The Day After

United States

1983

127 Min

Color

1.33:1

English

Currently 3.3/5 Stars.
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CAST Jason Robards, JoBeth Williams, Steve Guttenberg, John Cullum, John Lithgow, Bibi Besch, Lori Lethin, Amy Madigan, Jeff East, Georgann Johnson, William Allen Young, Calvin Jung, Lin McCarthy, Dennis Lipscomb, Clayton Day

ED William Paul Dornisch, Robert Florio

It is the mid-1980s. An aggressive Soviet leadership orders troops marched to the border of West Berlin, and then decides to invade West Germany with multiple armored tank & troop divisions. In Lawrence, Kansas – on the border with Missouri – a family is preparing for the wedding of their eldest daughter, and Dr. Oakes is keeping busy in his role as chief of surgery in the small University Hospital at Lawrence. These people go on with their daily lives but are drawn closer to the possibility of a nuclear war, as the Russians use a nuclear ballistic missile against a West German city, and then attack a U.S. warship in the Persian Gulf. The Americans strike back by hitting a Soviet ship, and then the Russians hit NATO regional headquarters with a nuclear warhead! People start creating makeshift fallout shelters in their basements, but many are caught off guard when, 1 at a time, nuclear missiles are launched from their silos along the Kansas – Missouri border. USAF officers then announce that 300+ ICBMs are inbound to the U.S., and 2 of them strike Kansas City, Missouri! Many are killed outright, but still more must face the danger of radioactive fallout. Now, the characters we follow are living in a barren, devastated world – devoid of electricity, safe drinking water, and food – and filled with radioactivity, starvation, and disease… in the horrific aftermath of ‘The Day After’. —IMDb

Director

Nicholas Meyer

Nicholas Meyer is probably best known for his involvement in the Star Trek films. According to his website, it was seeing his first movie The Beggar’s Opera (1953) that inspired him to become a filmmaker. He was fascinated by such literary classics as Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” and made an ambitious 8mm film adaptation of “Around the World in 80 Days”. His start in the business included work as unit publicist for the Paramount hit Love Story (1970). From that experience he wrote “The Story of Love Story” using the income from that book to move to the West Coast. He parlayed his love for Sherlock Holmes mysteries into the novel, “The Severn-Per-Cent Solution” and adapted it for the screen: The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976). He received an Oscar nomination for this screenplay. His collaborations with producer Harve Bennett and later Leonard Nimoy resulted in the most popular and profitable entries in the Star Trek features canon. In addition to directing Star Trek… read more

Nicholas Meyer is probably best known for his involvement in the Star Trek films. According to his website, it was seeing his first movie The Beggar’s Opera (1953) that inspired him to become a filmmaker. He was fascinated by such literary classics as Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” and made an ambitious 8mm film adaptation of “Around the World in 80 Days”. His start in the business included work as unit publicist for the Paramount hit Love Story (1970). From that experience he wrote “The Story of Love Story” using the income from that book to move to the West Coast. He parlayed his love for Sherlock Holmes mysteries into the novel, “The Severn-Per-Cent Solution” and adapted it for the screen: The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976). He received an Oscar nomination for this screenplay. His collaborations with producer Harve Bennett and later Leonard Nimoy resulted in the most popular and profitable entries in the Star Trek features canon. In addition to directing Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982) he also wrote the shooting script for that film (uncredited). This was done in the span of two weeks using material from several other writers occasionally attached to the ever-evolving project. His script contributions to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) involved the centre section of the film taking place in 1986 San Francisco. His brutally graphic nuclear war drama The Day After (1983) (TV) attained the highest ratings for a television movie. He has a keen sense of film history. This is evident in his films such as The Day After (1983) (TV) where at the end when the song “Waltzing Matilda” is played as it was in the classic post-nuclear drama On the Beach (1959). Though primarily a story-oriented director, his style incorporates busy visuals and flowing camera movement. Meyer also places a great deal of importance on the incidental music in his films, working closely with a composer to create themes to reinforce his vision of the story. He likes to maintain a sense of mystery in a story so that audiences will leave the film contemplating situations that are not fully explained. When approached by a film-goer and asked to explain such situations, Mr. Meyer’s characteristic response is “what do YOU think it means?” He can be heard on several DVD bonus tracks, including Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and the special edition The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) which was directed by fellow Trek alum Robert Wise. His commentaries are notably insightful and fascinating. —IMDb

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