Atomic Testing Confidential

Proving that $2.92 cents will buy all kinds of strange things I recently came into possession of a 3 disc collection of 37 films entitled simply “Atomic Testing.”
The packaging proclaims “Over 13 hours” and I can only hope that included in that total is at least 8 hours of time not watching anything related to atomic testing. What kind of fresh hell have I bought with my $2.92. The next 13+ hours will tell.

Disc 1 is entitled The Atomic Age: A New Beginning but I get the feeling the title should have been The Atomic Age: A New Ending. It’s hard, now to think of a world without the threat of nuclear destruction hanging over it, but that world existed within living memory of our own time. Future generations will, on the one hand, have little conception of that world before atomic warfare and on the other hand, they will have no conception of the world that existed in the wake of the violent birth of the atomic age. For those future generations, it seems that films like these should be a necessary record of the hopes and fears, dreams and nightmares that were unleashed in 1945. A new beginning, an old ending, whatever you want to call it, here it was, here it is.

Alright, this disc just won an award for managing to creep me out right in the menu phase because it took me a while to notice that the large atomic symbol was smack dab in the pupil of an open eye that looks as dead as Janet Leigh’s eye in Psycho.

1. A Tale of Two Cities (1946) Army-Navy Screen Magazine
This War Department film is a rudimentary look at the devastation wrought by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The film begins abruptly with footage of the Trinity test in New Mexico. Even in black & white it is awe-inspiring and frightening, but before we can really process that explosion we see a map of Japan and a B-29 in flight. A diagrammatic map of Hiroshima is used to explain the target area and is trotted out again later as the zones of destruction are laid out on it.
8:15am, 6 August 1945. There is no footage of the Hiroshima explosion itself, so we are transported to the aftermath. The amazing thing isn’t the devastation and rubble, which in the grainy film look like an abandoned lot or a really trashed out backyard, it’s the fact that anything is left standing at all.
The surviving shells of buildings and stripped trees are the amazing thing in the landscape of destruction.
“The bomb was intentionally set to explode well above the zero point to dissipate its radioactivity.”
I wonder how that worked out.
We’re shown an empty flat field.
“This was the site of the main Japanese military headquarters. There were approximately 20,000 Japanese military personnel stationed here. They are among the missing.”
Missing? Missing implies they expect some of these people to rematerialize. I suppose it’s a kinder word to use than “vaporized” or “disintegrated” but really…”missing?” The “atomic wind of death” does not render people “missing.”
Still, the point here is to emphasize that these were 20,000 soldiers. They were in a war and they knew what the consequences of that could be, even if they had no earthly clue about the scientific advancement that would turn them into dust in an instant.
Of course, every technologically complex offense inevitably has a low-tech defensive measure that can be employed against it.
So, much of the rest of this film is a salute to reinforced concrete. Within 1 and 1 ½ miles reinforced concrete buildings were the only type that survived in any form. We see the remnants of a railway station and Hiroshima city hall and are treated to an analysis of the blasts effects on windows and doors.
“Amazingly enough bridges did not suffer too badly at Hiroshima.”
I can hardly believe that phrase, just like I can hardly believe the sight of people and cars moving on the roads in the ruined city as life goes on, even in Hiroshima, “The first city in history to be atom-bombed into oblivion.” That’s a terrifying phrase to hear in this matter-of-fact newsreel style. Of course, in this film we’re about to see footage from the second city in history to be atom-bombed into oblivion, so I suppose the implication that there will be more cities destroyed is strictly-speaking quite accurate. That doesn’t make it any less disturbing.
Now the action moves 4 miles away to the novitiate of the Jesuits. A Jesuit priest gives an eyewitness account of the flash of light from the bomb and the splinters from the window frames—glass melting into the walls. He estimates the death toll at 100,000. He is sitting at a table at what is clearly a press conference. He looks to be in decent health. He gets a question from off-camera: “What do you think of the story that the ruins of the city emit deadly rays?” “I think it’s just a rumor…” He says people who went into the city in the immediate aftermath are fine. There are no “deadly rays” and radiation poisoning in Hiroshima is just a myth. This is 1946. I wonder how many people vehemently defended this view and for how long. I wonder how many people were accused of treason for doubting this view. I wonder what happened to the Jesuit. Did he die of cancer?
I don’t have much time to wonder. We’re off to Nagasaki to destroy another city.
We are given military reasons for targeting Nagasaki because of the proximity of “Japan’s greatest torpedo plant” to the north of the city and the steel and arms works in the heart of the city. The bomb is dropped in between these two places to maximize the military effect.
“Surrounding hills shielded most residential areas” so the bomb affected the industrial heart of the city. There is plenty of truth to this. Think of the nearest city to you. Think of a B-29 dropping Fat Man or Little Boy over the geographic center of it. More of the city will survive than not. It’s horrific, and yet at the same time, you can see the military point of view. Knock out military capability rapidly—everyone else is collateral damage. (And if they should finally be so terrified by the bomb that they surrender—then it’s just a job well done.) That’s the lesson being touted in 1946.

