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I have seen Juggernaut (1974) recently. There is a scene in the end of the movie when the bomb disposal expert, Fallon has to choose one of the two wires (red or blue) to cut in order to disarm the bomb. Finally, Fallon makes a choice by intuition.

I have seen the similar scenes in several other movies (one of the parts of Die Hard, for example).

So, my questions are: What was the first movie to introduce "cut the wire" bomb disposal? Is it Juggernaut itself?

A quick search on Google and IMDB didn't reveal any info.

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    Goldfinger (1964) has a bomb disposal scene. Don't remember how it was done though.
    – Mozan Sykol
    Commented Aug 28, 2012 at 15:17
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    @AnindyaMozumdar thanks for yet another link. I think the reference to Television Tropes in Bill the Lizard's answer has an explanation.
    – default locale
    Commented Aug 28, 2012 at 15:59
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    Another Time, Another Place (1958) has a bomb disposal scene. But it's a black and white film with no mention of the colours, and the sapper just cuts some insulation then four wires separately.
    – Hugo
    Commented Aug 29, 2012 at 5:06
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    Must be pre-Goldfinger. The sequence there is a spoof on the "which wire" idea, with Bond agonising over a choice, before the expert comes in and at 7 secs, "007", simply switches the bomb off!
    – The Wandering Dev Manager
    Commented Jun 12, 2013 at 12:48

3 Answers 3

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In Hogan’s Heroes, season 2 episode 8, “A Klink, A Bomb and a Short Fuse”, Hogan has to choose between cutting a black or white wire when diffusing a bomb. He correctly chooses the black wire after Colonel Klink suggests the white wire.

This episode came out in 1966, eight years before Juggernaut.

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    Thank you very much. Turns out I didn't check Live-Action TV section on TVTropes thoroughly enough :) Unlike Juggernaut this scene looks like a parody of something, so I hope to find an even earlier example.
    – default locale
    Commented Oct 23 at 12:43
  • @defaultlocale Same. I found this question while looking for an older example
    – Mike S
    Commented Oct 25 at 3:06
  • How is this (referencing a show from 1966) the accepted answer if the comments on the question have already listed a 1964 reference (12 years ago!), which in itself was very likely not the first?
    – O. R. Mapper
    Commented Oct 25 at 16:32
  • You can’t accept comments as answers. If you have a better answer, why are you complaining about this one instead of making one yourself?
    – Mike S
    Commented Oct 25 at 20:06
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    @O.R.Mapper Paradoxically, this isn't impossible :) Anyway, that's not necessarily the case here. It's very well possible that there's an earlier example in which the trope was played straight. Then it was subverted in Goldfinger, parodied in Hogan's Heroes, and played straight again in Juggernaut. The problem is, if such an example exists, nobody has mentioned it here yet. For now, all I can say is that Goldfinger doesn't meet the requirements.
    – default locale
    Commented Oct 26 at 21:05
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A lot of people seem to think Juggernaut is the earliest film to use the "wire dilemma" trope. I found references to it everywhere from Amazon reviews to rap lyrics. Slightly more reliable references include:

Movies you should own: Juggernaut (Terror on the Britannic)

The first film to develop the 'red wire/blue wire' dilemma, it's a tense piece directed by Richard 'Superman II' Lester, with dialogue by Alan 'Beiderbecke' Plater, that while featuring an all-star cast is in reality a mesmerising monologue by Harris and a musing on the nature of death. It's a movie you should own.

JUGGERNAUT (1974) - a very British disaster movie

There's a scene in the film that's famous, but you probably don’t realise it was shown here first. Where the crucial decision has to be made – to cut the blue wire or the red wire.

It's also the oldest film listed in Televison Tropes - Wire Dilemma article.

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    From Juggernaut's subtitles: "On no account cut the red wire before isolating the relay contacts."
    – Hugo
    Commented Aug 29, 2012 at 5:21
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One of the "deleted scenes" in Griffith's 1915 silent The Birth of a Nation had a red wire/blue wire bomb defusing dilemma. The scene was cut because the color issue didn't work in a B&W film.

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    That's interesting. Could you please add some references to your answer?
    – default locale
    Commented Aug 28, 2012 at 15:57
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    It was monochromatic, but not black and white.
    – luser droog
    Commented Feb 4, 2013 at 5:33
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    This would be insanely good if it was true, but it really needs a reference.
    – Prometheus
    Commented Jan 13, 2021 at 20:15
  • I wonder how many BW movies have color as an important plot point. Green for Danger is one.
    – Anton Sherwood
    Commented Oct 28 at 20:26

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