The Missiles of October

Rating:
Summary: "MISSILES" IS A BARNBURNER
Review: "The Missiles of October" starred William DeVane as JFK and Martin Sheen as RFK. Both of these actors portrayed the Kennedys better than any actors ever have. This is a patriotic film that depicts how close we came to nuclear combat toe to toe with the Russkies, and how the Kennedys saw us through the crisis. This may have been the beginning of Martin Sheen's political awakening.

STEVEN TRAVERS
AUTHOR OF "BARRY BONDS: BASEBALL'S SUPERMAN"
[e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: "MISSILES" IS A BARNBURNER
Review: "The Missiles of October" starred William DeVane as JFK and Martin Sheen as RFK. Both of these actors portrayed the Kennedys better than any actors ever have. This is a patriotic film that depicts how close we came to nuclear combat toe to toe with the Russkies, and how the Kennedys saw us through the crisis. This may have been the beginning of Martin Sheen's political awakening.

STEVEN TRAVERS
AUTHOR OF "BARRY BONDS: BASEBALL'S SUPERMAN"
[e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: It's Uncut!
Review: I am very happy to report that the DVD version of The Missiles Of October is uncut. When MPI released it on VHS in the 1980's, they cut a few minutes out of it...which made no sense unless they just didn't have tapes they could stretch out by five minutes longer. Also, they have left intact all of the zoom-into-the-fence bumpers which meant a return from commercial. On the VHS version they edited some of them out...which made for some sloppy transitions.

This DVD is the way it should be: uncut and untampered with.

Rating:
Summary: Finally on DVD!
Review: I've been waiting for The Missiles of October to come out on DVD since I first got my DVD player over a year ago. My VHS copy of Missiles, which is over 15 years old, has degraded greatly in picture and sound quality, so I was hoping that the DVD copy would be an improvement. I was not disappointed. It has an amazingly crisp picture and the sound is excellent.

When the movie Thirteen Days came out I was anxious to compare it to Missiles. Thirteen Days was a good film, but I still prefer The Missiles of October. All the performances are excellent, but William Devane, Martin Sheen and Howard DaSilva top the list. I was barely six years old when the actual event occurred back in 1962 so I don't remember the incident from then. However, I did see the movie when it originally aired in 1974 and was greatly impacted by it then. They did an excellent job in weaving the actual documentary footage together with their dramatization. Watching the thirteen day countdown to possible worldwide nuclear destruction is compelling watching. I highly recommend this movie to anyone with a taste for history, suspense, excellent performances or as an example of how good television can be when given the chance.

Rating:
Summary: Close To The Edge
Review: MISSILES OF OCTOBER feels too much like a stage play but, in an odd way, that feeling adds to the suspense of the film: you feel as trapped by circumstance and distance from ground zero (so to speak) as Kennedy and Khrushchev must have.

The performances here are outstanding. I could never really believe Devane in any other part after this, and it took APOCALYPSE NOW to make Sheen something other than RFK in my mind.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful portrayal
Review: Missiles of October recounts the events surrounding the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 when the United States and the Soviet Union for the first-and last-time teetered on the brink of nuclear war. The screenplay is constructed from factual sources, such as official documents, interviews, and reports. Although some of the dialogue is dramatized, the story still follows with surprising accuracy, for Hollywood, of the events of those 13 deadly days. One of the highlights is Devane's portrayal of JFK. I have seen plenty of actors try to do Kennedy, but Devane nails the character. Sheen's RFK is equally powerfull. There are some historical shortcomings, like leaving LBJ out of the movie when in reality he was very much a part of the deliberations of the ExComm. Even with the occasional historical twist, this is a high quality and riveting portrayal of great events, great men, and two weeks that changed forever the way we lived.

Rating:
Summary: Way better than Costner's movie !
Review: One of the best depictions of the Cuban missile crisis ever made- terrifically acted by a true all star cast. Too bad that a lot of the actors never got off of the T.V. set and into major movies. One of the most important aspects to this movie is the portrayal of the Soviet side of the affair and the problems Nikita Krushchev had within his own power structure. Definitely one for the library !

Rating:
Summary: The creators & cast may be proud of their work on this.
Review: The MISSILES OF OCTOBER is docudrama at it's best. It presents this climactic moment of Cuban missiles threat (1962) to the peace of our world clearly. dramaticaly, accurately. It should be seen today by NATO. The evidence is here in this production: tyranical human persecution can be halted; without bombing and ground-force warfare. Historic proof is in The MISSILES OF OCTOBER. A peaceful, humane world is possible. To see it is to know it.

Rating:
Summary: A superbly written, produced, and acted movie
Review: The Missiles Of October is the superbly written, produced, and acted movie based on the thirteen days in October, 1962, when the world poised on the brink of an international nuclear conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union over the Russian attempt to base missiles with nuclear warheads on the island of Cuba, fifty miles of the coast of America. A brilliantly docudrama, The Missiles Of October takes the viewer behind the scenes in the Oval Office John Kennedy and his advisors struggled with the political and military decisions that they were compelled to make. This is a very highly recommended addition to any high-school or community library DVD/Video collection.

Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest made-for-TV-productions ever made.
Review: The overall quality of the dvd far surpassed my expectation. My vhs copy made from a TV broadcast was so bad I had little hope for the dvd after so many years had passed since it first aired. The dvd is by far the best I've ever seen it look. The picture may even be better now than when it was first broadcast, who knows. They must have broken into the "video vault" for this one.

The music track still sounds a little chintzy. But I suppose that's ok, since Laurence Rosenthal's score probably wasn't really meant to play a dominant role in the production in the first place, given the teleplay's documentary-like structure. On the other hand, the dialog is very intelligible.

In fact, the quality improvements renewed my appreciation of the production. Before it was released on dvd, I gave it 4 stars, but now I'll give it 5 without reservation. The decorated stage shots that mark different chapters don't interrupt the flow nearly as much as I had feared they would on the dvd, and they actually enhance the narrative.

The cast is huge, but unlike so many productions, even the actors playing the smallest parts, and there are many, act on a par comepletely equal to the actors in the lead roles. And the script is tight. There doesn't seem to be anything wasted or anything superfluous and yet it doesn't feel too tight or overworked.

There're terrific performances all over the place here, but Devane's (JFK) and Howard da Silva's (Khrushchev) as powerful men under pressure from truly frightening developements are not to be missed! I'm reminded of a scene in the movie "Fail-Safe" (another cold-war classic) in which the president (Henry Fonda) is talking on the hot-line to the russian Premier and trying to convince him that the problems between the two leaders are man-made and are therefore solvable. To me there's a parallel, as Devane's character seemingly, and underlyingly, tries to live up to that very ideal, even though he is dealing with a true enemy in Khrushchev and even though there's the added danger of mis-calculation. He must dedicate himself to peaceful resolution even as he must prepare for a possible all-out nuclear war. This is a sobering look at the brink of mutually-assured destruction and there is enough opportunity for gut-checks and thoughtful re-evaluations of values, morals and objectives along the way. You don't want to miss this one!