But now it’s 10:58am, 9 August 1945.
We see the mushroom cloud as the bomb explodes. It looks so small, but down there in that grainy picture tens of thousands have perished from this earth in an instant. Even at this historical remove it feels disgusting. I wonder if this is the ultimate snuff film. Why would anyone bother with movies like Saw when you can just watch this brief moment over and over again? It’s the real thing. People must not be nearly as sick as they want to pretend to be to get their kicks if they bother with torture porn and S&M.
Here’s a whole city being eliminated. Do they have to be strapped to the ruins in leather straps to get your attention?
We see the mushroom cloud going up into the sky. It’s so iconic now that it’s hard to believe this is the one that actually killed people.
“In the towering mushroom Japan could read its doom…this was more than an routine bombing, it was the funeral pyre of an aggressor nation.”
And there it is: Sic semper tyrannis. It’s a morality lesson for “aggressor nations” one which maybe bears repeating again and again. You shouldn’t go out pushing people around, because you never know when all that pushing leads to something like this. I wonder if anybody ever really learns that lesson until they’ve actually been brought to their knees and humbled. I wonder, but I’d just as soon not have to see it for myself. You’d think some people would learn some humility beforehand. But no, people see what they want to see.

Now we see the skeletons of the Mitsubishi plant.
“Before the blast these were modern buildings constructed like our own American factories…”
Now at most there are some twisted bits of steel and a few things still standing.
“And roads were unaffected, people using them without ill effect shortly after the explosion”
Without any immediate ill effect…I wouldn’t go drinking the water.
“The ruins revealed without a doubt the shadow factories that the Japanese had set up in the nearby residential areas of the industrial valley.”
Again, we see the eagerness to justify the military necessity for the brutality of destroying a whole city. That is the minor ethical line between the civilized destroyers and the uncivilized kind—the civilized will justify things in terms of a provocation or a necessity. The really evil won’t bother with justifications and won’t establish any limits to their violence. But that line, as we can see around us, is thin, hazy or sometimes nonexistent.
“The world’s greatest minds in science statecraft and military matters are wrestling with the problems created by the atom.”
Still wrestling…
We are shown the shadow of someone who was standing on a bridge during the blast. It is a symbol of “The average man, regardless of his race or creed.” “Atomic footprints on the sands of time…”
Here is the future of mankind, the shadow seems to say.
A big question mark appears on the screen.
“Atomic power puts the question squarely to mankind.”
And the question is…what the fuck do we do now? And there is no answer.

