The Day After

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This article is about the 1983 TV movie. For the 2004 theatrical film about global warming's effects, see The Day After Tomorrow.
The Day After

Film poster
Genre Sci-fi
Running time 126 minutes (approx.)
Director(s) Nicholas Meyer
Producer(s) Robert Papazian
Writer(s) Edward Hume
Starring Jason Robards
JoBeth Williams
Steve Guttenberg
John Cullum
John Lithgow
Music by David Raksin
Virgil Thomson
Country of origin United States
Language(s) English
Original channel ABC
Release date(s) November 20, 1983
IMDb profile
All Movie Guide profile

The Day After is an American TV-movie which aired on November 20, 1983 on the ABC network. The film portrays a fictional nuclear war between the United States/NATO and the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact, as seen through the eyes of the residents of Lawrence, Kansas, Kansas City, Missouri, and several family farms situated next to American nuclear-missile silos. The film was written by Edward Hume and directed by Nicholas Meyer.

To this day, some military theorists hold that the events portrayed leading up to this fictional World War III were a very real possibility during the Cold War.

Contents

[edit] Events leading to war

The chronology of the political events leading up to the war are shown entirely through a series of television and radio broadcasts. The Soviet Union has commenced a military buildup in East Germany, with the goal of intimidating the United States into abandoning its support of a free West Berlin. The U.S. does not back down, and after what a news report calls "wide-spread rebellion among several divisions of the East German Army" the Soviets then blockade West Berlin. This action is interpreted as an act of war by the U.S. As tensions mount, the United States orders the Soviets to stand down from the blockade of Berlin, which the Soviets in turn also refuse.

On Saturday September 16, NATO forces based in West Germany then invade East Germany to free Berlin. The Soviet Union counters by launching a major attack into West Germany through the Fulda Gap. NATO counterattacks and comes to the assistance of West Germany. There follow unconfirmed reports that the Soviets have destroyed the city of Wiesbaden with a nuclear bomb. The Soviet Army eventually reaches the Rhine, at which time the United States halts the assault by detonating several low-yield nuclear bombs over advancing Soviet troops. (This event triggers the activation of the Emergency Broadcast System in the United States.) Soviet forces counter by launching a nuclear attack on NATO's Regional European headquarters.

After the initial nuclear exchange in Germany, the United States enacts its "launch on warning" policy: it will launch a full-scale nuclear attack on the Soviet Union if the U.S. receives indication that the Soviet Union is preparing to do the same against the United States. Meanwhile, in the Persian Gulf, naval warfare erupts, as radio reports tell of ship sinkings on both sides.

The Soviet Air Force then destroys an Airborne Early Warning station in England and another in California. Meanwhile, onboard the Strategic Air Command Airborne Command Center, the order comes in from the President of the United States for a full nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. Almost simultaneously, we see an American in uniform receiving a report that a massive Soviet nuclear assault against the United States has been launched: "Thirty-two [32] targets in track, with ten [10] impacting points." He asks, "Is this an exercise?" He is told it is not an exercise. Following that we see another soldier receiving a report that over 300 ICBM missiles are inbound.

It is not clear in the film whether the Soviet Union or the United States launches the main nuclear attack first, but the film does state that many American missile silos were obliterated during the exchange.

As a result of the attack, America's major cities are destroyed, and the military is decimated; the aftermath depicts the United States as a fallout wasteland of burned-out cities filled with radiation/burn victims, all in the midst of a nuclear winter. The situation in the USSR is reportedly comparable. Eventually, the American President gives a radio address, in which he declares that a ceasefire has been signed between the USA and USSR.

All of this, though, is background. The key theme is the effects of nuclear war on families and individuals. The film did emphasize that "the day after" a nuclear attack could, in fact, exist, countering the idea popular since the early 1950s that a nuclear war would result in a simple and instant end of the world. The Day After continues a tradition dating from the anti-nuclear movement of the 1950s which emphasized the grisly details of radiation poisoning, the vast numbers of casualties overwhelming hospitals, and the hopelessness of post-war governance, farming, medical aid, food supplies, etc.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
The Day After became known for its realistic representation of nuclear war and groundbreaking special effects (for television). Unable to secure footage from the Department of Defense of mushroom clouds, ABC opted to recreate the iconic explosion using ink and paint injected into tanks of vegetable oil.
Enlarge
The Day After became known for its realistic representation of nuclear war and groundbreaking special effects (for television). Unable to secure footage from the Department of Defense of mushroom clouds, ABC opted to recreate the iconic explosion using ink and paint injected into tanks of vegetable oil.

While the movie contains significant exposition via television and radio broadcasts explaining the onset of the war, the plot lies in the human struggles of the characters. The film follows several citizens of varying professions and ages through a nuclear attack on the United States, with the film's focus being the areas surrounding Kansas City, and Lawrence, Kansas. We are introduced to many notable characters, not all of whom actually survive the initial attack.

Dr. Russell Oakes (Jason Robards) lives in Kansas City with his wife (Georgann Johnson) and works at Memorial General Hospital in downtown Kansas City. We are also introduced to his daughter, Marilyn (Kyle Aletter), who is leaving home for a new job shortly much to her father's chagrin, and one of Oakes' patients, Allison Ransom (Amy Madigan), who is pregnant and is expecting literally any day now following a somewhat troublesome pregnancy. He is assisted by Dr. Sam Hachiya (Calvin Jung), Nurse Nancy Bauer (JoBeth Williams), and the hospital staff, including hospital administrator Julian French (Jonathan Estrin) and Dr. Austin (Lin McCarthy). Dr. Oakes and his staff will provide the viewpoint of the emergency and medical professionals and the trials they face in the aftermath of a nuclear weapons exchange against civilian targets, while his patients provide that of those injured by the attack.

