Special Bulletin (1983) (TV)

Director:

Edward Zwick

Writers:

Marshall Herskovitz (screenplay)
Marshall Herskovitz (story) ...

Release Date:

20 March 1983 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A TV reporter and cameraman are taken hostage on a tugboat while covering a workers strike. The demands...

Plot Keywords:

Nuclear | Terrorism | News Report | Fake News Report | Nuclear Weapons

Awards:

Won 4 Primetime Emmys. Another 3 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Ed Flanders	...	John Woodley
Kathryn Walker	...	Susan Myles
Roxanne Hart	...	Megan 'Meg' Barclay
Christopher Allport	...	Steven Levitt
David Clennon	...	Dr. Bruce Lyman
David Rasche	...	Dr. David McKeeson
Rosalind Cash	...	Frieda Barton
Ebbe Roe Smith	...	Jim Seaver
Roberta Maxwell	...	Diane Silverman
Robert Kay	...	George Takashima
J. Wesley Huston	...	Bernard Frost
Frank Dent	...	Dr. Jason Halpern
Charles Lanyer	...	Merritt Cunningham
Mie Hunt	...	Ellen Stevens
Bruce Fields	...	Walter S. Letteau

Runtime:

103 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

National Broadcasting Company (NBC)

Trivia:

When this film was first broadcast, the network superimposed the word "dramatization" on the bottom of the screen every few minutes and ran disclaimers after every commercial break, to remind people it was only a movie. That didn't stop some people in Charleston, S.C. from panicking anyway.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: The bomb goes off and the screen goes to static. In actuality, the countdown clock (still counting down) and the lower third box would still be on the screen (the lower third box would have static though,) as it is coming from the network's control room (in New York) instead of Charleston, and would not have been affected by the blast.

Quotes:

John Woodley: Is it possible to compare the weapons deployed today, the kind of the Russians may have aimed at Charleston with what the terrorists have on that ship?
Arlen Surrey: John, tonight, people who are 5 miles from the harbor would survive the blast at least. If a Soviet 1 megaton bomb was dropped on the harbor, those people, 5 miles away, would be vaporized in the first three-fifths of a second.

BROUGHT BACK MEMORIES OF WOTW

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