2. The Atom Strikes! (1945) Army Signal Corps Pictorial Division
This film details an American mission sent by the Manhattan Engineer District to document the destruction from the atomic bombs. It shares roughly the same structure and footage as the later “Tale of Two Cities” but with much lengthier assessment of the damage. The result is an oddly clinical film for the most part and again a salute to reinforced concrete.
The opening footage from the Trinity test is more extensive in this film and includes three different angles on “The most concentrated release of energy in the history of mankind.” The destructive power is downright operatic.
And then it’s back to Hiroshima, mon amour, which this time includes pre-bombing footage of Japanese military parades and ship launching to emphasize the necessity of bombing.
“The city had never been subjected to actual bombing.” This seems like a grave oversight on the part of USAAF planners if its military capabilities were in fact so vital that they required an atomic weapon. But, I suppose they had to leave something standing from conventional bombing in case they wanted to make a demonstration.
Again we get the clinical bomb damage assessment. North, south, east, west…it’s all destruction, a complete leveling.
Again, it’s surprising that anything is left standing at all. There’s the base of the Russo-Japanese War Memorial. It’s been reduced to a wiped clean remnant.
There’s a lone concrete smokestack left standing in the midst of the rubble. Twisted steel beams, concrete walls are bent and broken.
A Shinto shrine’s polished granite has lost its polish and has been blasted by particles.
There’s an electric company building 1/10 of a mile from the zero point that is still standing, but Hiroshima Castle collapsed like a bunch of matchsticks.
One mile out, there was less blast force, but “fires of a secondary nature” caused widespread destruction.
Here’s the Red Cross hospital that “never ceased functioning” You can hardly believe that when you see what it looks like.

This is an extensive damage report, functional and clinical in tone. There seems to be an effort to survey the damage as an educational experience to suggest ideas for zoning and construction to limit damage from nuclear warfare in the future. The sheer length of the film is overwhelming as the film methodically reports damage.

And then there’s the extended version of the interview with Father Siemes the Jesuit from the Catholic University of Tokyo. He describes how there was no one to take charge of the recovery effort in the immediate aftermath. He denies the existence of “deadly rays” from the rubble. He’s asked about the Japanese reaction. “Neither myself nor anybody of our fathers heard a single outburst of hate against the Americans during those days.” He talks about how the Japanese were initially disdainful of the Americans until the tide of the war started turning and then “Practically every Japanese admired the technical skills of the Americans.”
Then the good father who doesn’t believe in deadly rays talks about how in total war there is no difference between civilians and soldiers.

“The business of living goes on…” 1945 was a bad year for that business.

And now we’re off to Nagasaki where “Almost the entire population of 230,000 people was engaged in the manufacture of arms, munitions and other war products.”
Well, then should they all be killed? Does paying taxes in wartime make you fair game in a bombing run?
See, it’s not the specifics of a war that bother anybody—in a war situation you have your side and you have the other side and everybody knows that it’s a nasty brutish business and you hope that at least your side is good enough to not roast infants on bayonets for dinner when things get nasty—but it’s when any side starts to make large theoretical statements based on their means of fighting a war and intellectual justifications for general use that you have to be wary, because those are the kind of arguments that work as much against you as for you. Would an a-bomb leveling Detroit have been justified in terms of everyone in the population being engaged in industrial war efforts? Or would Americans have cried bloody murder about all the incinerated innocents? The point is that once you get to a theoretical level in talking about killing in war the answers are harder to come by. That these questions are so difficult should give us pause in being so quick to resort to war. Because in the end, war is killing and cruelty and justifications for any of it very easily veer off the road to hypocrisy with a little examination. Better to call it necessity and pray for forgiveness than to create a framework of justifications for evil, because that slope gets real slippery real quick. (“We must exterminate the Hun, man and woman, every one.”)

Again we see the actual bomb exploding over Nagasaki. Of all the mushroom clouds caught on film this is still the hardest one to watch.

And now we’re back to the clinical bomb damage assessment—and the ode to reinforced concrete.
Roads weren’t ripped apart because of the height of the explosion and now, six weeks later the survivors are rebuilding.

“…Two B-29s. Two cities. The tabulation of that record speaks for itself.”