Jim Dahlberg (John Cullum) and his family — wife Eve (Bibi Besch), daughters Denise {Lori Lethin) and Joleen (Ellen Anthony), and son Danny (Doug Scott) — on the Dahlberg family farm. Located outside of Harrisonville, Missouri. The farm is far outside the Kansas City limits, but very close to a field of missile silos. Despite the knowledge that if a nuclear war were to occur, they would be just as much in danger as a major city or military installation due to their proximity to the silos, the Dahlbergs go about with their lives, especially the pending wedding of their eldest daughter, Denise to Bruce Gallatin (Jeff East). As a result of their location, the Dalhbergs are among the first to witness the initial launches signaling the start of a full-scale nuclear war, and provide the viewpoint of the standard American "nuclear" family during the crisis.

Dennis Hendry (Clayton Day), his wife, Ellen (Antonie Becker), and their two children. The Hendrys are another farming family, located just outside the fictional town of Sweetsage, Missouri ("20 miles southeast of Kansas City," according to the film). While not anywhere near the Dahlberg farm, is located right next door to a missile silo.

Stephen Klein (Steve Guttenberg), a college student from the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Klein, along with Bruce Gallatin, provides the viewpoint of the young college student of the 1980's.

Prof. Joe Huxley (John Lithgow), a professor of natural science at the University of Kansas at Lawrence. He and some of his students, including Aldo (Stephen Furst) and Cynthia (Alston Ahern), provide viewpoints of the college student from the viewpoint of an advisor and his peers and their interactions in a crisis situation.

Airman 1/C Billy McCoy USAF (William Allen Young), who is stationed at one of the missile silos near fictional Sweetsage. McCoy is from Sedalia, Missouri, and has a wife and child living there at the time of the attack. While trained for a nuclear war and prepared for the fact that his death will no doubt be a certainty despite promises from his commanders for a quick extraction before Soviet retaliation can succeed, he and his fellow soldiers have some ideas about alternative survival plans in case the situation escalates. McCoy represents the enlisted serviceman's viewpoint of the crisis, especially those who would be considered the type of "cannon fodder" no soldier wishes to be, the one that's quickly discarded and stripped of all support once a nuclear war begins and they've done their part to get the weapons deployed. McCoy will later provide a different, far more tragic perspective of the survivor of a nuclear war.

For the first half of the film, the storylines switch between those involving each of the primary characters, and brief background references over radio and TV of a growing geopolitical crisis. As the missiles begin flight, we see how each of the main and supporting characters react to the pending holocaust.

The Dahlbergs hastily improvise a fallout shelter in the basement under their home. Jim Dahlberg has a difficult time getting his wife into the shelter, as she enters a state of denial regarding the pending disaster and refuses to seek the shelter's safety. His daughter, Denise, however, is in a state of near catatonia over the fact that she has no idea of the whereabouts of her fiancé, Bruce Gallatin.

After witnessing the ICBMs rising from the distance while at a football game, Prof. Huxley quickly calculates that they have about thirty minutes before the Soviet missiles will arrive, and begins organizing his students to move to the shelter of the campus classrooms and lecture halls.

Airman McCoy abandons his plan to seek shelter in a storage closet deep in the missle silo, and goes AWOL from his guard duty at his assigned silo when he and his fellow support crewmen realize that, even though the missiles have been fired and their job is now over, the promised extraction is not going to happen, and they're now sitting ducks as Soviet missiles are no doubt on their way to neutralize their facility. McCoy instead decides to at least attempt to escape to Sedalia and rescue his family if possible.

Dennis and Ellen Hendry are unaware of the pending attack, as they are upstairs making love while their children are watching cartoons on the TV. When the Emergency Broadcast System message breaks into normal programming, the kids turn off the TV and go outside to play. We can only assume that they think it's a test, which makes this bitterly ironic as it leads to their demise.

Dr. Oakes, aware of the worldwide conflicts as he has been listening to his car radio but apparently not expecting an actual attack, is on Interstate 70 enroute to Lawrence from Kansas City to teach a medical class at the University of Kansas when the Emergency Broadcast System warning cuts in on regular radio news programming. After a futile attempt of contacting his wife from a phone booth (probably on the outskirts of Lawrence), Oakes turns around and heads back down I-70 for Kansas City, in an attempt to rescue his family, much like McCoy. While making his way down the freeway, Oakes is rather shocked to find that he is the only automobile on the way to Kansas City, while the road leading to Lawrence is completely clogged. Meanwhile, Klein and Gallatin, although separately from one another, have departed the University of Kansas campus in an attempt to return to their respective homes before the bombs start to fall.

At the onset of the attack, the Soviets detonate a high-altitude airburst, which disables most everything relying on electricity through the EMP effect. Those driving vehicles find themselves stranded, and McCoy, realizing what has happened by virtue of his service training, immediately abandons his vehicle and seeks shelter. Gallatin, however, is stuck in the middle of a back road when his motorcycle dies, while Klein is, as we are left to interpret, still on foot attempting to hitchhike his way home. The Hendrys, after overcoming the immediate shock of having an ICBM blast off from underneath the ground within a hundred yards of their house, attempt to gather their belongings and seek shelter elsewhere. Some locate nearby fallout shelters for refuge, while others secure what survival goods they can buy — or later, outright take as looting begins — before attempting to evacuate the city. As the missiles approach, chaos and panic ensues, and we are shown scenes of panic in the streets.

