A fascinating and gripping film, I had the pleasure of watching it in 1983 during its premiere on NBC. The concept of showing the film as a series of televised news broadcasts and bulletins was inventive and hearkened back to the days of the War of the Worlds broadcast, giving it something of an edge. Along with the Day After, these two television movies were among the best made in the early 1980s highlighting the dangers of atomic weapons and nuclear war. The comment I hear every so often of this being a bit cheesy is unfair. Given the context of the time, when tensions were still high in the Cold War, it gave perspective of what might happen. The only problem I had, was that the film should have been longer than its originally airing of two hours, spending as much time on what would happen after an atomic explosion as leading up to the event. The best film of this kind since Special Bulletin and Day After, was the recent Dirty War. I can only imagine how this film would be done today, given the expansion of cable news, via 1983 when the networks were the only real source of news.
Review of Special Bulletin
