The Eighties; a period defined by the birth of the blockbuster, a wave of colourful and creative developments in pop music, and the ongoing fear of global annihilation from thermonuclear warfare. Thus it was that national TV services over the globe, starting with The Day After in 1983, decided they could crank out Premium Water Cooler TV by showing everyone how nukes could really mess up your day in one landed in your backyard. So obviously the BBC had to have a crack at it, in an incredibly British way…

Spoiler Warning – a lot of things get wrecked.






There is always a joy to watching Lee Marvin act, as you never know what he’s going to do next and you have the sense that him punching you is always a viable option. So, it’s rather fitting that his third to last film has a script that feels the same way. It’s was originally based Jean Herman’s novel of the same name, and then went through three other screenwriters until director Yves Boisset got his hands on it. Needless to say, the director behind the criminally underappreciated sci-fi death-TV masterwork that is Le Prix Du Danger insured that it had social commentary, blunt violence, and an uneasy touch of surrealism. 