The EMP effect initially saves the life of Dr. Oakes and whoever else may have been on the highway to Kansas City (probably very few), as their vehicles become inoperable, and are thus spared from the fate of those caught directly in the blast from a pair of deadly ground bursts in and around Kansas City. Additional detonations are shown, including some of the resulting effects. Marilyn Oakes is shown being vaporized by one of the Kansas City blasts, while dozens of others are shown dying as they try to escape an underground fallout shelter that has begun to collapse. The Dahlbergs are in the process of securing the farm and are about to enter their shelter shortly after the first detonations occur, and Danny is blinded due to having looked at the initial flash of yet another detonation. The Hendrys are shown being incinerated by a fireball — implied by sequence of events as the same blast that blinded Danny Dalhberg — as the Soviet nuke assigned on the silo located next to their house reaches its target. Klein manages to seek shelter inside an abandoned Mexican restaurant in downtown Harrisonville just as the blast wave from Kansas City reaches Harrisonville, but Gallatin, being closer to Kansas City, is killed by the heat flash. The film reaches its halfway point after showing clips of actual nuclear tests mixed with news footage from actual disasters, including industrial accidents, which are meant to show that a firestorm has resulted from the nuclear blasts.

The second half of the film opens with scenes of burned-out devastation, most of which in and surrounding Lawrence, KS. Fallout has begun to fall on the area, and the skies are darkly overcast. It is then that the viewer is shown who of the primary and supporting cast has survived.

Dr. Oakes manages to make his way through the survivors evacuating from the Kansas City blast regions, and reaches the campus hospital at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. In the middle of the chaos of an underpowered hospital — the EMP has damaged the facility's emergency generators — Oakes briefly reveals what little he's seen. He then takes charge of the hospital, and orders a triage in effect, and has the staff move patients further inside the hospital and away from windows to reduce fallout effects. In the middle of the chaos and the attempts to restore order, Oakes manages to check in on Allison Ransom, who still has not had her baby, but is now extremely more worried than before due to the severity of their current condition.

Airman McCoy crawls out from a rented moving van that has been knocked or blown over onto its side, and after looting the ruins of a convenience store for Baby Ruth candy bars, joins in with survivors fleeing the blast zones. He learns along the way that Sedalia also was hit, and by implication his wife and child are also gone. Along the way to a refugee camp, he befriends Cody (Bob Meister), who is suffering from some mental condition that has rendered him incommunicable and unstable, and is being denied water and food by other survivors. Although it is never explained whether Cody's condition was pre-existing — i.e., he's a mental patient who escaped amidst the post-attack chaos — or from trauma resulting from the attack, McCoy takes him under his wing and sees himself to escorting him to shelter and assistance at the refugee camp. The two continue on with the rest of the refugees, while the fallout continues to descend upon them.

Klein manages to make his way out of Lawrence, and through happenstance winds up on the Dahlberg farm. While searching for supplies, he stumbles across the family's fallout shelter basement, and Jim Dalhberg's shotgun. After some hasty reasoning and negotiation, Klein is reluctantly taken in by the Dalhbergs, despite their own concerns regarding supplies, and after his being caught without shelter when the initial fallout from Kansas City arrives. Klein later repays the kindness by not only sharing what goods he's managed to collect during his flight for survival, but especially when he retrievs Denise Dahlberg after, in a fit of post-traumatic hysteria, she bolts from the family fallout shelter far while the fallout is still at dangerous levels. The effects of this excursion will have more tragic effects towards the end of the film.

Prof. Huxley, Aldo and Cynthia begin converting one of the campus classroom labs into a communications bunker. Using a series of confiscated car batteries and a couple of Ham Radios, the students manage to establish communications between several areas of the campus, including the hospital, in order to coordinate relief and survival efforts. The first attempts to communicate with the outside world are made, but are unsuccessful due to ionization of the atmosphere due to the effects of the nuclear blasts. However, a Civil Defense broadcast from the President of the United States manages to pierce the interference, giving a brief update on the status of the war. A cease fire is in effect on both sides, and both sides has suffered catastrophic losses. While the President urges Americans everywhere to obey and assist Civil Defense authorities in their area, he gives almost no information as to who fired first, and whether or not US forces won the war. This greatly concerns Aldo, but Cynthia questions whether they would actually say if the US indeed fired first, or if at this point it even matters. It is then that Dr. Huxley appropriately quotes Albert Einstein in response to Aldo's exasperation over the lack of this information: I do not know with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones.

After two weeks, the fallout has ceased, and radiation levels have fallen to somewhat safe levels. The survivors begin to emerge to see what's left of their world. Civil Defense authorities have arrived in Lawrence, and the refugee camp is established and expanded. The Dahlbergs begin cleaning up their farm, and Dr. Oakes begins opening up the hospital to air it out as best as possible after two weeks of stale air. During the first church services possible after the attack — in the ruins of the local church, with a makeshift cross made from scrap metal — Denise collapses and begins to hemorrhage profusely from her vagina. Klein is also starting to show some signs of sickness, but volunteers to take both Denise and the blinded Danny to the campus hospital for medical treatment so that Jim can stay and protect the rest of the family and work on trying to get the farm running again. As gas is rationed and almost nonexistent, and all vehicles are now inoperable due to the EMP effect on their electronics, Klein takes the injured Dahlbergs to the hospital in a horse and buggy.

Unlike the Dahlbergs, who at least had a fallout shelter, a vast majority of others were not so lucky with regards to the fallout, and have made their way to the hospital on campus as well. It turns out the hospital is the only functioning medical facility in a hundred miles, and as a result the refugee camp that McCoy and Cody are relocating to has been established nearby. In short time the hospital's resources are not only overwhelmed, but are almost exhausted, as are its staff. Danny manages to get a bed and treatment from Dr. Hachiya, but Denise is diagnosed as dying of radiation poisoning, and as we later find out is assigned to the local high school gymnasium, which has been converted into a triage ward for terminal cases. Meanwhile, Klein begins assisting with some of the recovery efforts, including burial detail and guard duty, and witnesses the first food riot amongst the survivors after the supply of government-supplied emergency rations fail to meet the demand.

