Unclear and Present Danger

By Jamelle Bouie and John GanzTV & Film Society & Culture History

Unclear and Present Danger episodes

February 19, 2022 The Russia House
On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John talk the 1990 John Le Carré adaptation “The Russia House,” starring Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer. They discuss the social base for intelligence work during the Cold War, the period of glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union, the politics of nostalgia and the film’s excellent wardrobe. You can rent “The Russia House” on iTunes or on Amazon.
Also, you might notice that we have a new logo. That is courtesy of the great Rachel Eck! You can find her on Instagram.
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John Ganz
Jamelle Bouie
Links from the episode!
The New York Times for December 25, 1990
Wikipedia article for glasnost and perestroika
John D. Skrentny’s “The Minority Rights Revolution” on the impact of the Cold War on liberal reforms in the United States.
1 hr 6 min
February 04, 2022 Hidden Agenda
In this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John tackle yet another movie about the Troubles, the 1990 film “Hidden Agenda.” This one, however, is more concerned with British politics than the well-being of the Irish people. They discuss Margaret Thatcher, talk a little about colonialism and the intra-European origins of racism, and complain about the dearth of well-made political thrillers. You can watch “Hidden Agenda” for free on Tubi.
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John Ganz
Jamelle Bouie
Links from the episode!
The New York Times for Wednesday November 21, 1990.
Cedric Robinson’s “Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition”
Alan J. Pakula’s 1974 film “The Parallax View.”

1 hr 7 min
January 22, 2022 By Dawn’s Early Light
In this episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John discuss the 1990 made-for-TV movie “By Dawn’s Early Light.” Their conversation centers on the politics of nuclear weapons, what they mean for constitutional democracy, and how fear of nuclear weapons has been a potent political tool since the end of the Second World War.
“By Dawn’s Early Light” is available to stream for free on Amazon and YouTube, and is available for rent on iTunes.
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John Ganz
Jamelle Bouie
Links from the episode!
New York Times frontpage for Saturday May 19, 1990.
Trailer for “The Day After”
Trailer for “Threads”
1 hr 2 min
January 07, 2022 The Fourth War
In the sixth episode of Unclear and Present Danger, John and Jamelle discuss “The Fourth War,” a late-period John Frankenheimer film about two crusty bastards who almost start the third world war over a personal grudge match. It looks like a TV movie and it’s not that interesting, but it was good fodder for a fruitful and fascinating conversation. Jamelle brings some 19th century American political history to the table, and John uses Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History” to get at some of the ideas in the film.
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John Ganz
Jamelle Bouie
Links from the episode!
New York Times front page for Friday, March 23, 1990
Janet Maslin’s New York Times review
Roger Ebert’s Chicago Sun-Times review
“The End of History?” by Francis Fukuyama, published in the Summer 1989 edition of The National Interest.
A book worth reading: The Slave Power: The Free North and Southern Domination, 1780–1860
1 hr 5 min
December 24, 2021 The Package
In this week’s episode, Jamelle and John talk “The Package,” the 1989 conspiracy thriller from Andrew Davis, and the first of many Andrew Davis movies to come on this podcast. They talk class tensions within the military, the age-old American fear of standing armies and military bureaucracies, the anti-politics inherent in conspiracy theorizing, the role of ideology in shaping the actions of key actors, and how the shadow of the JFK assassination hangs over this movie.
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John Ganz
Jamelle Bouie
Links from the episode!
The New York Times frontpage for August 25, 1989.
An information page for the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
The Wikipedia entry for “The Day of the Jackal.”
The Wikipedia entry for “The Manchurian Candidate.”
A little background on Nazis in the Chicago area.
1 hr
December 10, 2021 No Way Out
On this week's episode, Jamelle and John discuss the strange, surprisingly sleazy 1987 thriller No Way Out, starring Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman and Sean Young. Topics of discussion include Costner's strikingly bland persona, the contradictions within Reaganite conservatism, the futile quest for national unity, and the late 1980s as the last hurrah for the idea of the carefree white man.
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John Ganz
Jamelle Bouie
Links from the episode!
New York Times front page for August 14, 1987
New York Times review
Trailer for The Big Clock
Bob Dole's Washington Post obituary
1 hr 4 min
November 26, 2021 Clear and Present Danger
In this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John discuss the show’s namesake, “Clear and Present Danger,” the third and final “Jack Ryan” movie of the 1990s, whose politics are one part arch-cynicism about American foreign policy and one part naive liberal optimism about the integrity of the national security bureaucracy. Other topics include the film’s connection to the Iran-Contra scandal, the way that it touches on American memory of the Vietnam War, the fantasy of unlimited American power that animates this and other movies in the Tom Clancy oeuvre and, of course, Harrison Ford.
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John Ganz
Jamelle Bouie
Links from the episode!
New York Times frontpage for August 3, 1994
The Tom Clancy Companion
1994 Entertainment Weekly feature on “Clear and Present Danger”
1 hr 17 min
November 12, 2021 Patriot Games (feat. Will Rahn)
In this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John are joined by Will Rahn of Yahoo News to talk “Patriot Games,” the second Jack Ryan movie of the 1990s and the first to star Harrison Ford. They discuss Ross Perot and the 1992 presidential election, Irish nationalism (and Irish bars), the film’s unambiguously pro-C.I.A politics, WASP triumphalism and the politics of George H.W. Bush.
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John Ganz
Jamelle Bouie
Links from the episode!
New York Times for June 6, 1992
Janet Maslin’s New York times review
Roger Ebert’s review
1 hr 2 min
October 28, 2021 The Hunt for Red October
This is the first episode of Unclear and Present Danger, a new podcast by Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times and John Ganz, a freelance journalist writing a book on American politics in the 1990s. It is a podcast about the political thrillers of that decade, and what they said — or did not say — about the United States in the last years and immediate aftermath of the Cold War. We’re going to cover a wide range of movies, but we thought we would begin with a paradigmatic example of the genre, John McTiernan’s The Hunt for Red October, based on the best-selling Tom Clancy novel.
A quick correction: In the episode, Jamelle said that McTiernan went to jail for tax evasion. This was incorrect. He actually went to prison for lying to the FBI.
59 min

About Unclear and Present Danger

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New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie and freelance writer John Ganz delve into the world of 90s post-Cold War thrillers with Unclear and Present Danger, a podcast that explores America in an age…