In this movie, the unexpected explosion of a missile pits the USA against the USSR. The tension escalates and escalates, with one retaliation following another, until global nuclear war becomes a very real possibility. Will cooler heads prevail ?
"By Dawn's Early Light" is not the most accomplished movie I ever saw. The acting, with a few exceptions, is unlikely to win an award and there are some moments of sheer scriptwriting stupidity. For instance, the movie contains an episode where a female co-pilot accidentally gets blinded, in one eye, by a light flash of extreme brightness. The poor woman is shocked and unwell - for at least two minutes. For the rest of the movie, she continues to pilot a hugely sophisticated plane, with considerable success. Ah, well, who needs depth vision, concentration or relief from pain ?
However the movie does have a raw, pulsing energy, especially when it comes to showing that particular intellectual and emotional hell which arises when people with responsible jobs need to take momentous decisions without having all the necessary facts. In the movie, pretty much everybody is swimming around in the dark, rattled and frightened - and this "pretty much everybody" includes men and women with access to weapons of unimaginable power.
Still a useful (and disquieting) cautionary tale about Mankind's tendency to self-destruct.
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