As the resources of the hospital reach the breaking point, so does Dr. Oakes, who collapses from exhaustion. When he wakes, he learns that his collapse was not just due to his having worked for days without sleep since the attack, but that he too is suffering from acute radiation sickness. Although not specifically stated, the implication is that his condition is terminal, and his death is imminent. Nurse Bauer, he learns from Dr. Hachiya, has died from meningitis. Oakes decides that he will return to whatever's left of Kansas City before he dies, and invites Hachiya to come with him. Hachiya declines, not wanting to think about his former home again. The two wish each other well, Oakes departs, and Hachiya checks on Danny Dahlberg's condition. It becomes clear that Danny's vision is still significantly impaired, as he still cannot stand bright light and prefers the bandages on. During the final scene for these two characters, Hachiya tearfully acknowledges that he was, in fact, from Kansas City.

During this period, we see the first sign of the final fate of Airman McCoy, who is now bedridden and totally mentally incapacitated from his own radiation sickness. Although his death is not shown in the film, we see a scene of Cody standing next to a burial trench looking depressed and uneasy as a body wrapped in a blanket strikingly similar to the one Airman McCoy has carried with him through the whole second half of the film is lowered into the trench.

In one of the most memorable scenes in the film, Klein manages to locate Denise Dahlberg in the triage gym amidst the hundreds of radiation victims all awaiting death. Both are now visibly scarred and suffering from terminal radiation sickness, but Klein is strong enough to take Denise and Danny home so that he and Denise can expire in a more comfortable place. However, while they are en route to the farm, Jim Dahlberg is killed by tresspassers on the Dalhberg farm foraging for food, themselves obviously dying from radiation sickness. The final fates of the rest of the Dahlberg family is never revealed.

Dr. Oakes has managed to hitch a ride on an Army National Guard transport to the ruins of Kansas City, where he sees a completely flattened city, and only piles of rubble remain where homes, businesses and lives once stood and flourished. He witnesses two soldiers being executed, presumably for looting, and another soldier attempting to loot a dead body of its jewelry. As he searches through the ruins, he manages to locate the approximate area where his home once stood, and determines the near-exact location when he finds the charred but recognizable remains of his wife's watch. His reminiscing of his wife is disturbed by the realization that a small family of survivors has set up a makeshift tent in the rubble of his property. Oakes orders the squatters off his property, but the eldest survivor instead offers Oakes an onion from their meager rations. Finally distraught to the limit, Oakes collapses on his knees into tears when he realizes the illogic of his demands under the current circumstances. The eldest of the survivors then goes to Oakes and attempts to comfort him with a brotherly embrace.

As the scene fades to black, we hear Prof. Huxley, on the Ham Radio, attempting to contact the outside world: This is Lawrence. This is Lawrence, Kansas. Is there anybody there? Anybody at all?

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Production

The Day After was the idea of ABC Motion Picture Division president Brandon Stoddard, who, after watching The China Syndrome, was so impressed that he envisioned creating a film exploring the effects of nuclear war on the United States further. Stoddard commissioned veteran television writer Edward Hume to write the script in 1981. The American Broadcasting Company, who financed the production, was concerned about the graphic nature of the film, and how to appropriately portray the subject on a family-oriented television channel. Hume undertook a massive amount of research on nuclear war, and went through several drafts until finally ABC deemed the plot and characters acceptable. When Stoddard first announced to the Hollywood press the plan for the TV movie, to be titled either The Day After or Silence in Heaven, calling it the most important project ABC had ever undertaken, it met with a controversial reception.[citation needed]

Originally, the film was based more around and in Kansas City, Missouri. Kansas City was not bombed in the original script, although Whiteman Air Force Base was, making Kansas City suffer shock waves and the horde of survivors staggering into town. There was no Lawrence, Kansas in the story, although there was a small Kansas town called "Hampton." While Hume was writing the script, he and producer Robert Papazian, who had great experience in on-location shooting, took several trips to Kansas City to scout locations, and met with officials from the Kansas film commission and from the Kansas tourist offices to search for a suitable location for "Hampton." It came down to a choice of either Warrensburg, Missouri, and Lawrence, Kansas, both college towns — Warrensburg was home of Central Missouri State University and was near Whiteman Air Force Base, and Lawrence was home of the University of Kansas and was near Kansas City. Hume and Papazian ended up selecting Lawrence, due to the access to a number of good locations: a university, a hospital, football and basketball venues, farms, beautiful countryside. The Lawrence people were urging ABC to change the name "Hampton" to "Lawrence" in the script.

Back in Los Angeles, the idea of making a TV movie showing the true effects of nuclear war on average American citizens was still stirring up controversy. ABC, Hume, and Papazian realized that for the scene depicting the nuclear blast, they would have to use state-of-the-art special effects, and they took the first step by hiring some of the best special effects people in the business to draw up some storyboards for the complicated blast scene. Then, ABC hired Robert Butler to direct the project. For several months, this group of people worked on drawing up storyboards and revising the script again and again; then, in the spring of 1982, Butler sadly was forced to leave The Day After because of other contractual commitments. ABC then offered the project to two other directors, who both turned it down. Finally, in May, ABC hired feature film director Nicholas Meyer, who had just completed the blockbuster Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, to direct The Day After. Meyer was apprehensive at first. He doubted ABC would get away with making a television film on nuclear war without the censors diminishing the movie's effect. However, after reading the script, Meyer agreed to direct The Day After.

However, Meyer wanted to make sure he would film the script he was offered. He didn't want the censors to chop up the film and diminish its effect on the viewer, nor did he want the film to be a regular Hollywood disaster movie from the start. Meyer figured, the more The Day After resembled a film, the less effective it would be. Meyer just wanted to dump the facts on nuclear war in people's laps. So, first of all, he made it clear to ABC that no TV or film stars should be in The Day After. ABC agreed, although they wanted to have one star to help attract European audiences to the film when it would be shown theatrically there. Later, while flying to visit his parents in New York, Meyer happened to be on the same plane with Jason Robards, and asked the star to join the cast.

