"Ladies and gentlemen, you've heard the reports that enemy planes are approaching. In less than three hours, an H-bomb might fall over Portland."
— Mayor Terry Schrunk
The Day Called X is a 1957 CBS mockumentary film dramatizing the evacuation of Portland, Oregon in response to news that nuclear bombers are approaching the city.
Compare what happens here with the ineffectual city council in Threads.
This day has the following tropes:
- And Knowing Is Half the Battle: The movie stresses how the city of Portland took proactive action to protect its citizens in the face of nuclear attack.
- Apathetic Citizens: A housewife is more worried about her children being late for school than the newspaper headlines warning of a world crisis, and she turns to the Women's pages instead. When the sirens sound, a mechanic goes on with his work thinking it's another drill. Averted with the majority of Portland citizens who, the film makes clear, voted in favour of being taxed to fund a million dollar civil defense plan.
- As Himself: Apart from Glenn Ford as The Narrator, everyone else in the film is a local Portland resident playing themselves.
- Atomic Hate: It's noted that Portland is around the size of Hiroshima.
- The Big Board: So big you need a mobile stair ladder to point things out on the mapboard.
- Cat Up a Tree: There's a series of scenes showing how it's just an average day in Portland. This includes police headquarters who are dealing with a cat up a tree report right before they get a phone call saying the bombers are on their way.
- Citywide Evacuation: The city has three hours and fifteen minutes from the first warning to evacuate the city. Fortunately Portland has an evacuation plan in place, and a prior rehearsal managed to evacuate the heart of the city in 34 minutes.The Narrator: The question is, at 10.45 on a day called X...will it work?
- Empathy Doll Shot: When a school is evacuated, a girl leaves her Minnie Mouse doll behind and there's a shot of it abandoned on the floor.
- Fallout Shelter Fail:
- The film informs us that the city shelter can support 300 people with food, water, electricity, beds, and breathable air for...a week? Let's hope the radiation had died down by then.
- When the shelter was converted into an emergency call center, workers complained of sick building syndrome, and it was eventually abandoned.
- Great Big Library of Everything: The shelter has microfilm backups of three million city documents, including city council minutes going back to 1851. Ironically the film itself has proven of interest to local history buffs.
- Hammer and Sickle Removed for Your Protection: The bombers are only referred to as "enemy" bombers even though there's no mention of a declaration of war.
- How We Got Here: The movie opens with Mayor Schrunk racing to the Kelly Butte Civil Defense Center where he announces that enemy aircraft might well be bombing Portland in less than three hours. We then flash back to dawn on that same day, where no-one's conscious of any danger except for some vague headlines in the newspaper.
- Insane Troll Logic: Civil defense director Jack Lowe states that if Portland is bombed "it may be hours or probably days" before they can get back into the city. He's referring to the blast zone of a hydrogen bomb!
- More Expendable Than You: 250 officials and their support staff go to the fallout shelter to enable continuity of government so society can continue After the End. A Citywide Evacuation takes place that will hopefully spare the majority of Portland's citizens. Essential services like power must continue however, so those workers stay. The Narrator says with Brutal Honesty, "These men are expendable." A team of firefighters also stay to fight a residential fire.
- No Ending: The film ends with Jack Lowe announcing that enemy bombers are overhead, and everyone waits in silence for what happens next.Glenn Ford: What happened after that moment, we leave you to contemplate.
- Post-Apocalyptic Traffic Jam: Averted; the traffic lights are set on green on the evacuation route. A police helicopter and motorcycle cops sort out bottlenecks, while roadblocks divert incoming traffic away from the city so all lanes can be used for outbound traffic. There's a few minor hitches but otherwise everything goes according to plan.
- Red Alert:"Attention all stations. Emergency. This is an air raid warning and CONELRAD radio alert. Repeat. This is an air raid warning and CONELRAD radio alert. Enemy aircraft are over the Aleutians."
- This Is Not a Drill: The message "AN ATTACK IS NOT TAKING PLACE" appears on the screen any time anyone on screen was mentioning anything that audiences might misconstrue as an actual, legitimate warning. Looks like CBS had taken the smack on the wrist they got in '38 to heart.
- Stiff Upper Lip: An American version. Thanks to the evacuation drills, everyone knows what to do and evacuates calmly. If anyone takes the opportunity to start stealing escape vehicles or Rape, Pillage, and Burn, we don't see it.
- Title Drop:The Narrator: There are no actors in this story, but there are a lot of people; the people of the city of Portland, Oregon; and what happened to them...or 'could' happen to them...on a day that we'll call X.
- We Interrupt This Program: Sports commentator John Carpenter is used to relay official instructions and CONELRAD warnings because he's a familiar and trusted voice.
- You Are in Command Now: Part of the Portland Plan involved changing the city charter to allow a legally-established line of succession if the current city authorities are killed.
