Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977)

Directed by

Robert Aldrich

Genre

heist film, science fiction film

Country

Germany, United States

Runtime

2h 02m

Rated

R

Rating

6.5 of 10 from 80 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A rogue US general breaks out of prison and seizes a nuclear missile silo. He threatens to start a world war unless the president reveals a secret document about the Vietnam War.

tensesuspensefulbleakpoliticalslow-burncerebralclaustrophobicgritty

What happens

Twilight's Last Gleaming is a 1977 American thriller film directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Burt Lancaster and Richard Widmark. The film was a West German/American co-production, shot mainly at the Bavaria Studios. Loosely based on a 1971 novel, Viper Three by Walter Wager, it tells the story of Lawrence Dell, a renegade United States Air Force general who escapes from a military prison and takes over an ICBM silo in Montana, threatening to launch the missiles and start World War III unless the US President reveals a top secret document to the American people about the Vietnam War. A split screen technique is used at several points in the movie to give the audience insight into the simultaneously occurring strands of the storyline. The film's title, which functions on several levels, is taken from "The Star-Spangled Banner", the national anthem of the United States: O say can you see, by the dawn's early light, / What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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