By Dawn’s Early Light
Unclear and Present Danger
Jamelle Bouie
4.7 • 660 Ratings
🗓️ 22 January 2022
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John discuss the 1990 made-for-TV movie “By Dawn’s Early Light.” Their conversation centers on the politics of nuclear weapons, what they mean for constitutional democracy, and how fear of nuclear weapons has been a potent political tool since the end of the Second World War.
“By Dawn’s Early Light” is available to stream for free on Amazon and YouTube, and is available for rent on iTunes.
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| 0:00.0 | We are under attack. We certainly wouldn't fire a missile with the Soviet Union. Now who the hell did? Four people. |
| 0:10.0 | Oh my God! |
| 0:11.0 | Three minutes. If we don't hit them hard and hit them now, we may never get the second chance. |
| 0:17.0 | In this one, sir, there are no military geniuses. Two choices. |
| 0:21.6 | The fate of this planet may be riding with you. |
| 0:23.6 | One Chance for Survival. |
| 0:25.6 | An all-star cast in the HBO original movie by Dawn's Early Light. |
| 0:29.6 | Premiers May 19th. The |
| 0:40.3 | The Welcome to Episode 7 of Unclear and Present Danger, a podcast about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s and what they say about the politics of that decade. |
| 1:10.9 | I'm Jamel Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times opinion section. |
| 1:14.5 | I'm John Gans. I write a column for Gawker. I have a newsletter called On Popular Front, |
| 1:19.5 | and I'm working on a book about American politics in the 1990s. |
| 1:23.3 | Today we are talking about the movie by Dawn's Early Light, released in 1990. |
| 1:29.1 | The movie is an HBO television movie. |
| 1:32.6 | This is back in the era where television movies are pretty common. |
| 1:36.6 | And this one had a pretty stacked cast. |
| 1:40.1 | It starred Powers Booth, Rebecca de Morne, James Earl Jones, Rip Torn, Martin Landau, |
| 1:47.8 | just a ton of very impressive actors. |
| 1:51.2 | It was directed by Jack Scholder, who I had never heard of until I looked at his filmography, |
| 1:58.6 | and he was mainly a horror director. |
| 2:00.4 | He directed Alone in the Dark, one of the best, |
| 2:02.9 | he also directed one of the best movies in the Nightmare on Elm Street series, which is the |
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