Movie Corner: The War Game (1965)

The War Game is not a movie per se; it was a docu-drama produced for the BBC in 1965 and was intended to be shown to the general public. Peter Watkins, who had been hired by the BBC in 1963, fought for almost two years to get The War Game made. And it is easy to see why he had to fight for it.

The War Game, very simply, shows how England would prepare for, endure, and start to recover from a nuclear war. Focused on one area (Kent), and using existing manuals, plans and documents, Watkins created a movie that brought home in stark terms that England was woefully unprepared for a nuclear war and would collapse should one come about.

And Watkins showed this in scripted scenes that would be shocking even today. A young boy blinded by a nuclear explosion. Children and women with third-degree burns. Victims who have no hope of survival and in extreme pain being mercy-killed by police units. And at the end, food rioters and looters being executed by firing squad.

Watkins made none of this up. He used, as I said, existing government information for how to survive an attack. He also took accounts from other cities that had either suffered nuclear attack (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) or massive destruction in war (Dresden, Tokyo) and, very fairly, applied those results to Kent.

The movie is, frankly, terrifying. Anyone watching this and then still thinking we could survive a nuclear war, let alone wanting to fight one, would be certifiably insane. It's no surprise that the British government and the BBC pulled The War Game from being broadcast in the UK before it ever came on air. In fact, it was banned from the airwaves until 1985.

That's no misprint. And that is how powerful a film The War Game happens to be. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1966, and rightfully so.

The War Game was on Instant Netflix but is now only in their DVD service. Regardless, I would recommend it to anyone who wants to see a stark, unflinching look at the consequences of a nuclear conflict. Or simply to see how to make an extremely effective documentary.