WarGames **** (1983, Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, John Wood, Ally Sheedy, Barry Corbin) – Classic Movie Review 9392

Director John Badham‘s 1983 thriller WarGames is a bang on target sci-fi fantasy adventure starring Matthew Broderick as teenage wiz kid David Lightman, who unwittingly taps his home computer into a top secret United States military super-computer that controls the US defence system, challenging him to a game between America and Russia, and almost sets off a nuclear war for real as the computer attempts to start World War Three.

Broderick is an extremely personable and feisty young hero and director Badham successfully juggles the thrills, laughs, suspense, romance and political satire.

It also stars Dabney Coleman, John Wood, Ally Sheedy, Barry Corbin, Dennis Lipscombe, Juanin Clay, Maury Chaykin and Michael Madsen.

It was nominated for three Oscars: Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (Lawrence Lasker, Walter F Parkes), Best Cinematography (William A Fraker) and Best Sound (Willie D. Burton, Michael J Kohut). It won a BAFTA for Best Sound.

It was a big hit. Costing $12,000,000, it grossed $79,567,667 in the US.

Original director Martin Brest was fired after 12 days of shooting after a disagreement with the producers and replaced with John Badham, who said that Brest had ‘taken a somewhat dark approach to the story and the way it was shot. It was my job to make it seem like they [Broderick and Sheedy] were having fun, and that it was exciting.’ Several of the scenes shot by Brest remain in the film.

Tom Mankiewicz said he wrote additional scenes during shooting that were used.

Also in the cast are Kent Williams, Joe Dorsey, Michael Ensign, Irving Metzman, William Bogert as Mr Lightman, Susan Davis, James Tolkan, David Clover, Drew Snyder, John Garber, Duncan Wilmore, Billy Ray Sharkey, John Spencer, Erik Stern, Gary Bisig, Gary Sexton, Jason Bernard, Jesse D Goins, Alan Blumenfeld, Len Lawson, Eddie Deezen, Stephen Lee, Lucinda Crosby, Stack Pierce, Art LeFleur, Brad David Berwick and James Ackerman.

WarGames is directed by John Badham, runs 112 minutes, is made by Sherwood Productions, Leonard Goldberg Company and United Artists, is released by MGM/UA Entertainment Company (1983) (US) and United International Pictures (UIP) (1983) (UK), is written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F Parkes, is shot in Metrocolor by William A Fraker, produced by Leonard Goldberg and Harold Schneider, scored by Arthur B Rubinstein, and designed by Angelo P Graham (Production Design/Art Direction).

Google held a 25th anniversary screening in 2008.

A sequel, WarGames: The Dead Code, was released direct to video in 2008.

Roger Ebert gave it a rave, calling it ‘an amazingly entertaining thriller’, ‘one of the best films so far this year’, with a ‘wonderful’ ending.

The War Operation Plan Response (WOPR) supercomputer in the film was a prop created in Culver City, California, by members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 44. It was designed by production designer and visual consultant Geoffrey Kirkland based on pictures of Forties and Fifties tabulating machines, metal furniture, consoles and cabinets.

WOPR was operated by a crew member sitting inside the computer, entering commands into an Apple II at the director’s instruction. The prop was broken up for scrap but a replica was built for a 2006 AT&T commercial.

William Bogert (1936–2020).

William Bogert, who appeared in Heaven Can Wait (1978). War Games (1983), Dog Day Afternoon (1975) and A Perfect Murder (1998), died at 83 on 12 January 2020.

He appeared in the 1964 TV ad for the Lyndon Johnson Campaign ‘Confessions of a Republican’ but also appeared in a 2016 updated version of the ‘Confessions of a Republican’ ad for the Hillary Clinton campaign. Though he had been a Republican all his life, he felt Donald Trump was not the kind of Republication he could endorse: ‘He scares me’.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9392

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