Originally, ABC intended The Day After to be four hours instead of two, to be broadcast over two nights, instead of one. Meyer felt that version was too padded, and urged ABC to change The Day After into just two-and-a-half hours. He reasoned that no one would sit through two nights of Armageddon; ABC would be lucky if the audience lasted through one. ABC recognized this, but refused to change the film's length. Meanwhile, Meyer plunged into several months of nuclear research, which made him quite pessimistic about the future. Every day, Meyer would come home feeling ill. He soon realized that what he was learning was making him sick. Meyer and Papazian also made trips to the ABC censors, and to the US Department of Defense during this time. There were conflicts with both. Meyer and the network censors had many a heated argument over elements in the script, both little and big, that were wanted cut out of the film by the censors. The Department of Defense said they would cooperate with ABC if it was made clear in the script that the Soviet Union launched their missiles first, something Meyer and Papazian were at pains not to do.

In any case, Meyer, Papazian, Hume, and several casting directors spent most of July 1982 taking numerous trips to Kansas City. In between casting in Los Angeles, where they stuck mostly to unknowns, they would fly to the Kansas City area to interview local actors and scenery. They were hoping to find some real Midwesterners for smaller roles. Hollywood casting directors strolled through shopping malls in Kansas City looking for local people to fill small roles, while the daily newspaper in Lawrence ran an advertisement calling for local residents of all ages to sign up for jobs as a large number of extras in the film, and a professor of theater and film at the University of Kansas was hired to head up the local casting of the movie. Out of the eighty or so speaking parts, only fifteen were cast in Los Angeles. The remaining roles were filled in Kansas City and Lawrence. While in Kansas City, Meyer and Papazian toured the Federal Emergency Management Agency offices in Kansas City. When asked what their plans for surviving nuclear war were, a FEMA official replied that they were experimenting with putting evacuation instructions in telephone books in New England. "In about six years, everyone should have them." This meeting led Meyer to later refer to FEMA as "a complete joke." It was during this time that the decision was made to change "Hampton" in the script to "Lawrence." Meyer and Hume figured since Lawrence was a real town, that it would be more believable, and besides, Lawrence was a perfect choice to be a representative of Middle America. The town boasted a "socio-cultural mix," sat near the exact geographic center of the continental U.S., and Hume and Meyer's research told them that Lawrence was a prime missile target due to the fact that 150 Minuteman missile silos stood nearby. Lawrence had some great locations, and the people there were more supportive of the project. Suddenly, less emphasis was put on Kansas City, the decision was made to have the city be completely annihilated in the script, and Lawrence was made the primary location in the film.

The Douglas County Courthouse in downtown Lawrence, Kansas, the town where much of "The Day After" takes place.
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The Douglas County Courthouse in downtown Lawrence, Kansas, the town where much of "The Day After" takes place.

Production began on Monday, August 16, 1982, on location at a farm just west of Lawrence. That day, the ABC crew had needed sunshine, and it turned out to be a dreadfully overcast day. The set required a floodlight for shooting. That day, the crew set fire to the farm's big red barn for one scene during the blast sequence (it was eventually cut). The owner of the farm was not paid by ABC for the use of his property, but ABC did compensate by building him an all-new barn in place of the one they exploded. The crew spent most of the next week and a half filming on various farm sets near Lawrence. One set in rural Lawrence, depicting a schoolhouse after a nuclear blast, was made in six days from fiberglass "skins." On Monday, August 30, 1982, ABC shut down Rusty's IGA supermarket in Lawrence's Hillcrest Shopping Center from 7 A.M. until 2 P.M. to shoot a scene representing the rush to grocery stores for provisions when a nuclear attack appears likely. While the crew was shooting, a local man and his infant son walked up to the supermarket. Apparently, they had not gotten the word that ABC was filming a movie there. The man saw the complete chaos inside his neighborhood grocery, over 100 extras rushing about, pushing and shoving and hoarding food, and ran back into his car in fear.

Local actors and extras, including local film director Herk Harvey and University of Kansas professor Charles Oldfather, were paid US$75 to shave their heads bald, have latex scar tissue and burn-marks pasted on their faces, be plastered with coats of artificial mud, and be dressed in ragged and tattered clothes for various scenes of mass despair and radiation sickness after the nuclear blast. In a small park in downtown Lawrence on the bank of the Kansas River, ABC set up a grimy shantytown to serve as the home for survivors of the nuclear attack in the film. It was known as "Tent City." From the afternoon of Friday, September 3, 1982, well into the evening, the cameras rolled, recording the chaos and mass despair, using many University of Kansas students as actors and extras. The next day, Saturday, September 4, 1982, lead actor Jason Robards, the only well-known "star" in the film, had arrived in Lawrence and production moved to Lawrence Memorial Hospital, where scenes of hundreds of radiation sickness victims crowding into a besieged hospital were filmed. Nicholas Meyer and the ABC crew were amazed by the amount of cooperation they received from the citizens of Lawrence. Many local individuals and businesses participating in the filming and the city profited off of the use of thousands of local actors and extras. It was estimated in contemporaneous newspaper accounts that ABC spent $1 million in Lawrence, not all on the production. It was also during this time that Nicholas Meyer revealed his ambitions and goals for The Day After: The director wanted the film to not take political stands, but rather just spread the message and inform people that "nuclear war is a bad thing." He thought of the TV film not as a movie, but as a gigantic public service announcement. His main goal was to reach an audience of at least 20 million people through the TV showing, which would spread his message across to a larger and wider audience. His goal was eventually achieved.

