You won't be disappointed!

Let's be realistic.

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

The acting in this movie is really good.

As powerful and timely now as it was then and I agree it's something ALL world leaders should be required to view at least once a year! It's also much more genuine than Thirteen Days in which producer Kevin Costner inflated his role to make it appear that his character, Kenny McConnell, was closer to JFK than his own brother,the AG,Robert(the ONLY TIME nepotism worked)! Also I feel William Devane and Martin Sheen did EXCEPTIONAL jobs not only in mastering the distinctive Kennedy accent but their personalities and spirit-not to mention a slight physical resemblance(Devane including a reference to President Kennedy's physical difficulties-the use of the rocker&painfully reclining on the sofa)I saw it when it first aired and seeing it now(any advances in technology had no effect) all the performances, but especially theirs,took me right back to those heart-stopping moments! I have seen both William Devane and Martin Sheen in many other performances but I always remember this as some of their finest work! It's also a stunning reminder of how essential it is to have someone with a calm, intelligent, experienced, diplomatic mind in charge with the sole focus being not just on the protection of ALL Americans but ALL peoples of the world! This also supports the documents that were discovered decades later(Peter Jennings of ABC News did a documentary on them)regarding the last minute communication DIRECTLY between Kennedy and Khrushchev,who bypassed the "interference" of the others who favored war, and acknowledged that they BOTH wanted the same thing- PEACE for their people! Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of either current regimes of Russia or the United States! Oh it made me miss President Obama even more!

Long, long ago, when dinosaurs ruled the world and I was a college undergrad, I made an interesting discovery... at least it was interesting to ME. The discovery was this... unless it personally grabs him by the noogies and gives a sharp yank, John Q. Public doesn't give a rodent's rectum about history. As a History major, I was appalled to discover that my fellow undergrads didn't know about things that happened 5 years ago, and frankly didn't give a damn about them; if you go to 100 or 200 years ago, that's completely off the RADAR screen. We're seeing today that events that far back produce some really garbled, half remembered jingoistic pronouncements from the average person on the street... or even from wannabe political leaders, who should KNOW better, but instead give us fairy tales about Paul Revere ringing church bells to warn the British about not taking our guns away! In 1974, ABC-TV presented a production called "The Missiles Of October", covering Kennedy's Cuban missile crisis of a decade before. I wasn't aware that it was going to be broadcast. One evening in October, I went to the Boar's Head... the campus beer bar at my college. I was stunned by what I saw there. The place was packed, but the jukebox was shut down. Dead silence... except for the sound of a 21 inch TV set over the bar, presenting the ABC broadcast. EVERYONE... from the bookworms and nerds to the jocks... was absolutely mesmerized by the program. It connected with them immediately... and I understood immediately WHY it connected. I still remember the cold, leaden lump of raw, animal instinct fear that formed in my chest as I'd watched and listened to John F. Kennedy on TV a decade earlier while he informed the American people that nuclear weapons were being aimed at us from 90 miles off our southern coast. As a child of the Duck & Cover generation my first automatic thought wasn't comforting... I'm living in Chicago, and Chicago is a prime target. If this breaks loose, we're gonna get hit first. I wondered if a week from then I was still going to be alive... it was a 13 year old who was grappling for the first time with the concept of mortality. Yeah... the audience in the Boar's Head remembered. "The Missiles of October" grabbed 'em by the scrotum on a downhill pull.THIS was history that was up close and personal; they'd lived through it. "The Missiles of October" was a VERY well constructed bit of stagecraft, and is historically accurate.Over the years I've wanted to see it again. Now, I can; it's been released on DVD. Playing the part of JFK is William Devane; he did a great job with the role. As Nikita Krushchev we have Howard DaSilva... the irony here is overpowering because DaSilva was named before HUAC as a Communist sympathizer and was subsequently blacklisted. Now, he was playing the part of the most powerful member of the Communist Party who had ever been born. In an interesting bit of casting... a VERY young Martin Sheen plays Robert Kennedy. And he plays the hell out of it! Neamiah Persoff is Andre Gromyko, and Ralph Bellamy plays UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson. ABC sure didn't pinch pennies on the TALENT here. Everyone is top rate. The material presented is pretty historically accurate; the script is based on Robert Kennedy's book THIRTEEN DAYS. The DVD release is pretty good, but you have to keep in mind the technical limitations of the time when the production was mounted. This was done with analog cameras (probably the then state of the art Image Orthicon, or possibly the follow-up Vidicon cameras). Compared to current "chip" cameras, the image presentation is "soft"... but that works well with this material. It imparts a slightly dreamlike quality to the production. It's clear that they shot this to 2" Ampex videotape; in a very few spots, head switching errors (2 inch machines were fiddly devices and were notorious for head switching glitches)are momentarily present... but all in all, it's a pretty good DVD transfer. HIGHLY recommended !!! The movie 13 DAYS has better fireworks, and more Bells & Whistles... but "The Missiles of October" does a much better job with the back room diplomacy that brought the world back from the brink of nuclear war.

This really impressed me when first I viewed it in '74. The real standout was William Devane as JFK. One of the most realistic pieces of casting and portrayls I've seen! Only on the close ups could you tell that it was Devane. His accent and demeanour were perfection. In other words he was JFK! Everyone else was superb as was the story, camera work, direction etc. The casting was brilliant and more than that REAL! This was truly a winner from start to finish.

A must-see depiction of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. Focusing mostly on the Kennedy administration, this made-for-TV movie captures all the tension and emotion occurring inside the White House. It gives a real insider's view of how the American government operates. It also takes you inside the Kremlin giving you a glimpse how both sides dealt with the crisis. William Devane and Martin Sheen give excellent performances as Jack and Bobby Kennedy. The entire cast is top-notch. Don't bother with Thirteen Days, it pales by comparison. This is the real deal.