Public Information Films

[MarkG]

name='Steve Crook']People used to believe the government

In this case, I think everyone came to realise that the whole thing was pointless: any serious nuclear strike on Britain was going to wipe out 90% of the population and the government itself would never recover.



From what I remember many councils started to refuse to even join in the 'war games' by 1980 or so for that reason.

[ChristineCB]

MarkG, your cynical views of gov'ts assessments of its citizens' worth seems reasonable based on film-release dates alone.



Kramer's ON THE BEACH arrived in 1959, closer to Godzilla and Harryhausen radiative monsters than the British THE WAR GAME (1965). Obviously Kramer and those writers were aware that a nuclear-winter scenario was likely, and that survival didn't matter since was only months, weeks or days - not some once-considered 'infinity'.



Six years later, THE WAR GAME arrives on BBC-TV.



I wonder if furniture wax sales increased the next week?



Or maybe prospective homebuyers had a new item to consider: "How tall are the street gutters?"

[MarkG]

'The War Game' wasn't shown on TV until the 80s, was it? I remember seeing it on TV years ago and the BBC making a big thing about the government preventing it from being shown in the 60s. Which isn't surprising, it would have scared the poo out of most people who watched it back then and caused a serious threat to the government's war policy.



'On the Beach' is actually the least plausible 'serious' nuclear war film I'm aware of... I haven't actually seen the movie, but I did read the book years ago. Fallout decays far too fast to kill off everyone on the planet the way it happened there.



BTW, I was poking around on youtube and there are a lot of old British nuclear war movies on there. The 1950s and 1960s civil defence films are actually pretty interesting, showing how they would have tracked the fallout from a limited nuclear war in that period and warned people about it. You can also see that the 'Protect and Survive' shorts were basically just updated versions of the earlier films.



I just searched for 'civil defence' and 'protect and survive' and that found most of them. Parts of 'The War Game' and 'Threads' are on there too; 'Threads' seems a lot better than I remembered, I'll have to get the DVD.

[smudge]

PIFs still exist, although not known as PIFs these days and nowhere near so abundant as at their peak. You usually have to be up very early in the mornings to see the modern equivalents and generally on lesser satellite channels who haven't quite sold enough airtime to advertisers....



The old GRANADA PLUS on SKY quite often used to start the daily run with one or two of these. In recent months CHALLENGE TV have been showing updated versions of the classic 'Joe & Petunia' ads, including 'DIAL 999 AND ASK FOR THE COASTGUARD'.



To those of us of a certain age it's weird to see the Coastguard in front of a computer terminal and Joe with a mobile 'phone....







SMUDGE

[Moor Larkin]

name='MarkG'] 'On the Beach' is actually the least plausible 'serious' nuclear war film I'm aware of... I haven't actually seen the movie,

That's a good one.......



I have seen the movie but wouldn't pretend to remember much about it, not having seen it in twenty or thirty years. The abiding concept that has stuck with me, and was quite unusual in a Gregory Peck-era movie, was that pretty much everyone dies



That's pretty much all the information Joe Public needs to know about global nuclear war.

[MarkG]

name='Moor Larkin']That's a good one.......

As I said, I've read the book. Either they threw the source material away, or they all died from fallout being carried around the globe in a totally unrealistic manner.

[Moor Larkin]

name='MarkG'] Either they threw the source material away, or they all died from fallout being carried around the globe in a totally unrealistic manner.

Most movies throw the source material away don't they?......:



I'm sure you're scientifically correct. Survivable nuclear war somehow seems to make it seem more likely to occur. Perhaps it would be better to suppress the idea.



Whatever happened to that nifty idea: the Neutron Bomb? It was supposed to kill everyone but leave their property intact wasn't it? I can't imagine why it was *banned*.

[MarkG]

name='Moor Larkin']Survivable nuclear war somehow seems to make it seem more likely to occur. Perhaps it would be better to suppress the idea.

'Threads' and 'The War Game' are both examples of movies about survivable nuclear wars. I don't think anyone watching them is going to look forward to one.



In fact, I'd say they're probably more offputting than 'On The Beach', since they show the real ways that people die in such a war rather than a fantasy.

Whatever happened to that nifty idea: the Neutron Bomb? It was supposed to kill everyone but leave their property intact wasn't it? I can't imagine why it was *banned*.

Banned by who? Neutron bombs were just nuclear bombs built so small that the radiation risk was higher than the blast risk... there's nothing particularly special about them. With traditional bombs anyone who receives a radiation dose sufficient to kill them would also either be vaporised by the fireball or killed by the blast.

