Don't read if you want to be surprised (Spoiler alert)
CTLG was another in the line of "nuclear war/confrontation" movies of the early 80s, along with "The Day After", "Threads", "By Dawn's Early Light", and "Special Bulletin". And of the "nuclear war" movies ("Special Bulletin" was about domestic terrorism using nukes), it was clearly the most chilling, at least to me.
Although I'm not certain, I believe that the movie was Canada's contribution to the genre; most of the actors are Canadian, and the "newscasts" during the movie happen on a network that begins with the letter "C".
The movie begins with a group of countries forming a "debtor's cartel" and defaulting on billions of dollars of payments to the US for loans made, and escalates from there into an oil embargo, and then clashes in the middle east. Through the movie we get the inside scoop on what's going on in Washington from a reporter working the story (Helen Shaver) and her boyfriend, who works in the White House (Michael Murphy). And we get how it is presented to the public on a network news program.
As the movie nears it's climax, the network's star reporter (Scott Glenn, doing some of his finest work as one of the most underrated actors of all time), aboard a US battleship in the Persian Gulf, is on the air with the network, live, when two nuclear bombs are used. All hell breaks loose.
The final shot of the movie is the President's Plane taking off from Andrews AFB in Washington late that night and the shot freeze-frames on the engines of the plane heading into the distance as the news coverage in the background goes to the piercing alarm used by the Emergency Broadcast System, and the announcer entones that the code name for nuclear war is Looking Glass. I was barely out of my teens when I first saw this movie, and it chilled me to the bone...and to this day, the site of a plane arching off into the night will bring the end of this movie back to my mind...
The movie is extremely (and I mean EXTREMELY) hard to find; i've long lost my video of it, and I would LOVE to see it come out on DVD. To my knowledge, at least where i've been, it's been seen or made available only three times. It originally aired as a feature on either HBO or Showtime (I forget which), then made it's way to the Fox Network as a "movie of the week" entry early in that network's history, and I have seen it only one other time, in a syndication movie package that aired on my local UPN affiliate sometime in the mid 90s.
If it ever airs in your area, GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO SEE IT. Especially if you like this genre of film. It can be a bit slow moving at times, but overall, the experience will be a satisfying one.
My Score (out of 10) 9.5
CTLG was another in the line of "nuclear war/confrontation" movies of the early 80s, along with "The Day After", "Threads", "By Dawn's Early Light", and "Special Bulletin". And of the "nuclear war" movies ("Special Bulletin" was about domestic terrorism using nukes), it was clearly the most chilling, at least to me.
Although I'm not certain, I believe that the movie was Canada's contribution to the genre; most of the actors are Canadian, and the "newscasts" during the movie happen on a network that begins with the letter "C".
The movie begins with a group of countries forming a "debtor's cartel" and defaulting on billions of dollars of payments to the US for loans made, and escalates from there into an oil embargo, and then clashes in the middle east. Through the movie we get the inside scoop on what's going on in Washington from a reporter working the story (Helen Shaver) and her boyfriend, who works in the White House (Michael Murphy). And we get how it is presented to the public on a network news program.
As the movie nears it's climax, the network's star reporter (Scott Glenn, doing some of his finest work as one of the most underrated actors of all time), aboard a US battleship in the Persian Gulf, is on the air with the network, live, when two nuclear bombs are used. All hell breaks loose.
The final shot of the movie is the President's Plane taking off from Andrews AFB in Washington late that night and the shot freeze-frames on the engines of the plane heading into the distance as the news coverage in the background goes to the piercing alarm used by the Emergency Broadcast System, and the announcer entones that the code name for nuclear war is Looking Glass. I was barely out of my teens when I first saw this movie, and it chilled me to the bone...and to this day, the site of a plane arching off into the night will bring the end of this movie back to my mind...
The movie is extremely (and I mean EXTREMELY) hard to find; i've long lost my video of it, and I would LOVE to see it come out on DVD. To my knowledge, at least where i've been, it's been seen or made available only three times. It originally aired as a feature on either HBO or Showtime (I forget which), then made it's way to the Fox Network as a "movie of the week" entry early in that network's history, and I have seen it only one other time, in a syndication movie package that aired on my local UPN affiliate sometime in the mid 90s.
If it ever airs in your area, GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO SEE IT. Especially if you like this genre of film. It can be a bit slow moving at times, but overall, the experience will be a satisfying one.
My Score (out of 10) 9.5