The Day After
Short description
The Day After is set in the mid-1980s, as tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union are escalating over a conflict in Berlin. In and around Lawrence, Kansas, daily life continues: Dr. Russell Oakes keeps up his demanding hospital schedule, a family prepares for a daughter's wedding, and a graduate student works on his studies. The town sits near an American nuclear missile base. When the unthinkable occurs and nuclear war breaks out, the surviving residents must confront the destruction of everything they knew and the struggle to stay alive in the aftermath.
Directed by Nicholas Meyer, the film followed his earlier features Time After Time and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and preceded Volunteers and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Edward Hume wrote the screenplay, Robert Papazian produced, and the large cast includes Jason Robards as Dr. Oakes, JoBeth Williams as nurse Nancy Bauer, Steve Guttenberg as Stephen Klein, John Cullum and Bibi Besch as the Dahlbergs, and John Lithgow as Joe Huxley.
Made for television, the film runs 127 minutes and was broadcast in December 1983. It holds a 7 out of 10 rating on IMDb from around 20,000 votes and a 6.8 out of 10 on TMDB from 463 votes, while a critics' rating stands at 7.8 out of 10 from 14 reviews, higher than the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- The tank in which they created the mushroom cloud after a nuclear explosion was once used in the filming of the 1982 science fiction film 'Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,' which was also directed by Nicholas Meyer. Dyes and other liquids were slowly poured into the tank, stirred, and filmed in slow motion.
- Considering that breaking all the windows during an explosion and then replacing them all would be too wasteful, many windows were simply covered with black paper to give the impression that they were broken.
- Having secured the full support of the city administration of Lawrence, Kansas, the filmmakers transformed the city for several weeks into the ruins and wastelands left after a nuclear war. Windows were smashed in shops in the city center, burnt-out car hulks were placed along the streets, the streets themselves were covered with garbage and debris, and large tent camps were built for survivors on the riverbanks. Over 2,000 residents of Lawrence (including students) acted as extras, each paid $50 on the condition that they shave their heads and portray someone dying of radiation sickness. To add authenticity to the footage, the extras were asked not to wash for a while.
- Producers managed to obtain footage of test launches of the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile. The Ministry of Defense prohibited the use of footage of the nuclear 'mushroom cloud' after the explosion, so the mushroom-shaped clouds were the result of work by visual effects specialists.
- During the period of détente between the USSR and the USA (May-June 1987), the film "The Day After" was shown on Soviet Central Television (TsTV) in the same thematic block as the Soviet film "Letters from a Dead Man." Both films were shown after the "Time" news program (the American film on the first day, "Letters..." on the second), that is, during prime time.
- There is a documentary film in the USA called "First Strike," which tells about the possible beginning of World War III and actively uses footage of American military personnel from "The Day After."
- The film is quite realistic, but the scale and consequences of the disaster are nevertheless minimized, as stated in the text during the end credits.
- Some scenes with special effects, the creation of which was planned according to the original script, were never filmed because the film's duration had to be cut from four hours to two and a half. These included scenes of a nuclear explosion in Lawrence, Kansas, shown from a bird's-eye view, and an exchange of nuclear strikes between NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries in Germany.
- In 2013, the National Geographic channel, in a series of programs called "The 80s," mentioned, when describing the film as a significant event of the 1980s, that at least three directors had refused to participate in filming the film from a completed screenplay before Nicolas Meyer. They stated that they were not prepared to film such a horrific film.
- The scenes aboard the airborne command post, as well as several others (for example, receiving news of approaching enemy missiles, the B-52 crew, and the launch of missiles from underground silos), were borrowed from the television documentary short 'First Strike' (1979). In the documentary, the underground launch silo is destroyed a few seconds before the missile exits, which is why the final seconds of the countdown are not shown in Meyer's film.
- Director Nicholas Meyer wanted to cast actors completely unknown to the audience. The only one the audience knew was Jason Robards. Amy Madigan and Steve Guttenberg, who starred in Meyer's film, later became popular actors.
- Nicolas Meyer clashed so frequently with censors and the US government regarding the film's content, especially the scenes of violence, that he left the project during editing and requested that his name be removed from the credits. He eventually returned, but vowed never to work in television again.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
