By Dawn's Early Light (1990) on Netflix
TV-1419901h 40mActionDramaThriller
Soviet dissidents fire a nuclear missile at Donetsk, and Soviet defenses answer with a strike on the United States. Major Cassidy and Captain Moreau fly a bomber toward the Soviet Union.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.8/104,696 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
When a missile fired from Turkey destroys the Ukrainian city of Donetsk, Soviet automated defense systems read it as an attack by the alliance and send a limited wave of intercontinental ballistic missiles toward the United States. Strategic Air Command scrambles its forces, and General Renning, its commander, presses the president for a large counterstrike. The Soviet leader tells the president that dissidents inside his government were responsible and asks him to hold back, offering to accept a strike of the same size but not a full attack. The president argues with Renning while American bombers take off, among them Polar Bear 1, flown by Major Cassidy with Captain Moreau as co-pilot.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about By Dawn's Early Light (1990)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- James Earl Jones was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Special, and Martin Landau lost the 1991 CableACE Award for Best Supporting Actor to his co-star from this film, Jones, who won for Heat Wave.
- The filmmakers added a romantic subplot between Moreau and Cassidy that is absent in the book, where the characters actually ridicule the idea of such a relationship between them.
- In the novel, the crisis is started by a deliberate Soviet attack to counter the US military buildup the Soviets cannot compete with, one of two major differences between the plot of the book and the film.
- The production used military hardware such as a B-52 bomber and a Boeing E-4, which enabled a realistic account of the Strategic Air Command in action.