On Monday, September 6, 1982, in a block of businesses in downtown Lawrence, the filmmakers repainted the signs for several businesses, changing the names of the stores; the facades were stained with dark smudges of soot. The large windows were shattered into sharp teeth; bricks were scattered across the sidewalk admist scraps of lumber, and several junked cars were painted with clouds of black spray. Two industrial-sized yellow fans bolted to a flatbed trailer blew clouds of white flakes into the air. This fallout-matter was actually cornflakes painted white. Several quick scenes of devastation were shot, and the next day, Tuesday, September 7, 1982, thousands of local extras, most of them University of Kansas students, poured into Allen Fieldhouse, a basketball court at the university, which, in the story, was the only place left on campus big enough to accommodate so many wounded. A scene representing class registration was filmed in an upstairs hallway before noon, but the large crowd scene on the basketball court, with thousands of radiation victims stretched out on cots and mattresses on the court floor, did not get under way until after 2 P.M. The extras were asked not to bathe for several days to make the scenes more realistic. The next day, on Wednesday, September 8, 1982, a four-mile stretch on Kansas Highway 10 was closed for shooting highway scenes representing a mass exodus from the Kansas City area. Over the next few days, the filmmakers shot mostly pre-blast scenes in Kansas City, and on Friday, September 10, 1982, they filmed a scene where Jason Robards returns to what is left of Kansas City to find his home. ABC used the demolition site of an old hospital in an inner-city neighborhood in Kansas City as the set. They had found this location a few months before, and paid the city to halt demolition for a month so the crew could film scenes of destruction there. However, when the crew arrived, more demolition had apparently taken place. Director Meyer was angry beyond belief, but then realized he could populate the area with fake corpses and junked cars, "and then I got real happy." Robards, however, never became happy. He had had to get to makeup at 6 A.M. that morning so he could be made out to look like a radiation poisoning victim. The makeup took three hours to apply. Finally, around 9:30 A.M., shooting began. Traffic on the nearby avenue slowed and passer-bys strained for a closer look as Robards lifted the arm of a body stuck under fallen debris — just the arm, severed at the shoulder. It was at this site that the moving final scene, where an affected family taking up residence as squatters in Robards' home, has a confrontation with Robards, and the father of the family, played by a Kansas City actor, crawls out to hug Robards, was filmed.

The Liberty Memorial in downtown Kansas City, Missouri was an important but hard-to-get location in "The Day After."
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The Liberty Memorial in downtown Kansas City, Missouri was an important but hard-to-get location in "The Day After."

There were more problems in Kansas City the next day, Saturday, September 11, 1982. Nicholas Meyer had scouted and desperately wanted the Liberty Memorial, a tall war memorial in Penn Valley Park overlooking downtown Kansas City, for two scenes: postcard-perfect shots of Kansas City near the beginning, and a scene of Robards stumbling through the ruins of the Memorial at the end. The Memorial was to function as a symbol for some of the messages in the film. However, one of the directors of the local parks department did not want the crew to film there for a number of reasons. He was trying to avoid letting city parks be used for commercial purposes, and he was concerned that ABC would somehow damage the Memorial. Also, the director was caught off guard when ABC asked for permission to use the site one day before they planned to shoot there. But in any case, movie officials met with city officials, there was much flattery and cajoling, and that next day ABC had the Liberty Memorial. By using fiberglass, they were able to make it look as if the Liberty Memorial had been reduced to rubble (they would use special effects later to make it look even more realistic). Robards stumbled through debris once again, and then they shot the post-card scenes. That evening, the cast and crew flew back home to Los Angeles. It had been quite a circus for the city of Lawrence, a memorable and entertaining one, but the citizens of the town would miss the California filmmakers whom they had grown to know and like so well.

The filmmakers returned to Los Angeles to shoot interior hospital scenes with Robards and co-star JoBeth Williams and complete post-production work. While shooting in Los Angeles, Meyer noted that extras there weren't as helpful and cooperative as those they had run into in Lawrence. "You tell them you want them to grunt and they say, 'Hey, that's a word. That's money,'" Meyer complained. Many scientific advisors from various fields were on set to ensure the accuracy of the explosion, its effects, and its victims. The government, nervous of how it would be portrayed, didn't allow the production to use stock footage of nuclear explosions in the film, so ABC hired some of the best special effects creators to work on the film. The result was a frighteningly real explosion and iconic "mushroom cloud" (created by injecting colored dye in small tanks of vegetable oil).

The editing of The Day After was one of the most nerve-wracking processes ABC had ever gone through in post-production of any of their films. There were many meetings with the censors, and Nicholas Meyer was enraged and confused because the network actually cut out many scenes due to pace and cutting, not because they were too controversial or too graphic. It quickly became ridiculous. In April 1983, Meyer wrote a letter to Brandon Stoddard stating that he was resigning from The Day After and that he would petition the Directors Guild to have his name removed from the credits. Apparently, Meyer changed his mind and the letter was never sent. It was originally planned The Day After would be aired in May of that year, but the air date was pushed back to November to allow for more post-production work. At Meyer's urging, the film was cut down to just two and a half hours, to be shown over one night instead of two. The first major cut was made to the film that could be called "censorship": censors forced ABC to cut an entire scene of a child having a nightmare about nuclear holocaust and then sitting up, screaming. A psychiatrist told ABC that this would disturb children. "This strikes me as ludricous," Meyer wrote in TV Guide at the time. "Not only in relation to the rest of the film, but also when contrasted with the huge doses of violence to be found on any average evening of TV viewing." In any case, a few more cuts were made, including to a scene where a young woman is shown to possess a diaphragm, and another scene where a hospital patient abruptly sits up screaming (this was excised from the original television broadcast, but then restored for home video releases). Meyer urged ABC to dedicate the film to the citizens of Lawrence, and also to put a disclaimer at the end of the film letting the viewer know that The Day After downplayed the true effects of nuclear war so they would be able to have a story. ABC complied. At last, the film was ready for broadcast, and Nicholas Meyer came out of his experience with The Day After vowing never to work in television again.

