Special Bulletin

There's a pretty damn interesting chestnut from from 80's-era nuclear nightmare films available on Youtube — 1983's "Special Bulletin." I was surprised I hadn't heard of it. I think most 80's kids remember ABC's "The Day After." That infamous television movie was a cultural touchstone that scared a generation of kids. "Special Bulletin" was produced by NBC the same year, actually preceding "The Day After" by nine months. Instead of a world-ending war with Russia, the feature-length special imagined a single incident of nuclear terrorism in Charleston, South Carolina. (I myself had no idea that Charleston was the strategic military nexus that the movie explains it to be.)

"Special Bulletin" was filmed as a "War of the Worlds"-type narrative, consisting exclusively of faux news coverage, and it's pretty damned good. (It won a handful of Emmys.) It's just as frightening today — or maybe more so, given the increased threat of precisely this kind of terrorism from stateless groups.

The acting is mostly good, the directing successfully captures the feel of live news coverage, and the absence of a musical score further lends the movie a sense of realism. The story has a few surprises for us, too — the plot setup is creative and interesting, and much more thought went in the the teleplay than I would have expected. The film asks some difficult questions about the role of the media in affecting the outcome of high-profile crimes like the one depicted. (Would such questions be more or less relevant in the age of camera-phones, uploaded ISIS executions and Facebook Live? I'm not sure.)

I was also quite impressed with some of "Special Bulletin's" thriller elements. (I'd say more, but I will avoid spoilers.)

One thing that detracts from the format's realism is the fact that some of this movie's actors are easily recognizable from other roles in the 80's (although it's fun spotting them as an 80's movie fan).

Most viewers my age, for example, will recognize Ed Flanders and Lane Smith. The utterly sexy female reporter who arrives on location at Charleston Harbor is Roxanne Hart, who later played Brenda in "Highlander" (1986). (She's still quite beautiful, guys, and she's still making movies.) Most jarring of all, however, is a prominent role played by David Clennon, who any fan of horror- science fiction will recognize as Palmer from John Carpenter's 1982 masterpiece, "The Thing." This is still fun, though — he has that same disarrayed hair. Was it his trademark back in the day?

When I first saw this movie, I thought it was a legitimate news broadcast. This was due to the fact that, on my first viewing, I didn't watch it from the start. The TV station that I first watched it on broke away for commercials, just like a regular TV cable news channel would do. To me, this made it even more convincing. The close attention to detail and accuracy of news journalism format made this movie very powerful and frightening. I highly recommend this movie to Journalism majors and anybody who enjoys strong and powerful drama...

I was in the studio of WMAR-TV the night this excellent "disaster" film was shown, due to the fact that the Management heard about our OTR Club and that we had WOTW in our collection. I was invited to watch the show and to compare it with the panic b/cast on the 11 o'clock news that followed.

I told them it was very well done, and was very realistic. Had they not had the disclaimers on the screen it could have well been taken for the real thing. I told them if they would have cast real reporters in the major roles it would have added something to the show. Orson Welles used real names of NY based reporters for the broadcast of WOTW which really gave it that authentic feeling. And with the "Secretary Of State" sounding like Roosevelt was the icing on the cake.

I pointed out that at the time Special Bulletin was aired the American public was not as gullible as they were in 1938.(We even played some clips of WOTW to compare it with Special Bulletin). We were on the brink of War and any program like that, would of course cause concern, which, unfortunately it did.

Al in all this film was very well done and was more or less a tribute to Orson Welles and WOTW.

JohnnyReb

Very ahead-of-its-time story, tremendous commetary on the media and politics among other things. Someone else referred to modern day disaster coverage by the media and disaster response by the federal government, and boy do those both come into play here, amazing for a telefilm made in 1983.

The dialogue was also pretty good, and if you look at some of the films that the writers/producers of this gem went on to make, definitely a lot of material there.

Also some good performances from great actors, which is always a good thing, of course! Why was this never released on video? The original (and excellent) "Brian's Song" came out on DVD, so certainly a TV movie could be doable for DVD.

"Countdown to Looking Glass" is another good one. IMO both of these are tons better than "The Day After" which I found cheesy even then. "Special Bulletin" almost has a surreal quality that is very hard to match.

When I watched this wonderful TV movie, I rightaway thought of a novel : REALITY SHOW, written by Larry Beinhardt, a total different story but with the same kind of chilly topic, so real and creepy in the same kind, involving news and gruesome events, manipulation of the medias.... I also think that Sidney Lumet would have loved making such a film, even for TV. It is rather complex, unbelievable - but 9/11 was also unbelievable - gloomy. A pure masterpiece by the then young director Edward Zwick, who is so promising here. It would have been impossible to present it in movie theaters, it is a purely TV stuff. But aweome piece of work.