Cold War Films

"It's hard to watch and it should be hard to watch. It should frighten people, and if it's done that, it's done its job."

"Manpower Officer - Susan Russell"

"Works Officer - George Cox"

"What we’d depicted and its implications stayed in the minds of every actor and crew member for a long time. I’m sure there were some nightmares. There are some things so far outside our experience or comprehension that they are unthinkable. Nuclear war is one."

"Emergency Committee - Flint, Langdon, Matthews"

"I think Threads didn't keep people at arm's length, it drew people in because of the characters that everybody knew. I mean, we related to them, and that's what I think made Threads so visceral for people."

"Food Officer - Roger Fisher"

"Scientific Advisers - Keith H[...], A. Jennings, Charles [...]"

"Controller - Clive J. Sutton"

"As a result of decisions taken in Cabinet last night, and passed to the Home secretary for implementation, you are requested to undertake an initial review of the Emergency Arrangements listed [...] You will, of course, take care that any such review is carried out with discretion and does not cause undue public alarm [...]"

"There's the hospital sequence in The Day After and there's the hospital sequence in Threads. [...] In The Day After people are being wheeled in on gurneys and everybody's stressed, but they're coping with it as they would do on ER or something like that. In Threads, the floor is covered with muck and shit and blood and people don't have anything they can work with. [...] We see people having their legs amputated without an anesthetic, just something stuck between their teeth for them to bite on. That's what it's going to be like! And I wanted every part of this movie to be "That's what it's going to be like"."

"I was unaware really of the importance of it at the time, but I was asked to go for an interview, which I did, and I was the first person that Mick Jackson saw for the part. And I went looking rather radical, because I thought "oh, it's about nuclear war", you know, and I'm a very radical person, so I kind of went wearing my sort of "combat gear" which was very "in" at the time. And it was really strange, because afterwords, when I got the part of Ruth, who turned out to be a very fragile sort of a person, I was surprised and he said having been the first one, he saw me for the part. He obviously saw something in me that was, I don't know, vulnerable, maybe. It was the only time I've ever said to a director "I would really like a part in this, regardless of what that part may be", because I knew that the content would be close to my heart."

"Here are some ideas for making your inner refuge. One. Make a ‘lean-to’ with sloping doors or strong boards rested against an inner wall. Prevent them from slipping by fixing a length of wood along the floor. Build further protection of bags or boxes of earth or sand, or books, or even clothing, on the slope of your refuge, and anchor these also against slipping. Partly close [...]"

"Have you made your inner refuge, inside the fall-out room? Have you strengthened it with dense materials? Have you put the following items in your fall-out room: enough water, in sealed or covered containers, to last you and your family for 14 days; enough food to last you and your family for 14 days, including tinned or powdered milk for the children, and food for the baby - and a closed cupboard or cabinet in which to store these supplies; a portable radio with spare batteries; a tin opener, bottle opener, cutlery, crockery and cooking utensils; improvised lavatory seat, polythene buckets fitted with covers, polythene bag linings, for emptying the containers, strong disinfectant and toilet paper; candles and matches [...]"

"District Inland Transport Co-ordinator - James Lee"

"Deputy Controller - Alan Boulton"

"BBC News at 8 o'clock: The Soviet Union has protested strongly to the United States about what it calls "dangerous provocations" by American warships in the Gulf of Oman yesterday. This follows an incident in which serious damage was caused to the Soviet cruiser Kirov, when she was in collision with the U.S. destroyer Callaghan."

"The remaining units of the United States 10th Airborne Division, which parachuted into western Iran yesterday, have taken up defensive positions near Isfahan, designed, according the spokesman, to block any possible move towards the oilfields in the Persian Gulf. Squadrons of American B-52 bombers have been arriving at U.S. bases in Turkey since late on Tuesday evening, together with three AWACS early warning aircraft. It's believed that they'll be used in a supporting role to the Middle East task force. The 84th Airborne Division has also been placed on the state of combat readiness, and is set to be able to [...]"

"There's been no response from the Soviet government as yet to the United States ultimatum delivered to Moscow last night. The American note calls for joint withdrawal of all U.S. and Soviet forces from Iran by noon on Sunday. However, NATO observers in West Germany have reported increasing build-ups of Warsaw Pact troops and vehicles at points along the central frontier this morning. The Ministry of Defence has announced it's sending more troops to Europe to reinforce the British commitment to NATO. The first contingent left RAF Brize Norton this morning."

"The real effect of a nuclear weapon is not what it does to things, to buildings, to cities: it's what it does to society, what it does to people, what it does psychologically. I was very struck by the work that an American writer called Robert Jay Lifton had done on the psychological effects of the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima on the survivors and I talked to him a lot. It seemed to me that the story that needed to be told was the story of what this does to society as well as what it does to physical things, and you could only really tell that with a drama, with people that you identified with."

"It was cloaked to a great extent in secrecy almost. [...] You knew what it was about, but the script was a close-kept secret I think. Not many people had seen it, and I think they were worried that it would go the same way as War Games, which was made but never seen, so it was all quite mysterious really."

"Barry came up with the idea of the two families – one working class, the other lower-middle – and what their lives were like. Sheffield seemed a good place to set it, and Barry knew it well. It was bang in the middle of the country, and a good way from London. Strategically, it also made sense: there were industrial and military targets nearby. Both of us were interested in the idea that none of these characters would ever have a god’s-eye-view of events, and never find out what was happening outside their immediate experience, certainly not outside Sheffield. That seemed to be the way most people would have to deal with a nuclear apocalypse, with most forms of communication vaporised."

"[attack warning] When you hear the attack warning, you and your family must take cover at once. Do not stay out of doors. If you are caught in the open, lie down. [first note of the theme]"

"From the point where the bomb happens, the whole nature of the movie changes. In the first half of the movie, I hope, you have a very full soundtrack. You have all the soundtrack of TV broadcasts and radio broadcasts, the sound of birdsong in the country, the sound of musical things happening, the sound of traffic and city noises. And from the moment that the bomb drops you don't have anything. You don't even have the teletype, all these things, they just type out in silence, and all you hear is wind. [...] You hear voices of people screaming, coughing or whatever. You hear wind, you hear no birds. [...] It's gone. That world is gone."

"[Footage with caption " film"] This film, shot secretly by a West German television crew on Tuesday, shows one of the Soviet convoys on the move in northern Iran. The convoys were first spotted by United States satellites on Monday, moving across three of the mountain passes leading from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Foreign Minister has defended the incursions, and has accused the United States of deliberately prompting last week's coup in Iran. Speaking on his arrival in Vienna, Mr. Gromyko claims the Soviet vehicles were responding to appeals from legitimate government forces from the Bojnord. He went on to define American covert activities in Iran in the period immediately preceding the coup as "destabilising". He warned the United States of the dangers seeking in what he called "an easy return to the reign of the Shah.""

"If you leave your home, your local authority may take it over for homeless families. And if you move, the authorities in the new place will not help you with food, accommodation, or other essentials. You are better off in your own home. Stay there. [theme]"

"Who knows? He died, presumably. I have no more idea than anyone else, but that’s the point. That’s why it’s so clever."

"In this movie, from the outset, I wanted to put it in the scale of people that you might know, people like yourself, your immediate family, relations and so on, and no bigger than that, and not really to show anything except how it would happen to them. So, there's no God's eye view in this movie. You don't actually get to look down and get the overall picture and see maps of Europe and maps of the world and so on. You just get what's happening to these people, and it's all really done from ground level. There's no cinematic crane shots or anything like that. It's just very, very documentary."

"If we are to survive these difficult early months and establish [a] firm base for the redevelopment of our country, then we must concentrate all our energies on agricultural production."

"The entire peacetime resources of the British Heath Service, even if they survived, would be unable to cope with the effects of even the single bomb that's hit Sheffield."

"It is 8:30 a.m. 3:30 in the morning in Washington. Over the past few days, neither the President nor his senior staff will have had more than a few hours rest. This is when they may be asleep. This is when Western response will be slowest."

"The Mail on Sunday (poster):"

"Nuclear war is everyone’s problem, it’s not just country to country. It’s a worldwide problem, we all share it, and that’s why it’s so frightening now. Since Threads was made I’m sure there have been advances in what nuclear weapons can do."

"The United States has hinted it may send troops to the Middle East if the Russians don't move their forces out of Iran. The Prime Minister has joined the chorus of western leaders calling for immediate withdrawal and has spoken of a serious threat to world peace. Four people were killed today on the M6 motorway in Staffordshire when their car was in a collision with a heavy tanker. The accident happened at the junction with the A449 near Dunston."

