Film

This cult thriller is propelled by Tangerine Dream's ticking-stopwatch score, heightening the atmospherics and end-of-the-world Cold War paranoia. Hapless trombone player Harry (Edwards) and coffee shop waitress Julie (Winningham) meet at the La Brea Tar Pits and fall in puppy-dog love, but a planned rendezvous later that night is waylaid by a freak electrical outage and a non-functioning alarm clock. When an anonymous caller warns Harry that the Russians have launched World War III-and that Los Angeles will be obliterated by nuclear missiles in 50 minutes-, Harry scours the city in search of Julie rather than save himself.