[ChristineCB]

MarkG, I'd argue that war films don't portray much realism. I do believe one thing would happen: if the warring powers wanted to keep integrating our atmosphere with their fallout, they could do it sufficiently so an ON THE BEACH scenario would occur.



I also believe they could create 'survivable' nuclear wars, too, but since there are people intent on killing everyone on one side, I don't worry too much about "plausibility" being a film's judgement factors.



To me, the believability of ON THE BEACH isn't fall-out clouds. It's a character study of the humans who face that possibility. The sub sailor that stays in San Fran and prefers to die there. The vote of the crew to return home. Anthony Perkins' belated death (why didn't he kill himself after that first uttered sentence with that wretched accent?!! He was killing ME with it!)



I don't really judge ON THE BEACH for the war-effects' plausibility, but rather the perversion of a happy-go-lucky song like WALTZIN' MATILDA into the film's incredibly melancholy score. Such an incredible use of a song, like BLUE VELVET, but MATILDA is even more pervasive in its film.



THREADS, THE DAY AFTER, and a few others could be accurate depictions of survivable nuclear war, but I don't think any of their film-tins could be stacked up in my windows and save me from the bomb blast.



Now - if I had a recently-waxed kitchen table - ! Or a tall street gutter to crawl up next to - !



I just don't think "plausibilty", "realism" and "war films" have any more relationship than "Godzilla" and "my backyard".

[MarkG]

name='ChristineCB']To me, the believability of ON THE BEACH isn't fall-out clouds. It's a character study of the humans who face that possibility. The sub sailor that stays in San Fran and prefers to die there. The vote of the crew to return home. Anthony Perkins' belated death (why didn't he kill himself after that first uttered sentence with that wretched accent?!! He was killing ME with it!)

Again, I disagree: most people will try to survive even in dire circumstances, not just lie down and die. I think 'On The Beach' says more about the author and the post-WWII malaise across Western culture than it does about real people.

[ChristineCB]

name='MarkG']I think 'On The Beach' says more about the author and the post-WWII malaise across Western culture than it does about real people.

Yes, it's fiction. The film depicts malaise (or fatalism or acquiescence to the inevitable - whatever) and offers an interesting anti-malaise, anti-acquiescent ending to it.

[Moor Larkin]

I've noticed 'Threads' gets talked about a lot on classic TV forums, but I have to confess I don't remember it myself. I do recall quite a fuss when a Jason Robards TV series was broadcast on television. Googling, I note that it was a late entrant in the armageddon stakes and was American (boo!! hiss!!).







Nuclear Winter was it's big message I recall.

Having survived, we'd all have the pleasure of freezing to death....... brrrr

[ChristineCB]

Actually, I think THE DAY AFTER is mostly a week-or-two's length, I believe. Great little snippets in the first third of the film radio and TV clips getting people's concerns, then as the missiles launch and land for the middle-third, then the final third is watching the survivors decay. And the closing text that volunteers that an actual nuclear war will be much, much worse. ha ha

[Steve Crook]

name='Moor Larkin']Nuclear Winter was it's big message I recall.

Having survived, we'd all have the pleasure of freezing to death....... brrrr

It's either that or global warming. You can't win :



Steve

[Steve Crook]

I felt that the biggest problem with The Day After was that it was "too Hollywood" with a lot of very well known faces appearing in it, so it was obviously a drama.

Things like Threads or The War Game were more believable because of their documentary style and that they weren't full of internationally recognised "stars". Just normal people



Steve

[MarkG]

'The Day After' seemed quite tame in comparison to the British movies, though much of America would have been hardly affected while there would be few places in Britain outside the blast zone of a nuclear bomb and pretty much the whole country would have been covered with fallout from some bomb or other.



'Threads' also made a big thing out of 'Nuclear Winter', but that seems to have been pretty much debunked since. It would affect the climate, but nowhere near as bad as the original claims... so you might starve or die from radiation poisoning, but at least you wouldn't freeze to death in an Arctic summer.

[mattypark]

Hi



I'm looking for Apaches-the childrens' public information film from the 70s warning about the dangers of mucking around on farms.Anyone remember this?

[CaptainWaggett]

If it helps, the highlights are on Youtube. It sounds completely bonkers according to Wikipedia





[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLhXTobrV_s"]YouTube- The Apaches Of Horror (1978) Death Scenes[/ame]

[mattypark]

Thanks Captain much appreciated.



What a lovely nostalgic glimpse at the slaughter of innocent young children!

[David S.]

Someone edited together quite a clever 'trailer' for this for Youtube, as if it was a forthcoming horror film. It was quite convincing. Another did a short edit of it to a soundtrack of Roxy Music's 'Virginia Plain' which also worked quite well.





Has anyone ever managed to see or obtain its 'companion piece' Building Sites Bite?