I need the title of this movie!

[Nano]

I'm sure some of you remember it. My memory tells me this was a TV movie from the early Eighties. The plot has to do with some terrorists announcing they would fire a nuclear bomb in a ship stationed at the bay of some important U.S. port-city (probably New York). The thing is, the whole story is told mimicking a real TV news broadcast. I remember reading at the time that the trick was too well done and part of the audience went into panic thinking it was a real attack, even as every now and then there were some subtitles assessing it was a work of fiction. A truly Orson Welles move.
The story was great and ended with the bomb exploding right there (yes, it was a sad ending). Do you remember it? I need the title!

[Nano]

OK, I found it. It took me some time fussing with the IMDB Power Search... I tried with keywords like "nuclear bomb broadcast" but nothing. Finally I put "panic" on their trivia search option, and it sprung out.
It's an NBC TV movie called "Special Bulletin", it was aired in March 1983. The director was Edward Zwick (About last night, Glory), from an original script by him with Marshall Herskovitz (the Thirtysomething team). It's on VHS, so if you don't know it, look for it.

Here's another one I want the title of: this one I saw in black & white TV when I was a kid. It's a World War II action American picture, with Gary Cooper or someone Cooper-like in the lead. This guy is an American Army officer who's selected to infiltrate the Japanese lines as a spy. Now this is the outstanding plot device: in order to do this, at the beginning of the movie they do plastic surgery on his face so he looks like a Japanese! And he remains with that face FOR THE ENTIRE MOVIE!
Sent to a Japanese military camp, he disguises as a top officer and begins to send strategic data about the yellow ones' plans. At the end of the movie, he's discovered because of a nervous "tic" (something he does with his hand), then cornered and killed in a bloody gunshot... of course, on those last minutes he manages to send one last radio signal with the information Americans need to win the war.
What's the title of this movie? Must have been made in the late Forties or the Fifties.

[dfc99bb]

The WW2 movie you're looking for is the 1945 film "First Yank Into Tokyo". [IMDB info - http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0037701/combined ]. You're a day late. It was broadcast yesterday (12/3/04) on TCM! It is not yet available on DVD, but was on VHS at one time.

[markydefad]

This sounded way weird for a Gary Cooper movie!!! A big star hiding behind a plastic-surguried Asian face???? :o :o :o

It was actually a low-budget quickie starring Tom Neal.

Leonard Maltin says it's only claim to fame is "as the first Hollywood film to acknowledge the existence of nuclear firepower."

[Nano]

Thanks dfc99bb! (how you pronounce that? :roll: )

It was not a plastic face, Marky. The guy just looked the same but with the eyes slightly stretched towards the sides.

BTW, I was looking for a while in IMDB with "plastic surgery" as keyword, and came to discover there were many B-movies in the Forties-Fifties using plastic surgery as a plot device... A bit bizarrely, however (now I know from where John Woo lifted that "Face off" twist!). Apparently many writers asumed you could fool anybody by changing your face into that of a millionaire, or an enemy mob chief, or whoever. :o

Don't hurt my feelings! It seemed a big, realistic drama argument for an Argentine 8-year old (me). :) Certainly, the impression lasted, because I saw that movie just once and I still remember it very vividly.
Poor Yankee officer, having to resign to his everyday life and family to become a Japanese on Uncle Sam's call! :cry:

[dfc99bb]

"First Yank Into Tokyo" is was what was called a "B" movie back in the 1940s. That meant it didn't have the biggest stars. By the way TCM stands for Turner Classic Movies, a US cable TV service that shows mostly older films from the 1930s through the 1960s. Don't know if it's available in South America.

[Mixmachine]

Nano, check out 'Dark Passage" with Bogart and Bacall, film noir at is best, and features great camara work at the beginning to explain the plastic surgery on Bogart later.....

[Nano]

Yeah, I have to check on that one. It was one that sprung out in my IMDB search. I read that the character undergoes plastic surgery way into the movie, and that it's only then that we see his face (Bogart's). The first part of the movie would be showed from the character's point of view (á la Robert Montgomery's "Lady in the lake"), and that's always a thrill in my book! 8)

BTW, I don't know if Marky is still reading this, but I have to make contact with you, L.A. fella. Can you drop me a line to chiappussi@yahoo.com.ar, so I know where to write? Thanks.