Rating: 
Summary: Absorbing stuff
Review: This stagebound teleplay made sometime in the 1970's is a rather good telling of the Cuban missile crisis. I still think of it as my favorite dramatization of that event. "Thirteen Days" seems too overblown by comparison. There are imperfections...this effort was exhaustively researched, but it was shot before some political secrets became declassified, leaving the movie with a somewhat inacurate historical view (a U.S. military base or two may well have been traded for the removal of the Cuban warheads after all, for one thing).The acting overall is quite good and older viewers will recognize a slew of veteran tv and film actors; Andrew Duggan (Gen. Maxwell Taylor), James Olson (Macgeorge Bundy), John Randolph (George Ball), Nehemiah Persoff (Andrei Gromyko), Dana Eclar (Robert S. Mc Namara) as well as Howard Da Silva (Nikita Khrushchev), William Devane (JFK), Martin Sheen (RFK) and more (if you don't know the names, you'll know the faces). The acting itself, as well as the script, is injected with as much drama as is believable. But occasionally this gives the movie a bit more drama than the real events on which it's based. For example, in the movie, Adlai Stevenson's speech to the U.N. holds its audience spellbound, while in reality he was actually laughed at (shamefully enough). Be that as it may, the lisences taken here are for the sake of something watchable (the lines are compellingly built one upon the other) and the entertainment value is recommendable if for no other reason than the unrelenting drama of it. A vhs version, made from a tv broadcast, that I have, retains the fanfare of music and shots of a decorated stage setting before and after each commercial break. This definitely interrupts the flow of the feature and hopefully will be cut out for the dvd. The sound and picture are dated on the vhs, but I think this is due to low production values. Despite the flaws I mention, I still feel this movie is well recommendable, especially for its penetrating drama.
Rating:
Summary: Absorbing stuff
Review: This stagebound teleplay made sometime in the 1970's is a rather good telling of the Cuban missile crisis. I still think of it as my favorite dramatization of that event. "Thirteen Days" seems too overblown by comparison. There are imperfections...this effort was exhaustively researched, but it was shot before some political secrets became declassified, leaving the movie with a somewhat inacurate historical view (a U.S. military base or two may well have been traded for the removal of the Cuban warheads after all, for one thing). The acting overall is quite good and older viewers will recognize a slew of veteran tv and film actors; Andrew Duggan (Gen. Maxwell Taylor), James Olson (Macgeorge Bundy), John Randolph (George Ball), Nehemiah Persoff (Andrei Gromyko), Dana Eclar (Robert S. Mc Namara) as well as Howard Da Silva (Nikita Khrushchev), William Devane (JFK), Martin Sheen (RFK) and more (if you don't know the names, you'll know the faces). The acting itself, as well as the script, is injected with as much drama as is believable. But occasionally this gives the movie a bit more drama than the real events on which it's based. For example, in the movie, Adlai Stevenson's speech to the U.N. holds its audience spellbound, while in reality he was actually laughed at (shamefully enough). Be that as it may, the lisences taken here are for the sake of something watchable (the lines are compellingly built one upon the other) and the entertainment value is recommendable if for no other reason than the unrelenting drama of it. A vhs version, made from a tv broadcast, that I have, retains the fanfare of music and shots of a decorated stage setting before and after each commercial break. This definitely interrupts the flow of the feature and hopefully will be cut out for the dvd. The sound and picture are dated on the vhs, but I think this is due to low production values. Despite the flaws I mention, I still feel this movie is well recommendable, especially for its penetrating drama.
Rating: 
Summary: We were closer to war than we knew...
Review: When I first saw "The Missiles of October" on TV back in the 70s, I was swept back in memory to those hoary days in the early 60s when we were all glued to our black & white sets wondering if WWIII was about to begin. We didn't know quite what to make of our young president who had already become the victim of a botched Bay of Pigs invasion. We feared Nikita for his bombast, power and unpredictability. It was plain to see that he was trying to provoke us. In "The Missiles of October," William Devane IS JFK. We get to see, perhaps for the first time, the man behind the Camelot legend. He is tough, committed, ethical and strong in ways that everyone underestimated. Howard DaSilva and Martin Sheen are superb in support. Ralph Bellamy, as Adlai Stevenson, deserves special praise for his dynamic recreation of the confrontation in the UN Security Council. Compared to "Thirteen Days" or "How Kevin Costner Saves the World -- Again," "The Missiles of October" is a far better production on all levels. This, along with very few other offerings, ranks as the very finest television ever broadcast!
