Public opinion supports retaliation in case of attack and, as if summoned, the missiles strike. Watkins shows his mettle brilliantly in these sequences, suggesting the unimaginable with deft strokes and a low-budget brio that puts such celebrated Hollywood artists as Roger Corman and Sam Fuller in deep shade. Watkins spends the rest of film demolishing several national myths and offending sensibilities wherever found. The celebrated pluck and resolve that saw Britons through the Blitz is simply no good against thermonuclear warheads. Morale, indeed the entire social order, disintegrates rapidly.
Food riots create an armed population.
The same faces that expressed indifference and blank ignorance before the war now stare vacantly at the camera, voices dim in psychic annihilation. Watkins pricks our ears for every nuance of the Whimper that follows the Bang of history s end. Watkins shot The War Game in four weeks during the spring of 1965. The director's intense personality and RADA training was used to full advantage in coaxing performances out of the non-professional cast. He met individually with each and would often act out their roles for them.