Somewhere in Eastern Europe, a battle is about to begin.

It's not East versus West, nor us against them.

It's two proud heroes.

With no one left to fight, but each other.

Men of war.

In a time of peace, Roy Scheider,

Jogan Proknau, in a John Frankenheimer film,

The Fourth War. Welcome to Episode 6 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.

I'm Jamal Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times opinion section. I'm John Gans. I write a column for Gawker, and I'm working on a book about American politics in the early 90s.

Today we are talking about the Fourth War, the 1990 film from John Frankenheimer.

John Frankenheimer, if you are someone who likes movies, should be a pretty familiar name.

He directed the original, the Manchurian candidate, or the first adaptation of the book.

He directed the really terrific Seven Days in May, which there was a remake for HBO that will probably watch as part of this podcast starring Forrest Whitaker.

He directed Ronan later in the 90s, which is just an all-time great 90s thriller.

Good movie.

And he, I think his final film of the 90s or of this, one of his last films of his career,

Drainier Games with Ben Affleck, which isn't a very good movie, but I like it a whole lot.

The screenplay was by Stephen Peters, based on a novel by Peters, and Kenneth Ross, who wrote The Day of the Jackal and the Odessa file, two terrific

movies. We've talked about the Day of the Jackal before on this podcast. And cinematography was by

Jerry Fisher, who shot Highlander, one of my very favorite movies,

and then company business, another one of these post-Cold War movies we're going to talk about on this podcast.

The Fourth War stars Roy Snyder, Uy Rogen Proknow, Tim Reed, who has a quick parenthetical.

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