The Day After (Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg)

The Day After is an American television film that first aired on November 20, 1983, on the ABC television network. The film postulates a fictional war between the Entente and Reichspakt that rapidly escalates into a full-scale nuclear exchange between the United States and Germany. The action itself focuses on the residents of Lawrence, Kansas, Kansas City, Missouri, and several family farms near American missile silos. The cast includes JoBeth Williams, Steve Guttenberg, John Cullum, Jason Robards, and John Lithgow. The film was written by Edward Hume, produced by Robert Papazian, and directed by Nicholas Meyer.
More than 100 million people, in nearly 39 million households, watched the film during its initial broadcast. With a 46 rating and a 62% share of the viewing audience during the initial broadcast, the film was the seventh-highest-rated non-sports show until then, and in 2009 it set a record as the highest-rated television film in US history.
The film was broadcast on Soviet state television in 1987, during the negotiations on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The producers demanded the Russian translation conform to the original script and the broadcast not be interrupted by commentary.
== Plot ==
Dr. Russell Oakes works at a hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, and spends time with his family over his daughter Marilyn's decision to move away. In Harrisonville, Missouri, 40 miles (64 km) southeast of Kansas City, farmer Jim Dahlberg and family hold a wedding dress rehearsal for their eldest daughter, Denise, and Bruce, a student at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. The young couple is more interested in sex, with family drama when Denise's younger sister steals her birth control, and when Jim catches Denise sneaking home the following morning. Airman First Class Billy McCoy is stationed at a Minuteman launch site in Sweetsage, Missouri, 20 miles (32 km) east of Kansas City. Next to the site, the Hendrys carry out farm chores and mind their children. Throughout these scenes of heartland life is a current of tension: the television, radio, and newspapers discuss a Reichspakt build-up on the North Chinese border and the dispatch of Latin Union nuclear weapons to Colombia. Towards nightfall, Germany blockades Alsace-Lorraine. France issues an ultimatum calling for the Germans to end the blockade of Alsace-Lorraine by the evening and places its military forces on high alert, which recalls McCoy from his wife and infant daughter at Whiteman Air Force Base near Sedalia, Missouri. Germany responds with an ultimatum for France to give up its claim on Alsace-Lorraine, and for the Entente to remove all military forces from South China and Korea. Spain, meanwhile, gives an ultimatum for the United States to surrender Mexico and Centroamerica.
The next day, Reichspakt forces attempt to invade France, suffering heavy casualties at the Maginot Line. North Chinese MiGs strike civilian and military targets in South China. Oakes visits his son's football game, but daily life is starting to break down. Field hospitals are assembled in Metz, Flanders, Wallonia, and The Netherlands quickly fall to the Reichspakt's onslaught, there are rumors that Berlin, Paris, and Madrid are being evacuated, and people start to flee Kansas City. At the university's registration hall, the word goes out that the Germans have invaded South China, and that the Spanish have invaded Mexico. The Entente is unable to stop the German invasion and use hundreds of tactical nuclear weapons against the aggressors. Pre-med student Stephen Klein decides to hitchhike home to Joplin, Missouri, while Bruce presses on as normal and gets a haircut. A conversation at a barbershop with university faculty head Joe Huxley quickly rids him of his calm demeanor as Huxley explains that the nearby missile silos make Lawrence a likely target for an enemy first strike. At a supermarket, crowds frantically stockpile food. The American Great White Fleet and German High Fleet engage in the largest naval battle since 1965, both sides utilizing guided missile dreadnoughts launching nuclear-tipped missiles. Oakes is stuck in traffic driving to the campus hospital in Lawrence when the Emergency Broadcast System warnings begin. Failing to contact his wife, he turns back toward Kansas City.
As the Reichspakt continues to advance, the Entente airbursts three strategic nuclear weapons over Reichspakt bases to cut off their supply lines. The Germans retaliate by destroying the regional Entente headquarters with another strategic nuclear detonation. Minutes apart, the United States launches its Minuteman missiles, and personnel aboard the EC-135 Looking Glass over Kansas track inbound German ICBMs. The film is deliberately ambiguous on who fired the main attack first. McCoy makes it to the Sweetsage base and learns Beale Air Force Base and RAF Fylingdales have been destroyed by guided missile dreadnoughts. Deeming the war over and survival in the silo unlikely, he flees to find his family. Air raid sirens go off and panic grips Kansas City.