3. You Can Beat The A-Bomb (1950) RKO
Screenplay by Louis Alan based on an outline by Albert Gotlieb and Dr. Robert B. Pettengill in collaboration with The Council on Atomic Implications, Inc.
Directed by Walter Colmes

Oh, but wait, now it’s 1950 and suddenly other people have the bomb and we have to learn how to live with the ridiculous panic of massive destruction. The thing about these civil defense films is that they aren’t about an apocalypse the way popular fiction has come to deal with nuclear war. Now, granted, this is before the shadow of thermonuclear destruction changed the dynamic, but the point is that 5 years after the end of the Second World War people remember what bombed cities looked like, and even people who hadn’t had to live through it had an idea about the realities of it. The point of films like this, a point that we might do well to remember, is that you can’t just panic or turn into a raging hulk, that in the event of an emergency there are things to be done, and YOU are the one responsible for getting these things done.

Now, we can laugh about some of the misinformation about radiation in these films, and some of the ridiculous measures they encourage people to take (in order to keep them busy) but the one thing we can’t laugh at is that at one point we had a government and private industry that entrusted us with the notion that we have responsibilities, that the responsibility for civil defense lies squarely on the shoulders of the citizens. The point here is that at some point we stopped actually informing the populace about their duties as citizens in time of dire emergency. We, as citizens, passed the buck to our elected and appointed representatives to “take care of things” so that we didn’t have to think about those things. When I think about that difference between 1950 and 2009 I have to say that I feel a loss. We don’t have block wardens in suburbia. There are no bomb shelters or fallout shelters (actually, I know of two within a half hour drive, but I’m not going to advertise them here) instead our version of an air raid siren is a color coded travel guide of threats and the occasional warning to put duct tape around our windows and to keep a bit extra to put on our mouths so we don’t make a fuss as our rights go the same place our responsibilities have gone to.

Meanwhile back in 1950 it’s time to learn about Gravity, Electromagnetic Force and Atomic Power.
We are introduced to the joys of the Geiger counter.
At last, an educational style film with little dramatized moments. A man standing next to a Geiger counter is told the dial of his watch has radioactivity and he’s excited by it.
“Say, what is that clicking?”
“You must be radioactive…” Oh, crap, I’m a dead man? No, silly, it’s just your watch dial.
“Well, what do you know about that? I’ve been carrying radioactivity around with me and didn’t even know it!”
He seems so genuinely enthused about carrying radioactive material on him that I bet we could have convinced him to keep a backpack full of nuclear waste on him.
We are told about radioactive medicines which means that we have “atomic weapons to save lives.”

“But what about the atom bomb?”
Yeah, what about the atom bomb? Is it really that dangerous? Should we be worried about it?
Speaking about nuclear power in terms of the atom bomb, well, “it’s the same as speaking about electricity in terms of the electric chair.”
Really? Even if the Red Chinese get it? Won’t that be the end of the world? Surely we can’t trust the Germans and the Japanese with nuclear power?
Can we just repeat that for the benefit of the people of 2009? Speaking about nuclear power in terms of the atomic bomb is the same as speaking about electricity in terms of the electric chair.

So, what do we do if the worst happens?
Civil defense units will set up warning sirens, shelters, firefighting and medical teams.
“You know there’s a limit to what this a-bomb will do.”
Yeah. There’s a limit to—what?
The flash won’t blind you. Well, that’s a relief.
“Now as for the radiation of the bomb. The chances that it will change your ability to have children or that it will affect any future children you might have are less than one in a million.”
A room full of smug old men look around at each other and are practically high-fiving each other despite the fact that they all look like Harry Truman’s father.
“Radiation will not make a place uninhabitable forever. Possibly temporarily.”
In fact, I have summer home in downtown Nagasaki.
“No, the atom bomb will not blow up the world.”
Whew, that’s a relief. I spent my whole life worrying, but now I’m feeling alright.
“This radiation can be stopped.”
Really? How?
6 ft of earth, 5 ft of concrete or 1 ft of steel are sufficient protection against radioactivity.
No problem! I’m going into the backyard right now to get things fixed.
More dramatizations follow. I love it when the man pulls the curtain to protect against the results of an atomic bomb in the upstairs of the house.
Heavy loose fitting all white clothing is the best protection if you’re outside. Unless you’re in the blast zone, in which case where whatever you want.
We get an exemplary family in the basement.
“Get under a sturdy object close to the wall.”
Okay, now what?
“Cover your face with your right arm.”
Not the left, you idiots! That’ll get you killed!
Air burst radiation will go straight into the air. No problem.
Their house is a mess, but at least it’s not burned down and the nubile daughter will be able to breed a new perky American race.

