a "dying room" and left to perish without care or pain killers. Bodies are stacked like logs for mass cremation. Shell shocked survivors are so traumatised they just sit and stare. This movie runs only 48 minutes but you will be aware of every second!

This movie was made in 1965, the year I was born, so I cannot say I understand what the people of that era must have felt but after seeing this I have a rough idea of the mindset of the public in those Cold War days.

After seeing those US Government produced movies telling people to just hide in their basements for 2 week; after which the U S of A will not only have won a nuclear war but will have put the world back into apple pie order THE WAR GAME is the cinematic equivalent of a sucker punch to the jaw. Watch this film, and then TRY to sleep!

The War Game (1965)

The ongoing horrific black and white "footage" of nuclear war preparations and aftermath in Britain is gripping and terrifying. I was a kid in this era, the 1960s, and remember only the official side of it--the government warnings, the bomb shelter information--but I've retained enough of the scariness to really get this inside.

You don't need to be fifty to feel the genuine pain of these people. Yet you have to remind yourself, over and over, that this is all fiction, that it's a movie, that it's just a projection of likely effects. The more amazing aspect is that the movie concentrates on areas on the far fringes of the bomb's explosion (6 to 20 miles away), and leaves the closer damages, the total annihilation, to your imagination.

It's a short movie, and an amazing one. There's nothing like this, for sure, and I think it's should be required viewing for anyone wondering about the current threats of atomic warfare in a dozen different places. It's too real, and it's avoidable, I believe, if everyone does the right thing. Amazing.

The War Game is one of the most amazing films I have ever seen. It's a pseudo-documentary made in 1965, about the possible effects of a nuclear attack on Great Britain. The director's premise is that Britain (and indeed the world) is hopelessly unprepared for such a thing. Some classic scenes: befuddled Brits receiving civil defence booklets. Blank stares greeting the interviewer when he asks Brits on the street about radioactive fallout. The footage is all made to look horribly real. Some of it looks a little hokey - the use of a shaky camera to simulate a desperate ground battle stands out - but there are also very convincing scenes of firestorms raging out of control, sucking the oxygen out of the air for blocks around. Also, incredible scenes of radiation burn victims, food riots, police polishing off the near dead, etc... The killer part is at the end - an interview with some young blast victims will haunt you for a long time.

"Do you know what Strontium-90 is, and what it does to the human body???"

I saw The War Game thanks to my local branch of CND in 1979 when they showed it in a hall in our town. My mum was vehemently anti-communist so I had to sneak out to see it. The local paper kicked up at 14-year olds being encouraged to see an 'X' film. Was it worth the fuss? Yes, without a doubt. I had already seen Watkin's definitive 'Culloden' earlier that year and was bowled over by the documentary style applied to a drama, but The War Game surpassed even that. I will never forget the scenes of the helmeted English bobbies shooting people in the head to put them out of their misery, or the bucket full of wedding rings or most of all, the line of kids being asked what they wanted to be when they grew up and the replies of 'nuffink.'

For me, that summed up the futility of war, nuclear or otherwise.

'Threads' is good, but 'The War Game' is still the best portrayal of a nuclear attack on Britain ever made. It should be shown more often.

...saw THE WAR GAME last year and I really enjoyed it... Just caught it on DVD and I can't help but wonder if scenes were cut out of the DVD as I remembered it to be much much longer!?!?

Anyway I digress

I brilliant film made by the BBC which was banned for many years because of the fact it was too real... In most cases it's re-released because films from the 60's tend to date somewhat compared to modern cinema standards. But the War Game is still as hard hitting as it was the day the BBC decided they couldn't put it on television.

Some truely horrible scenes involving the collapse of the nation when bombed by the enemy

For what it set out to do.

10/10