Shortly before the ICBMs arrive, a high-altitude nuclear explosion over the Central United States generates an EMP that disables vehicles and destroys the electrical grid across the region, though very inconsistently. The nuclear strikes then commence as the German warheads reach their targets. Kansas City and the surrounding military bases and missile silos are destroyed. Marilyn and Bruce are incinerated. The Hendrys, having initially ignored the crisis, never make it out of their yard and are engulfed by a wall of fire. A nuclear detonation flash-blinds young Danny Dahlberg when he looks at it. While still on the freeway after the EMP hits, Dr. Oakes witnesses a multitude of detonations, many at missile silos, and the one explosion directly over Kansas City. He walks to Lawrence, takes charge, and begins treating patients. Klein, who had hitchhiked as far as Harrisonville, finds the Dahlberg home and begs for refuge in the family's basement.
Oakes receives fallout reports by shortwave from Joe Huxley at the science building. The situation is dismal: travel outdoors is better than expect: radiation levels have fallen to safe levels, yet patients continue to come as resources dwindle. Huxley tries to contact other survivors, coming into contact with the city government in Topeka, which was targeted by a missile that malfunctioned. The Dahlbergs emerge from their shelter several hours after the attack, and begin cleaning up the mess. McCoy heads towards Sedalia until he hears from passing refugees that it and its environs have been obliterated. He befriends a mute man and travels to the hospital in Lawrence, where he is reunited with his unit, as the silo they were hiding in was never hit due to the missile targeting it missing by a wide margin, though he is arrested for desertion. Oakes bonds with Nurse Nancy Bauer, and converses with an overdue pregnant woman who pleads with him to tell her she is wrong to be hopeless.
Denise has a stress-induced miscarriage in a service in the rubble of a church, and Klein takes her and Danny to the hospital in Lawrence, where a doctor unsuccessfully tries to treat Danny's eyes. In a defiant radio address the U.S. President announces a ceasefire with the Germans and Spanish, promises relief, and stresses liberty, democracy, and American leadership, set to shots of listless survivors in American rubble, and hospital staff piling up the dead and treating the living. Soldiers deliver food to the refugee camp that has grown around the hospital, but are unable to honor issued chits and hold food back for other camps, ending in a violent squabble in which some survivors and soldiers are killed. Oakes learns that various criminals are being summarily executed by a firing squad without first being proven guilty, including for petty crimes such as alleged looting. At a makeshift civilian gathering regarding agriculture, a meeting for growing enough food for the survivors devolves into shouting with a shortage of fuel, fertilizers, and equipment, though a representative from Conrail assures them that the trains are still running, and are bringing farm equipment out of underground storage, as per government planning. Coming home, Jim finds squatters on his property being led away by the National Guard.
Oakes returns to Kansas City to see the site of his home. He finds squatters there and attempts to drive them off, but is instead offered food. Oakes collapses and weeps, and one of the squatters comforts him. The film ends with an overlying audio clip of Huxley speaking with a growing number of survivors, providing a sense of hope that the world will recover.
== Cast ==
The Oakeses
* Jason Robards as Dr. Russell Oakes
* Georgann Johnson as Helen Oakes
* Kyle Aletter as Marilyn Oakes
The Dahlbergs
* John Cullum as Jim Dahlberg
* Bibi Besch as Eve Dahlberg
* Lori Lethin as Denise Dahlberg
* Doug Scott as Danny Dahlberg
* Ellen Anthony as Joleen Dahlberg
Hospital staff
* JoBeth Williams as Nurse Nancy Bauer
* Calvin Jung as Dr. Sam Hachiya
* Lin McCarthy as Dr. Austin
* Rosanna Huffman as Dr. Wallenberg
* George Petrie as Dr. Landowska
* Jonathan Estrin as Julian French
* Wayne Knight as Man in Hospital
Others
* Steve Guttenberg as Stephen Klein
* John Lithgow as Joe Huxley
* Amy Madigan as Alison Ransom
* William Allen Young as Airman First Class Billy McCoy
* Jeff East as Bruce Gallatin
* Dennis Lipscomb as Reverend Walker
* Clayton Day as Dennis Hendry
* Antonie Becker as Ellen Hendry
* Stephen Furst as Aldo
* Arliss Howard as Tom Cooper
* Stan Wilson as Vinnie Conrad
* Harry Bugin as Man at phone
WORK-IN-PROGRESS
Category:Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg