Threads (1984 BBC post-nuclear film set in Sheffield)

[farmerbarleymow]

The best place to be in even a limited nuclear exchange is ground zero.

I've probably said before, but I was glad I lived in Teesside in the 80s. Guaranteed destructruction given the concentration of chemical/steel industry/nuclear power. The bombs would've left a five-mile wide crater.

 

[andysays]

Posted on youtube recently for your viewing pleasure

 

[Reno]

Posted on youtube recently for your viewing trauma

Corrected that for you.

 

[Sprocket.]

Probably a pre-emptive strike for what’s coming after COVID-19.

 

[andysays]

Corrected that for you.

I did use the word "pleasure" slightly tongue in cheek, but wasn't sure which emoji would best convey that

 

[Steel Icarus]

We need the upside down smiley. It's very versatile.

 

[Mr.Bishie]

Just watched an hour - still as grim today as when it was first shown.

 

[steveo87]

(Apologies for the bump)
So as mentioned on another thread, I watched this for the first time last week.

Just out of curiosity, how long will it take for me not to feel totally fucked up by this film?
I've just got home from work and the bus I was on had some kind if brake issue that sound exactly like the buzz of the 'imminent attack machine' thing.

 

[Orang Utan]

(Apologies for the bump)
So as mentioned on another thread, I watched this for the first time last week.

Just out of curiosity, how long will it take for me not to feel totally fucked up by this film?
I've just got home from work and the bus I was on had some kind if brake issue that sound exactly like the buzz of the 'imminent attack machine' thing.

In my experience, at least 35 years

 

[steveo87]

Feck.

 

[editor]

Just watched an hour - still as grim today as when it was first shown.

It's a brilliant film. Unsettling. Bleak,. Frightening. And it shows what happens to ordinary people when some cunts safe in their bunkers declare a war.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Just out of curiosity, how long will it take for me not to feel totally fucked up by this film?

It is a grim film, but you should be OK after a few weeks.

 

[19sixtysix]

It is a grim film, but you should be OK after a few weeks.

But beware of part time fire stations using air raid sirens as a call out. The was distinctly unfunny when I had watched threads as a 15yr old and our local firestation was part time.

 

[8ball]

Just out of curiosity, how long will it take for me not to feel totally fucked up by this film?

Have you read Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee?
Less long than recovering from that.

 

[Orang Utan]

But beware of part time fire stations using air raid sirens as a call out. The was distinctly unfunny when I had watched threads as a 15yr old and our local firestation was part time.

The air raid siren for the area happened to be on our school roof and was tested regularly. Always spooked me

 

[StoneRoad]

Remember going into the gatehouse at a Butlins Holiday camp and hearing this weird "ticking" that wasn't the clock in the late 1970s ...

Many years later, I found out that it was part of the official warning system. [actually, that system was revised. The new one didn't broadcast the annoying ticking all the damm time]

 

[belboid]

But beware of part time fire stations using air raid sirens as a call out. The was distinctly unfunny when I had watched threads as a 15yr old and our local firestation was part time.

Sheffield city centre has a daily siren that goes off at 1pm. It was funny how lots of people noticed it for the first time after channel 4, or whoever it was, finally did show the film.

 

[2hats]

Sheffield city centre has a daily siren that goes off at 1pm. It was funny how lots of people noticed it for the first time after channel 4, or whoever it was, finally did show the film.

BBC2, 23 September 1984; it's been broadcast at least twice on the BBC since then.

 

[Orang Utan]

Blimey, thought it was a bit later - my parents made us watch it - I was only 11!

 

[belboid]

BBC2, 23 September 1984; it's been broadcast at least twice on the BBC since then.

d'oh, it was The War Game they never showed at all, of course. It wasn't shown again until 2004, on BBC4, though, that would be the one I was remembering.

 

[2hats]

d'oh, it was The War Game they never showed at all, of course. It wasn't shown again until 2004, on BBC4, though, that would be the one I was remembering.

Threads was repeated in 1985 as part of the BBC's 'After The Bomb' season, along with the first UK TV screening of The War Game. Threads then rebroadcast on BBC4, 29 October 2003 (technically twice, as repeated 3 nights later).

 

[smmudge]

For me When the wind blows was more traumatising!

 

[belboid]

Threads was repeated in 1985 as part of the BBC's 'After The Bomb' season, along with the first UK TV screening of The War Game. Threads then rebroadcast on BBC4, 29 October 2003 (technically twice, as repeated 3 nights later).

I will never trust a quickly skimmed wiki article again!

 

[steveo87]

The War Game is available at Archive.org, of anyone is interested.

 

[izz]

I'll add my voice to those who say that it truly was a very scary time. I'd just graduated in 1984 but I'd gone to see a production of when the wind blows as a student and it was just heartbreaking. I have a memory of leaflets through the door about what do in the event of a nuclear strike which were risible, I think the intent behind them was simply to give us an illusion of control, if you're busy filling water containers and collecting tins of food you've got something to focus on, for all that it would be pointless. Probably to slow down the great unwashed from realising the great and the good had bunkers which they'd prepared earlier and which they didn't wish to share.

The cold war had a real impact on people's lives, there was a palpable feeling of dread out and about to the extent you could strike up a conversation about it with strangers in a checkout queue and find others were of the same mind.

 

[SpookyFrank]

For me When the wind blows was more traumatising!

Yup, I was only a nipper when I read that. Was in the kids section of the library tbf.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Yup, I was only a nipper when I read that. Was in the kids section of the library tbf.

For me When the wind blows was more traumatising!

It did more to make kids life long pacifists than any other book.

 

[skyscraper101]

This is also good, in a similar theme. It's scary how close we came to a nuclear attack in 1983




In fact this was about as hairy as it got: 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident - Wikipedia

 

[farmerbarleymow]

The War Game is available at Archive.org, of anyone is interested.

Do you have the link to the relevant page - it throws up loads of stuff apart from that.

 

[Argonia]

Well done Stanislav Petrov