This Is Not a Test

I remember seeing this film as a kid on late-night television and have searched for it for years (not remembering the title). Actually, it takes place very near to where I live, but anyway, this is NOT an exploitation film in the usual sense. Certainly a low-budget effort with varying degrees of amateur acting and strong portrayals, you do feel the smothering mood of impending doom for these folks. The casting of Seamon Glass (remember him in DELIVERANCE?) was essential to the reality of this tale since he doesn't seem to be acting at all. A perfect late-night tale of confusion and fear with a perfect ending.

They must have filmed this in four or five days. Who was right in the end? I miss these old black and white low-budget efforts. They formed their own reality when they weren't making fun of serious topics as in this case. Definitely a 7. It's on DVD. Check it out.

*****SPOILERS**** Futuristic-type movie made back in 1962 about an impending USSR nuclear missile attack on America and how it effected a number of motorists and a deputy sheriff stranded in the dark and cold California desert.

We see the people start to panic as the hour minute and second of doom gets closer and closer and how all civility as well as the respect for law and order starts to fall apart. The movie for a while takes on an almost soap opera-like quality as some of the people there, Karen and Al, begin to have an affair at the expense of Karen's husband Sam which leads him to get very depressed and later to kill himself.

There is also Clint who's an escaped psycho murder who hitched a ride with Al, on his tractor-trailer, who takes off when Sheriff Colter tries to talk to him. Clint ends up hiding in the desert brush popping up in the movie every now and them. Clint seems to be there for no other reason but to show the audience that he's still around when the world comes to an end.

By far the most interesting person in the movie "This is not a test" was Sheriff Colter who we see changed from a cool and in charge type of guy to an paranoid lunatic. Sheriff gets every one into Al's tractor-trailer and stuffs the air vents with mud to keep the radioactive air out after the inevitable nuclear blast. Which was really dumb on his part since without air, radioactive or otherwise, you can't survive.

Colter also goes nuts when he spotted Karen's little dog, for a moment Colter was looking at the poor mutt like he wanted to eat it, and crazily grabs and kills it by twisting it's head off why? According to Colter the dog was using up the air inside the truck. Colter becomes almost as dangerous as the coming nuclear blast is to the people who had the sad misfortune to be stuck with him as he loses his grip on things more the anyone, with the possible exception of Clint, else of the movie.

Pretty effective for a low-budget movie with a cast of unknowns that doesn't cop-out in the end as you would have expected it too. It's good to see that it's available on DVD for people to view it and see just what kind of fear and terror of a nuclear war that was on the minds of so many Americans back then in 1962 the year that a real nuclear war almost broke out during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

People who are expecting a science-fiction plot will be much disappointed by this B&W suspense film, set entirely at a highway roadblock at night. The plot elements of a hard-boiled detective story (escaped murderer, faithless alcoholic wife trolling for danger) are fitted into the nuclear holocaust environment typical of the late 1950s and early 1960s America. The success of the Soviet Union's Sputnik in 1957 and the perceived threat of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 form the framework of a story of little people whose lives are overtaken by events they cannot control. "Thirteen Days" (2000) would be a suitable "A" film to this low-budget "B" film in order to supply the background of tension missing to the contemporary viewer who comes upon this film with no forewarning.

This film takes place on a stretch of lonely highway where a bull headed state trooper has been ordered to set up a road block. Strange messages broadcast from the radio. A nuclear war is on the way. Holding back a group of stranded motorists that arrive at the road block, the state trooper soon begins to lose control of the situation. The film deals with the various reactions of an odd assortment of characters when they realize the end is coming. Being a low budget film with a cast of some professionals and amateurs, the performances are uneven. The dialogue ranges from good to silly. But the film is intelligent and well made on a small budget. The films makers did not attempt to do anything that could not be done with the limited budget they had, and instead decided to tell a simple but intelligent story. This film is hard to find and I was lucky to find a copy of it at my local video store. Don't believe what critic John Stanley says about this film. If it turns up on T.V. or you can find a video copy, by all means see this film!

It may have helped that I stumbled on this by complete accident, but

this is the end of the world on a Coleman Fransis budget and it works

fine.

The story is taut and surprising; I liked the way the horrible

authority figure can never quite be dismissed, he might just save all

there lives. The ironies packed into its 72 minutes are all handled with

a light touch.

The cast seems inexperienced but mostly do just fine. Mike Green

would go on to play the boss in Albert Brook's great meltdown scene in

"Lost In America." Few know about this film, see it if you can. It stands nicely

along side "Miracle Mile." I wonder if history will ever make these

movies obsolete?