But what if you’re caught in the street when the bomb goes off?
“Get down! Flat on the ground!”
Get your right arm covering your face and left holding the back of your neck. Cover your mouth with a handkerchief, and above all, pray that you’re over a mile and a half from the detonation otherwise all of this covering of things left or right is pointless.

Now we see what happens to a second family that had no warning. Their kid Buddy was out playing. Will he survive? You bet he does! The problem is…Buddy looks like he’s already a mutant child. Was that forehead of his a pre-existing condition?
Do they take Buddy to the hospital? No, because if he wasn’t exposed to too much radiation there’s no point in clogging the hospitals and you won’t really know for a little while anyway, so you might as well tough it out. How about that for childcare?

“Wouldn’t it be best to get out of the city?”
The 1950 answer is…No. You have to stay tight, don’t jam up the roads and tough it out, you pansies.

Now we go back to the first family in the basement for a demonstration of the water burst.
In a water burst there’s no danger from flash. At least there’s that.
The severe danger is from lingering radiation in the water and from the mist that will form.
Well, shit.
The father goes to make sure their basement window is in good shape.
“I think I got a breeze right now. A nice cool breeze of radioactive mist…”
That’s cold.
And then he proceeds to break the fourth wall while he washes his hands and face and explains to the camera how to be properly OCD about getting that cool breeze of radioactive mist off you.
“If you’re radioactive right now, daddy, does that mean that we can catch it from you?”
Well, only if…never mind.

But what about the H-Bomb? Doesn’t that just mean the end of the world?
Nope, sorry, even in the even of a hydrogen bomb you still have to suck it up, go into the basement, wash your hands a lot and eat canned food with that big-headed kid and the rest of your homely family until the all-clear is sounded and you can see what’s left of your home and city.
The damage would be the same type of damage, only at least 10 times as great so that it would be over an equivalent greater distance. A matter of distance and degree—not kind. Well, crapcakes.

This film ends with a big plug for the UN at the end as a means of preserving peace. Boy, doesn’t that make you nostalgic?
“It is the hope of civilization that the harnessed power of the atom will work for the good of mankind.”

4. Atomic Alert (Elementary Version) 1951 Encyclopaedia Brittanica Films, Inc.

The creepy close-up eye! The one in the main menu! It’s in the intro to this film! Who thought that would be a good idea?

Notwithstanding the creepy Janet Leigh eye, this film is one of those delightful old-timey educational films with the occasional delightful animation. It’s not the best of its kind, but it does have some charming moments.
We get another Geiger counter demonstration and the watch trick again. (My watch has radiation? Awesome!)
“Radioactivity and radioactive materials have many peacetime uses.”
Like making watches glow…or making your boss’s hair fall out…and, of course, nuclear powered plumbing accessories.
“The chance of your being hurt by an atomic bomb is slight, but since there is a chance you must know how to protect yourself, to protect yourself you must know what a bomb does.”
Yeah, your chance of being hurt by an atomic bomb is slight, unless it actually happens, in which case your chances of being hurt by one increase by radical leaps and bounds.