The Day After received one of the largest promotional campaigns prior to its broadcast. Commercials aired several months in advance, ABC distributed half a million "viewer's guides," which discussed the dangers of nuclear war and prepared the viewer for the graphic scenes of mushroom clouds and radiation burn victims. Discussion groups were also formed nationwide. Schools required their students to watch it as a homework assignment and discuss it the next morning in class.

[edit] Reaction

On the day of its television broadcast (Sunday, November 20, 1983), ABC opened several 1-800 hotlines with counselors standing by to calm jittery viewers. After the film's broadcast ABC also aired a live and very heated debate between scientist Carl Sagan, who openly opposed nuclear proliferation and Conservative writer William F. Buckley, Jr., who promoted the concept of "nuclear deterrence". During the debate, Sagan discussed the concept of nuclear winter and made his famous analogy, equating the Arms Race to "two sworn enemies standing waist-deep in gasoline. One with three matches, the other with five."

The film's effect was also felt in Kansas City and Lawrence. One psychotherapist counseled a group that watched at Shawnee Mission East High School in the Kansas City suburbs, and 1,000 others held candles at a peace vigil in Penn Valley Park in downtown Kansas City. ABC News knew that the peace vigil was staged with Hollywood extras, but omitted this fact from their broadcasts. In Lawrence, a discussion group called Let Lawrence Live was formed by the English department at the university, and several dozen more people from the Humanities department gathered on the University of Kansas campus in front of the university's Memorial Campanile and lit candles in a peace vigil.

The film provoked much political debate in the United States. Some argued that the film underscored the true personal horror of nuclear conflict[citation needed], and that the United States should therefore renounce the 'first use' of nuclear weapons, a policy which had been a cornerstone of NATO defense planning in Europe. Those arguing for a nuclear freeze also relied on the sheer horror depicted in the film for support.[citation needed]

The Day After garnered both praise and criticism upon its release. Critics tended to claim the film was either sensationalizing nuclear war[citation needed] or that it was too tame regarding the subject[citation needed]. However, the film was praised for its technical use of special effects and realistic portrayal of nuclear war and its victims. The film received twelve Emmy nominations and won two Emmy awards.

Nearly 100 million Americans watched The Day After on its first broadcast, a record audience for a made-for-TV movie. Producers Sales Organization picked up international distribution rights to the film for the sum of $1,500, and released the film theatrically around the world to great success in the Eastern Bloc, China, North Korea and Cuba (this international version contained six minutes of footage not in the telecast edition). Since commercials are not sold in these markets, Producers Sales Organization lost an undisclosed sum of money. Years later this international version was released to tape by MGM.

Some critics argued that the film's message was misplaced. Commentator Ben Stein, who was critical of the movie's message (i.e. that the strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction would lead to a war), wrote an article in the Herald Examiner asking what life might be like in an America under Soviet occupation. This article provided the inspiration for the TV miniseries Amerika, about life in America ten years after its conquest and occupation by the U.S.S.R..

While the story is possibly apocryphal, it is said that U.S. president Ronald Reagan burst into tears after watching the movie at a private screening (Gerard Degroot, The Bomb: A Life, 2005). Reagan wrote in his diary that the film "left me greatly depressed."[1] In 1987 during the era of Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika reforms, the film was shown on Soviet television.