"Hanging in the atmosphere, the clouds of debris shut out the sun's heat and light. Across large areas of the Northern Hemisphere it starts to get dark, it starts to get cold. In the centers of large land masses like America or Russia, the temperature drop may be severe, as much as 25 degrees centigrade. Even in Britain, within days of the attack it could fall to freezing or below for long, dark periods."

"The first fallout dust settles on Sheffield. It's an hour and 25 minutes after the attack. An explosion on the ground at Crewe has sucked up this debris and made it radioactive. The wind has blown it here. This level of attack has broken most of the windows in Britain. Many roofs are open to the sky. Some of the lethal dust gets in. In these early stages, the symptoms of radiation sickness and the symptoms of panic are identical."

"A growing exodus from cities in search of food. It's July. The countryside is cold and full of unknown radiation hazards. By now, five to six weeks after the attack, deaths from the effects of fallout are approaching their peak."

"The time has now come to make everything ready for you and your family, in case an air attack happens. This does not mean that war is bound to come, but there is a risk of this, and we must all be prepared for it."

"Detention camps are improvised to cope with looters. Their numbers are growing."

"Money has had no meaning since the attack. The only viable currency is food, given as reward for work or withheld as punishment. In the grim economics of the aftermath, there are two harsh realities. A survivor who can work gets more food than one who can't and the more who die, the more food is left for the rest."

"Collecting this diminished first harvest is now literally a matter of life and death."

"[Radio announcement fragmentary due to Jimmy channel hopping] There's been further fighting in Iran between government and... as the civil war there..."

"The first winter. The stresses of hypothermia, epidemic and radiation fall heavily on the very young and old. Their protective layers of flesh are thinner. In the first few winters, many of the young and old disappear from Britain."

"Chronic fuel shortages mean that this could be one of the last times tractors and combine harvesters are used in Britain."

"In the last few days, emergency headquarters like this have been hastily improvised up and down the country, in the basements of town halls and civic centres."

"The Times:"

"This time they are playing with, at best, the destruction of life as we know it, and at worst, total annihilation. You cannot win a nuclear war! Now just suppose the Russians did win this war... What exactly would they be winning? What would they have conquered? Well, I'll tell you! All major centres of population and industry would have been destroyed. [Heckler: "Industry? What industry? We ain't got no industry in Sheffield!"] Yes, and if the money hadn't - [trying to make herself heard amongst the jeers] if the money hadn't - if the money hadn't been spent on nuclear weapons, you would have built up industry. We would have put money into welfare, we would have found alternative sources of energy. Industry... [pauses for applause] Industry will have been destroyed. The soil would have been irradiated. Farmstock would be dead, diseased or dying. The Russians would have conquered a corpse of a country."

"Worldwide [...] about the superpower confrontation in the Middle East has increased [...] this evening . In a statement issued a short time ago by the Pentagon in Washington, the United States has accused the Soviet Union of moving nuclear warheads into their new base at Mashhad in northern Iran. According to the American spokesman, the war [...] aboard two giant Antonov transport planes late yesterday afternoon and were immediately moved undercover into temporary hangars. [...] predictable flurry of activity in and around the NATO headquarters. Among those arriving in the last half-hour [...] member countries. They entered the building swiftly, and do not comment on the reports at this stage. [...] a statement within the next hour or so. NATO's position on the United States' action in sending its task force to Iran has been cautious up to now [...] from which neither side could back down. Arriving here in Brussels a short time ago, NATO's Secretary General said he [...] in the Middle East. Whether the latest news [...] strengthens the divisions within NATO is something we should know in a few hour's time, when the full council of ministers meets in an emergency session to debate its response to the crisis [...] into London. And we've just heard that the Prime Minister has issued a message of support for the United States government. The statement, just released from Downing Street, condemns what it calls "reckless Soviet actions, which can only worsen an already grave situation.""

"American and Israeli search and rescue vessels in the area today came across debris and oil slicks that could only have come from the missing submarine. It's still being said in Washington, that the Los Angeles was on a routine reconnaissance mission off the coast of Iran, when she sank last Tuesday with the loss of all hands. After paying tribute to her 127 officers and men, the President went on to say that he held the Soviet Union solely responsible for their deaths, and for the vessel's disappearance."

"Many of these officers have had no training at all. Some have learnt of their emergency role in the last few days, and almost all are unsure of their exact duties."