Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Tuesday's Overlooked TV-Movie: Special Bulletin


This week's Tuesday's Overlooked item is the 1983 TV-movie Special Bulletin.

Special Bulletin is presented not as a fictional movie but as a news presentation (albeit on a fictional network) that is broadcasting a normal day of programming, which is interrupted by a "special bulletin." Terrorists have planted a homemade atomic bomb aboard a tugboat off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina. They are demanding the dismantling of America's nuclear weapons.

The film shows not only the action aboard the tugboat itself and it's fights with the military, but also includes man on the street interviews, test patterns, and other signs of an actual frantic broadcast. The film operates in much the same way as Orson Welles radio production of The War of the Worlds. The TV-movie was one of the earliest productions of Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, who would go on to create the series thirtysomething, My So-Called Life, and Once and Again.

Here for your viewing pleasure is the entire film. Enjoy!



1 comment:

Todd Mason said...

I liked this one a lot at the time, and hadn't remembered the Zwick/Herskovitz provenance (never forget RELATIVITY the series, though so many have...QUARTERLIFE a bit less impressive, though still game).