A TV reporter and cameraman are taken hostage on a tugboat while covering a workers strike. The demands of the hostage-takers are to collect all the nuclear detonators in the Charleston, SC ... Read allA TV reporter and cameraman are taken hostage on a tugboat while covering a workers strike. The demands of the hostage-takers are to collect all the nuclear detonators in the Charleston, SC area so they may be detonated at sea. They threaten to detonate a nuclear device of their ... Read allA TV reporter and cameraman are taken hostage on a tugboat while covering a workers strike. The demands of the hostage-takers are to collect all the nuclear detonators in the Charleston, SC area so they may be detonated at sea. They threaten to detonate a nuclear device of their own if their demand isn't met.
- Won 4 Primetime Emmys
- 8 wins & 2 nominations total
Featured reviews
The more I watched, the more it drew me in. I was fascinated over the realistic quality and it was scary to think this could happen. I remember hearing on the news and in the papers, many people panicked when they saw this movie; They too thought this was happening, despite the disclaimers shown during the commercial breaks.
A few years later one of our local stations had shown this for their daily "One O'clock movie" feature and I made it a point to watch it in it's entirety. Once again, I was fascinated.
On a side note, I heard that they day the local station had shown this, many people once again thinking this was happening and phoned their loved ones living in Charleston SC (where the movie took place), to see if they were okay, despite the disclaimers. Maybe this is the reason why no one has shown this movie for years.
Complete with glitzy (for their time) graphics, concerned anchors, wall-to-wall coverage, talking heads, and gripping live reports, it does not seem dated (except for the hair styles!), even today.
Though it depicts the coverage of a hostage crisis by a fourth broadcast network, this aired a year before the Fox network came into existence. The RBS network's graphics, promotional spots, and anchors are so realistic that the real network that aired the film really didn't have any choice but to continually remind viewers that what they were watching was fiction. And though we're all familiar today with the news networks' saturation coverage of live events, this originally aired only 4 years after the inception of CNN -- before that network was the major force that it is today.
Depicting a gripping series of events, it's as much or more of a commentary on how the news media handles such situations than anything else. The way that the events are presented will seem eerily familiar to anyone in today's world, but remember that terrorism was not a big concern to many people 20 years ago.
The acting and production values combine to make for one of the most powerful films ever produced for television. I highly recommend this film not only for its impact, but for its almost too accurate portrayal of events that are all too easy to imagine in today's world.
It was the first of a series of "nuclear war/nuclear confrontation" movies that aired within about a year of each other, including "The Day After", "Threads", "By Dawn's Early Light", and the sadly now-oft-forgotten "Countdown To Looking Glass".
But where all of those dealt with nuclear war or the onset of it, SB was about domestic terrorism. Ed Flanders, David Clennon, and David Rasche were excellent in their portrayals of the harried anchorman and two of the terrorists he spoke with on the live coverage of the event.
Shot to look like an actual news telecast, NBC freaked when they first saw it and put disclaimers everywhere, but people who tuned in late flooded local stations asking if it was real, though not on a scale that Orson Welles and company had happen when War Of The Worlds was broadcast in the thirties - and that's the difference between television and radio for you...
It's hard to believe that this movie, which won several Emmy awards including best TV Movie or Miniseries that year, was put together by the same team that later produced the intensely annoying "Thirtysomething" (and Clennon was also on that show). But when they do something right, they DO IT RIGHT.
As Leonard Maltin's review book puts it, "Way Above Average".
Now if we can just get them to release it on DVD....
My score: 12 on a scale of 1-10 (yes, that's how much I think of this movie...)
Did you know
- TriviaWhen this film was first broadcast, the network superimposed the word "dramatization" on the bottom of the screen every few minutes and ran disclaimers after every commercial break, to remind people it was only a movie. That didn't stop some people in Charleston, S.C. from panicking anyway.
- GoofsThe cameraman would not be able to film the explosion. Either the pyroclastic storm or the electromagnetic pulse would render the camera unusable, and at least erase the magnetic tape in the camera.
- Quotes
Susan Myles: Good evening, this is News Watch. Emergency efforts continue in Charleston, South Carolina, where 3 days ago a nuclear explosion destroyed the heart of the city. Estimated at an yield of 23,000 tons of TNT was seen and heard up to 400 miles away and created a firestorm that is still burning in several areas. Due to early evacuations, the number of dead is estimated at less than 2,000, but at last count there were more than 25,000 injured. Many of those are burnt and have been flown to hospitals around the country for treatment, but altogether the burn care centers in the United States have only 2,400 beds, less than half the number needed for the victims of the Charleston blast. Because onshore winds spreading radiation fallout west of the city, 250,000 more people have been evacuated from outlying areas. In all, half a million are homeless. Scientists estimate that it may be years before the region is safe to reoccupy. Trauma care centers are being set up for survivors, many of whom are physically uninjured but suffering from shock and delayed stress. Authorities are also caring for hundreds of children who are either orphaned or cannot find their parents. Counselors tell of recurring nightmares and shock. One child of 9 apparently committed suicide. After 3 days the shock seems to be just setting in. Early talk of rebuilding have been forgotten in the wake of radiation estimates. Hundreds of thousands of refugees face the prospects of starting new lives elsewhere in an already depressed economy. As for Charleston itself, the city of gardens and narrow streets and beautiful old houses, that city is gone forever. A new city may someday grow there years from now, or it may remain a desert, whichever, the staggering loss of once was can never be eradicated.
- Crazy creditsOpens with a commercial advertising shows for the fictional RBS network, followed by the title "Special Bulletin" as the commercial is interrupted. There are no opening credits, making this one of the first TV movies ever produced without some sort of opening credits.
- Alternate versionsThe video release omits the "dramatization" on-screen disclaimer seen throughout the original TV broadcast. The DVD released through the Warner Archive Collection does contain the on-screen disclaimers.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The 35th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards (1983)