[edit] Trivia

  • In the scene where Jason Robards' character is looking out on the ruins of Kansas City from the base of the destroyed Liberty Memorial, the ruins seen below and stretching to the distance were compisited from an actual photo of Hiroshima taken by US occupation troops after the Japanese surrender.
  • During the attack, extensive use of stock footage was interspersed with special effects of the mushroom clouds. While the majority of the missile launches came from US Department of Defense footage of ICBM missile tests (mainly Minuteman IIIs from Vandenburg Air Force Base in Lompoc, California), other stock shots were taken from news events (fires and explosions), and the 1979 theatrical film Meteor (such as a bridge collapsing). One notable scene showing the destruction of a tall office building was originally used to depict the destruction of the World Trade Center in Meteor.
  • The technical production team created the iconic "mushroom cloud" image by injecting oil-based paints and inks downward into a water tank with a piston, filmed at high speed with the camera mounted upside down. The image was then optically color and contrast inverted.
  • The water tank used for the "mushroom clouds" was the same water tank used to create the "Mutara Nebula" special effect in The Wrath of Khan.
  • Due to the film being shortened from the original 4 hours to 2½, several planned special-effects scenes were scrapped, although storyboards were made in anticipation of a possible "expanded" version. These scenes included a "bird's eye" view shot of Kansas City at the moment of two nuclear detonations as seen from a 737 on approach, as well as simulated newsreel footage of the tactical nuclear exchanges in Germany between NATO and Warsaw Pact troops.
  • The nuclear missile launch code, sent to the Minuteman silos to fire their missiles at the Soviet Union, was portrayed in the film as "Alpha-Zulu-8-November-Foxtrot-1-5-2-2" with an authentication of "Delta-Xray".
  • The time the attack occurred was 3:38 pm, CDT (Central Daylight Time).
  • ABC censors severely toned down numerous graphic scenes in order to reduce the body count of corpses and severe burn victims. Director Meyer refused to remove some key scenes (such as the "lady in the bathtub" near the film's end), but there are reportedly some 8½ minutes of excised footage which still exists; they are reportedly significantly more graphic in their depiction of the effects of a nuclear attack. Some of this edited footage was later reinstated for the film's release on home video.
  • JoBeth Williams' character of Nurse Bower was originally scripted to have a death scene where she asks whether the living do in fact envy the dead in a nuclear war's aftermath. This scene was cut when the film was reduced to 2½ hours. In the released version, Nurse Bower's death occurs off-camera, and is mentioned by Dr. Hachiya as having been due to meningitis; the dialogue was so garbled, however, that most viewers failed to hear the cause of death on the first viewing.
  • The Soviet ambassador is named Anatoli Kuragin, the name of a character from Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace".
  • The scenes of Air Force personnel aboard the Airborne Command Post, in the command center receiving news of the incoming attack, and in the silo launching their missiles, are footage of actual military personnel during a drill, and had been aired several years earlier in a CBS documentary series, "The Defense of the United States." In the original footage, the silo is "destroyed" by an incoming "attack" just moments before launching its missiles, which is why the final seconds of the launch countdown are not seen in this movie.
  • One cut scene a battle between groups of surviving students at the University of Kansas over the remaining food stocks. The two sides were to be the school's athletes versus the science students under the guidance of John Lithgow's Prof. Huxley character.
  • Most of the "X-Ray" scenes during the nuclear detonations over Kansas City were criticized as highly unlikely. With a nuclear attack underway people would not be attending weddings, taking family outings in the park, and sitting in school -- they would be far more likely to be seen running in a desperate panic for cover.
  • All of the stock footage of missile launches were acquired from declassified DOD film libraries, and contained footage of missile systems that by 1982 would have been decommissioned and out of service for up to 20 years. The stock footage had been previously used in theatrical films such as Superman and Damnation Alley.
  • Another brief scene filmed but later cut relates to the firing squad near the end, where two US soldiers are blindfolded and executed. The cut scene has an officer reading the charges, verdict, and sentence, as a bandaged chaplain reads the Last Rites. The soldiers were guilty of looting.
  • In the original broadcast, when the President addressed the nation, the voice was an imitation of then-President Ronald Reagan. However, in subsequent broadcasts that voice was overdubbed using a stock actor.
  • During the original ABC broadcast, there were no commercial breaks after the nuclear attack.
  • A radio broadcast on the morning of the attack gives the date as Saturday September 16. The only years with a Saturday September 16 near the air date of this film were 1978 and 1989. However, given the technology, props and other miscellaneous items in the movie, it is highly unlikely that this story is set in either year.
  • When President Reagan signed the Intermediate Range Weapons Agreement at Reykjavik with Gorbachev, the director got a telegram from the Reagan administration that said, 'Don't think your movie didn't have any part of this, because it did.' [1]
  • In 2006, CBS debuted a series about life in a small town after a nuclear attack entitled Jericho. Like The Day After, it is also set in Kansas. In the series several major US cities are destroyed by nuclear weapons, including Kansas City. The only non-major centre mentioned as being destroyed is Lawrence, Kansas, a possible reference to the setting of this film.

[edit] Cast

Striving for a more documentary-style film, casting director Hank McMann cast mostly newcomers and relatively obscure actors. At the time, Jason Robards was the only well-known actor in the production, having been a veteran of stage and screen. Bibi Besch was a relative unknown, who had only recently been thrust into the genre spotlight after having portrayed Dr. Carol Marcus in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and was hired by Meyer after having worked with him on that same film. Steve Guttenberg, who would go on to become a successful comedian and actor later in the decade, was only known for the Barry Levinson comedy Diner, released in 1982. Prior to The Day After, Stephen Furst had been known only for one role, despite an active career: that of Flounder in National Lampoon's Animal House. George Petrie, best known as a stock player on several incarnations of Jackie Gleason's television series, had a small but effective role as a doctor at the hospital where Robards' character worked. While many of the principal cast would go on to have successful careers and notable films (i.e., John Lithgow and Amy Madigan), at the time they were relatively unknown to the audience. This allowed audiences to become attached to the characters without the baggage of preconceived notions.

[edit] The Oakes

Jason Robards as Dr. Russell Oakes
Georgann Johnson as Helen Oakes
Kyle Aletter as Marilyn Oakes

[edit] The Dahlbergs

John Cullum as Jim Dahlberg
Bibi Besch as Eve Dahlberg
Lori Lethin as Denise Dahlberg
Doug Scott as Danny Dahlberg
Ellen Anthony as Joleen Dahlberg
Steve Guttenberg as Stephen Klein

[edit] Hospital Staff

JoBeth Williams as Nurse Nancy Bauer
Calvin Jung as Dr. Sam Hachiya
Lin McCarthy as Dr. Austin
Rosanna Huffman as Dr. Wallenberg
George Petrie as Dr. Landowska
Jonathan Estrin as Julian French

[edit] Others

John Lithgow as Joe Huxley
Amy Madigan as Alison Ransom
William Allen Young as Airman Billy McCoy
Jeff East as Bruce Gallatin
Dennis Lipscomb as Reverend Walker
Clayton Day as Dennis Hendry
Antonie Becker as Ellen Hendry
Stephen Furst as Aldo
Arliss Howard as Tom Cooper
Stan Wilson as Vinnie Conrad

[edit] Awards

[edit] Emmy Awards won

[edit] Emmy Award nominations

  • Outstanding Achievement in Hairstyling
  • Outstanding Achievement in Makeup
  • Outstanding Art Direction for a Limited Series or a Special
  • Outstanding Cinematography for a Limited Series or a Special (Gayne Rescher)
  • Outstanding Directing in a Limited Series or a Special (Nicholas Meyer)
  • Outstanding Drama/Comedy Special (Robert Papazian)
  • Outstanding Film Editing for a Limited Series or a Special (William Dornisch and Robert Florio)
  • Outstanding Film Sound Mixing for a Limited Series or a Special
  • Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or a Special (John Lithgow)
  • Outstanding Writing in a Limited Series or a Special (Edward Hume)

[edit] References

[edit] See also

[edit] Film and television productions depicting nuclear war

[edit] Books and other works regarding nuclear war

[edit] Works with similar names

[edit] External links

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