MovieChat Forums > The War Game (1967) Discussion > Some problems with this film

Some problems with this film

posted 13 years ago by hugh1971
4 replies | jump to latest

1. Why are the firemen out tackling the firestorm just a few minutes after the explosion? How did they manage to get the tenders to the fires, and how did they manage to get mains pressure on the water when there would have been massive damage to the system?

2. Did HM Government really have an evacuation programme as shown? If so, how could they hope to carry it out in time if there was only a 2 minute warning and more importantly, what was the point since most of them would get radiation sickness?

3. Why is radiation sickness touched on so lightly? Hardly anyone seems to get it in this film. Supposedly the victims of Hiroshima were listless because of it; so why in this film are people shown rioting, looting etc?

4. Everybody seems to behave in a very orderly fashion - it takes weeks for the first police constable to be killed. Perhaps this was just about imaginable of the people of 1965, a more orderly bunch than the British inhabitants of today; but if it happened today, total chaos would break out in the UK.

[–] hugh1971 13 years ago

5. During the Christmas service at the end, the clergyman is shown winding the record of 'Silent Night' with his finger, due to lack of electricity. But if there is no electricity, how is the speaker working?

[–] Gular-Scute 13 years ago

6. Silly nitpicking by some viewers. Suspend your disbelief over these trivial points and look at the main thrust of the film. Appreciate it's vision.

[–] pcventures 12 years ago

The evacuations were contingency plans that were meant to be activated when the likelihood of a nuclear exchange appeared to cross a particular threshold.
The mad dashing shown as the real sirens went off happened in the areas to which evacuees had already been billeted.
I thought radiation sickness was depicted in a fair amount of detail. Remember that scenes of people stretched out on the ground dying slowly isn't very cinematic. Most of the radiation victims were already scarred by burns and blast effects which the film rightly spent most of its screen time depicting.
No idea about the water pressure, but I think they were far enough that the water mains remained relatively intact, but there was still ignition of structures.

"...and Mrs. Taylor sure seems to use a lotta ice, whenever he's away."

[–] ib011f9545i 10 years ago

Long time since you posted your questions but I have seen THE WAR GAME a few times and more to the point have read a bit about British civil defence in the era of the film.

There is a book called BENEATH THE CITY STREETS by PETER LAURIE which was first published in the late 1960s and was based on an earlier SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE article on the same subject (Britain's preparation for civil defence in the Cold War.)

The book was updated and republished in 1979.

The book explains that British civil defence in the 1950s and 1960s was based on previous experience in the World Wars so Britain had a big mostly volunteer civil defence corp from the late 1940s until the late 1960s when it was felt that the the H bomb meant that little could be done for the general population in the event of an atomic war.

But when THE WAR GAME was made the plans were to evacuate women and children and hospital patients to safer areas,reources such as civil defence and fire units were to be pre positioned near areas liable to need them so the fire engines were perhaps part of this plan.

There is a book called WAR PLAN UK by DUNCAN CAMPBELL,which was published in the early 1980s which covers much of the more modern civil defence story.
More recent still is a book called SECRETS OF THE STATE by PETER HENNESSY which British defence planning and world war 3 but concentrates too much on high politics for my liking.