Welcome to the end of the first week of Nuclear Theater! And thanks to all the new subscribers. I’m placing my hands over my heart right now like they do at awards shows. The plan going forward will be a post every Tuesday and Friday, with the Friday ones largely behind the paywall. But all of this is subject to change as we find our nuclear submarine-powered sea legs.
As has been reinforced with prejudice in recent years, it’s never a good idea to date in the workplace. But pity poor U.S. Air Force Captain Cassidy, as played by Powers Boothe.
His office paramour and co-pilot (Rebecca De Mornay), half-blind after witnessing a nuclear blast, crabs at him for his command style and then demands to take over the controls of his B-52 bomber in order to pull it out of a dive on the way to their bombing run in Russia.
I mean, we’ve all been there — at least metaphorically.
Long forgotten by anyone without a degree in Nuclear Theaterology, By Dawn’s Early Light (1990) poses the cinematic query: What if Dr. Strangelove was played straight?
Released as an HBO production just months after the Berlin Wall fell, the film is very much a late-stage Cold War thriller that attempts to illustrate just how difficult it would have been to “turn off” a nuclear war once it was triggered.
But befitting its TV-movie DNA, it’s also crammed with sideplots and subplots, not the least the cockpit (and I use that word gently) romance between Boothe and De Mornay. A flyboy who plays by his own rules, he won’t commit. Is she wasting her time? Her heart says DEFCON 1, but the vibe is totally DEFCON 4.
He only looks at me during the pre-flight checklist.
Turns out, Captain Cassidy will commit – to dropping his bombs on Irkutsk (look it up) after Washington is hit with a nuclear blast.* Cassidy’s gonna run his bomber “straight down Karl Marx Street,” he declares.
Seems a rogue missile strike from separatists in Russia has started a war that neither side wants but can’t stop. A lone voice of reason is the elderly silver-haired U.S. president, Joe Bid—er, Martin Landau. Landau’s character bears more than a passing resemblance to Frederic March’s president in Seven Days in May, and he sports a cardigan, which I believe codes him as a Democrat.
The Soviet premier makes Landau a brutal offer that only makes sense in context: The first Russian strike, an accident, has killed about six million to nine million in America. Russia, he says, will absorb a similar blow without retaliation. The war ends there.
But Landau’s helicopter goes down after a missile strike hits Maryland, and he’s presumed dead. That allows more hawkish elements within the government to push for an all-out confrontation, as played by a dream team of gruff and growly guys, Darren McGavin** and Rip Torn, both of whom talk as if they have pebbles in their mouths.
Personally, I would watch any film with both McGavin and Torn, but especially one where Torn says, without irony, that it is high time for the U.S. “to cut off the head of the Soviet chicken!”
Add Powers Boothe (and James Earl Jones!) to that mix and you basically have the grouchiest collection of misanthropes that ever littered a movie screen. Slipping the surly bonds of earth, indeed.
“A REVERSE mortgage, you say? Tell me more.”
De Mornay acquits herself the best, exhibiting the same inner ferocity she displayed in Runaway Train (1985). She’s by-the-book until the moment she realizes the book makes no sense.
I’m a sucker for any film that is dotted with chyrons such as “Strategic Air Command, Omaha, 0930 Zulu” even if I have no clue what Zulu Time is. More modern films seem to have the need to show you a picture of the Eiffel Tower and also include the caption “PARIS” just to make sure you get it, but I appreciate the old-school stuff.
Here are the alert stages at SAC, according to the movie:
1) APPLEJACK
2) SNOWMAN
3) COCKED PISTOL
4) ROUNDHOUSE (bad)
At one early point, the SAC commander calls Landau directly at the White House, urging him to launch a retaliatory strike at Russia before it’s too late. Landau, distracted, says “I’ll call you back, General” and HANGS UP. Who hangs up on Strategic Air Command? He must be a Democrat.
To its credit, the movie takes the time to get many of the small details correct. And I appreciated learning about the built-in “pauses” in the run-up to an all-out nuclear war that give leaders in both countries an opportunity to change their minds.
The thought I took away from By Dawn’s Early Light was: Why does anyone really want to be president? Both Seven Days in May and this movie examined the burden of carrying the nuclear football, of having the make the call about whether to kill millions. It’s not a debate we have any longer in this country, but when you look at some of the folks running for president, it’s one that maybe we should.
* According to the movie, one of the first Soviet strikes “missed” Andrews Air Force Base southeast of D.C. and instead the blast “rolled up Rock Creek Park and took out Walter Reed.” So, RIP me, as I live right off of the park in NW DC. More important: Is the Cleveland Park Bar and Grill still standing?
The blast zone!
** Darren McGavin’s ascension to the presidency gives the movie its greatest line of dialogue: “The fate of the country is now in the hands of the Secretary of the Interior.”
WHERE CAN I FIND IT? Watch By Dawn’s Early Light (in muddy SD) on Amazon Prime.
HEY, ISN’T THAT?: Jeffrey DuMunn plays “Harpoon,” a level-headed Admiral who butts head with Rip Torn. You know him better as Paul Giamatti’s father on “Billions.”
DUST CLOUDS: The B-52 Stratofortress was in service for 35 years at the point the film was made, and is still in use today. It had an operational range of almost 9,000 miles. During the Cold War, it largely served as a nuclear deterrent, flying close to the borders of the Soviet Union. But it was designed to penetrate Soviet airspace, flying low to elude missiles, and deliver its payloads while allowing a return to its home base. I assume very few of them had pilots who were sleeping together.
ARMAGEDDON INDEX: It’s a solid 8. Doomsday only barely averted.
LAST ENTRY: Seven Days in May
NEXT ENTRY: Pickup on South Street (1953) Be careful who you stand next to on the subway.