Rating:
Summary: Tense...scary, historical docudrama
Review: William Devane, Martin Sheen and Howard Da Silva head an excellent cast portraying President John Kennedy, his brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in a vividly gripping reenactment of The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Anyone old enough to remember the apprehension bordering on terror that swept accross the nation...and the world...during the thirteen days where nuclear holocaust threatened civilization will have these feelings awakened by docudrama that conveys a frightening ambience of reality as rare as the reality it imitates. The prologue states much of the story is based on letters and historical documents...as well as journalistic reportage and photo montages of the period. Watching film clips of a massive naval blockade, mobilization of thousands of soldiers and the enabling of the Strategic Air Command to Airborne Alert status is chilling. This is no adventure story. Nor...like the far less disturbing "parable" THE DAY AFTER...a so-called cautionary tale...did it seem like political/science-fiction (PLAYHOUSE 90 produced Pat Frank's ALAS BABYLON for TV circa 1960; again it "played" more like sci-fi). THE MISSILES OF OCTOBER is effective because it neither glorifies the outcome as some kind of American triumph nor glosses over the the fact that one miscalculation on the part of Kennedy or Khruschev could have destroyed the United States, Russia and much of the "onlooking", defenseless world. The politics that lead to the confrontation is essentially ignored. The day-by-day events that seem to lead to the abyss are dramatically rendered. Devane's JFK is an excellent portrait of a leader...perhaps being backed into a corner...whose resolve may push him to release Armageddon. Da Silva's Khrushchev undergoes an incredible transformation from a buoyant, confident leader who believes he has accomplished a great COLD WAR victory, and tilt in the balance of power/terror to the Soviet side, who slowly realizes that he has underestimated his opponent's determination. Both leaders are presented as men...familiar to the reality of War...desperately seeking to untie the knots that policies of mutual distrust and massive nuclear armament programs (with bizzare theories of DETERRENCE) have finally tied around the necks of their respective homelands. Younger viewers...bred on gratuitous violence and often lacking a historical perspective...may ironically find MISSILES OF OCTOBER "boring". But...if you were "there"... this docudrama presents a tense, scary, race with ultimate fear......
Rating:
Summary: BEFORE the true story of the Missilie of October...
Review: With the publication of "The Kennedy Tapes" (May and Zelikow 1997) and, more recently, "Averting the Final Failure" (Sheldon Stern 2004), we now know what exactly was said by whom and when in the White House during these heady 13 days known universally as "The Cuban Missile Crisis". What has never really been conveyed (in print or otherwise) is the true "feeling" of what these leaders went through...I'd submit that that the true value of this video is the portrayal of the immediacy and emotion invoked by all participants during the Crisis. This film may lack some historical accuracy, but it more than makes up for it as an emotional target for this period and remains, to this day, an important and believable reference for this seminal period of the Cold War. William Devane, Martin Sheen and William DaSalva portray a version of the Crisis that is at once believable and accurate as far as the emotional element is concerned, and convey an amazingly accurate "emotional history". This, coupled with the known version of the Crisis in 1974, gives a view of the Kennedy White House inner-workings that has remained somewhat the "standard" for understanding the strategy of the "Best and Brightest" who made up the Kennedy Cabinet. Character development is based on RFK's version of the Crisis in his post-humous work "Thirteen Days", and we know now that this was somewhat contrived...only to the extent that some things were said or believed that were overly amplified for emphasis. The true feeling of these exalted gentlemen has never been questioned and I think that the prospective viewer will be impressed with the detail and emotional content of this work. So enjoy this movie and take from it the exacting and crucial motivations of a Government under siege and you'll be impressed (as I've continued to be for these 30 years) that "The Missiles of October" portrays the Kennedy government accurately as it struggled through the tortuous 13 days of the Crisis and leaves as it's legacy the true emotions of those heady days. Highly recommended!!
Rating:
Summary: BEFORE the true story of the Missilie of October...
Review: With the publication of "The Kennedy Tapes" (May and Zelikow 1997) and, more recently, "Averting the Final Failure" (Sheldon Stern 2004), we now know what exactly was said by whom and when in the White House during these heady 13 days known universally as "The Cuban Missile Crisis". What has never really been conveyed (in print or otherwise) is the true "feeling" of what these leaders went through...I'd submit that that the true value of this video is the portrayal of the immediacy and emotion invoked by all participants during the Crisis. This film may lack some historical accuracy, but it more than makes up for it as an emotional target for this period and remains, to this day, an important and believable reference for this seminal period of the Cold War. William Devane, Martin Sheen and William DaSalva portray a version of the Crisis that is at once believable and accurate as far as the emotional element is concerned, and convey an amazingly accurate "emotional history". This, coupled with the known version of the Crisis in 1974, gives a view of the Kennedy White House inner-workings that has remained somewhat the "standard" for understanding the strategy of the "Best and Brightest" who made up the Kennedy Cabinet. Character development is based on RFK's version of the Crisis in his post-humous work "Thirteen Days", and we know now that this was somewhat contrived...only to the extent that some things were said or believed that were overly amplified for emphasis. The true feeling of these exalted gentlemen has never been questioned and I think that the prospective viewer will be impressed with the detail and emotional content of this work. So enjoy this movie and take from it the exacting and crucial motivations of a Government under siege and you'll be impressed (as I've continued to be for these 30 years) that "The Missiles of October" portrays the Kennedy government accurately as it struggled through the tortuous 13 days of the Crisis and leaves as it's legacy the true emotions of those heady days. Highly recommended!!
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