Classic Cold War Flicks

[Cohaagen]

Threads is the daddy of all Cold War films. This is a teleplay that managed to (and I don't use the word lightly) traumatise the whole of the UK - an entire chunk of the population of a certain age will know exactly what you're talking about at even the slightest mention of the title. Certainly it ****ed me and my entire class up when we were shown it at school.

While I "enjoyed" The Day After, there is no doubt that Threads takes everything that was horrifying and shocking about that film and amps it up by several orders of magnitude. The whole thing is on YouTube, and if you're into Cold War films then there's no excuse for not having seen it.



Oh, for the same reasons I'd also recommend The War Game, and if you're interested in the Falklands War then An Ungentlemanly Act is a really well-observed and researched BBC teleplay on the initial invasion. Tumbledown also gets the thumbs up as far as the Falklands go, although it has a reputation for being brutal to the point of hard work...mainly for the absolute hands-down nastiest (not to mention historically correct) war movie death scene which involves a teenaged Argentine conscript getting stuck about 10 times in the face and neck with a broken bayonet.