IMDb metadata is 1 hour and 13 minutes of Dali run time, rated at a generous 2.7/10 by 944 raters.
A group of people sit in bar and talk. That sums it up. About three-quarters of the film is stock footage from World War II of shells exploding, soldiers soldiering, airplanes flying, bombs falling, destroyed buildings, and on and on.
The sitters are in a New York City sports bar and they watch the progress of nuclear war on television. The ‘enemy’ lands paratroopers in Alaska, and pictures of Germans landing in Crete are shown. That mix up is typical. There are references to jet planes when propeller planes are shown. Washington state and Washington DC are run together. The script is so sloppy that the Illinois Congressman in the bar is later posthumously elevated into a Senator.
The enemy is never named but we know who it is.
There follows bombings here, there, and everywhere. Sometimes they are called atomic bombs and sometimes not. More paratroopers paratroop against back projections of Capitol Hill. Is no where safe? Yankee Stadium?
In addition to the sitters we see four Americans in ill fitting, mixed uniforms sitting around a table telling each other the bad news in excruciating dialogue so bad that — believe it or not — McKinsey-speak would be better.
Occasionally we see six or eight others in drab uniforms and thigh boots shouting at each other in a variety of enemy accents, Latino, Slavic, Brooklyn, German, Armenian, Italian, Texan.
They go on about liberating the masses in a people’s government. The creeps! Wait until 1985 when cute little Chuck Norris gets ahold of them! He’ll kick ’em right in the knee, if he can reach it.
The barflies earlier bemoaned the heavy hand of government, of crushing taxes, of waste in defence spending, of watered drinks, of paper work, while the bartender boasted of ducking the last war, cocktail shaker in hand. Consequently, the US of A does not have the army, the weapons, or the will power to repel the Enemy!
When the going gets tough, however, the barflies become Minute Men and Women. The men rush to factories to produce tanks, to the ranch to produce food, to the library to pay overdue book fines, to the blood bank to give blood, to the blood bank to take blood….but it is too little and it is too late. The Enemy prevails across the nation. Leaving little to the imagination, there is also a rape. According to the fraternity brothers, whose expertise on such matters is complete, it was no worse than a NCAA football team on the loose.
Seattle, Omaha, San Francisco, Minneapolis, New York City are all levelled. There being no limit to the dastardly enemy’s evil, he blew up the Boulder Dam. The Enemy is frequently referred to as ‘he.’
Then…the sleepers awake from this nightmare. It seems Mr Ohman, Omen (Get it?), put them all in a trance with his restful Irish brogue combined with their many post-lunch martinis. Long before RoboCop, this is Dan O’Herlihy who describes himself as a forecaster, and this is his forecast.
The enigmatic Mr Omen.
He is marvellous in his smug superciliousness with an air of detached mystery. His purpose is for these barflies to see the errors of their ways. They do. As he departs (without leaving a tip) they are changing their ways. The only woman in the bar changes beaus.
Yet 2.7 seems too high and the Finn gives it 1/10 only because he does not give 0s. It is nearly unwatchable. My pants were safe, contrary to Hedda Hopper’s prediction on the lobby card reproduced above.
In earlier scenes of the nightmare we saw lines of people at the New York City Airport trying to fly home, as one would during a nuclear war, and the two ticket agents were Lois Lanes from the Superman franchise, Noel Neill (in the 1948 film serial and later the television series with George Reeves) and Phyllis Coates (in ‘Superman and the Molemen’ of 1951).
William Schallert also puts in a brief and late appearance as a news reader. He’ll always be Mr Pomfrit to me and Dobie.
The surprising thing is that such a turkey was made by an experienced and talented cast and crew. One singular indicator of the incompetence on view is this: Twice the US President is shown on television calling for calm. Each time he is seen from the rear! We never see his face. Just a 3/4 profile from his rear left side. At first I thought this was somehow important later I realised it must have been a mistake and with no budget for re-takes it was used as is. The speaker was Joseph Granby, uncredited, but very reassuring.
The set-up has promise: are they really watching World War III on television? In addition to the RoboCop chief and the Lois Lanes, there is also Gerald Mohr and Peggy Castle, each with a long list of creditable performances in other movies. Likewise the director and producer have solid credentials. The writer had a Hugo nomination for one of his other screenplays. Yet taken together….. well, don’t.
It does demonstrate the paranoia of the time, but not very well compared to many other films.
While hardly Sy Fy, the obsessive Finn (Scifist) includes it in his list and so I had a look.
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