“Any solid gives some protection. The thicker it is, the better.”
I can’t believe I’m going to go there, but…That’s what she said.
“We have the national defenses to stop an enemy and we all form a team to help each other through emergencies. You are on that team. So is your family…”
And this time, Jimmy, you didn’t get picked last.
Great animated sequences diagramming the linked nature of communities in the Civil Defense network here, and hey, look, it’s an operating government. I wonder what would happen if we replaced some of these members of Team Civil Defense with idiots who think they shouldn’t be responsible for doing their job? Well, now we need no longer wonder….
“We have a warning system and a system of defense.” Yes, we do.
“Like any team it can only win when every person knows his job and does it well. What is your job?”
Seriously, folks, what is your job? Have you thought about it lately? Maybe you should.

“Don’t try to make it home unless home is the nearest place to go.”
Because if the bombs fly, you get to pick out a new home.
“Everyone is in on this. Strangers will understand.”
Unless you walk right into their basement and immediately proceed to take a dump. Which raises an important question that none of these films seems to address…where do you take a dump in your basement shelter?
Sadly, that question isn’t answered by Ted and Suzy, the latchkey kids.
Hey, is that basement the same one the first family in the last film was in.
Now we get the really important instructions:
Put that jacket over your head. It’ll really help.
Find cover. Don’t look at the flash. Stretch out. Really stretch yourself…yeah, that’s good.
Stay down for about 1 minute. Then the immediate danger is over. Which, if you think about it is about right, because if a nuclear weapon has just exploded and you’re not dead a minute later, the immediate danger IS over.
Shed your outer garments. Slowly…there you go.
“Ted and Sue are waiting for the all-clear.”
In the new version Ted and Sue are then told that while there is no all-clear and the danger is still with them they should go about there business as if nothing has happened because other people will take care of the dirty work for them.
Why don’t we have Civil Defense block wardens any more? Jeez, we really don’t have shit for communities anymore, do we?
Here comes the block warden and he’s got a dosimeter—thus prompting the important question, “What the hell is a dosimeter?”
And now it’s time for the lesson of the day:
“A good job! That’s what everyone must do to keep safe.”
That’s right, Brownie, you gotta actually do a heckuva job.
“In this early and troubled stage of the atomic age our very lives may depend on always being alert.”
In this late and still troubled stage of the atomic age our very civilization rests on the idea that being alert is what we pay private contractors to do so we can watch American Idol and update our Facebook status.

And just when you thought this film was safe to watch they come back with that Janet Leigh dead eye again. Enough with the eye!

5. The Atom and Biological Science (1952) Encyclopaedia Brittanica Films Inc.
Apparently between 1951 and 1952 so many people went insane watching that last film that Encyclopaedia Brittanica stopped using that creepy eye.
Now it’s exciting to use atomic energy for scientific purposes. And we get to learn all about the different kinds of rays: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Neutron.

“Gamma rays are particularly useful in the study of living things.”
Like making mutant corn by exposing it to cobalt gamma rays.
“Already a strain of corn that is especially resistant to fungus disease” is produced thanks to irradiation.
Radioactive carbon dioxide is piped into a greenhouse to see what happens.
A rat that has been fed radioactive table sugar and then his waste is collected and examined.
That’s right, we see “scientists” collecting rat poop.
Okay, this woman is now putting handfuls of rats into what looks like a coffee can. That can’t be good.
Medical uses include strapping radioactive beads to rats so that they get cancer and then can be studied.
Sure, go ahead.
They create something they call a Deuteron Cave to test radiation effects on tumors.
I’m about ready to see the film with the creepy eye again because this one is a bit of snoozefest. We don’t even find out if the rats got cancer. Not much more to be gained here.
Let’s hear it for the biological sciences!

6. What You Should Know About Biological Warfare (1951)
An official Civil Defense film

You wouldn’t think a film with this title would work as a cure for insomnia, but actually it is so dull that it will put you right to sleep despite the dire warnings of danger. This is probably due to the reassuring tone that the film presents about the measures that will be taken by the authorities in the event of a war. For the sake of posterity, I will explain this in simple terms:
See, we used to have a government that actually did things and planned for things that needed to be done. This was because we had a government that had only recently managed to put together some of the most amazing logistical feats ever accomplished by mankind in the course of World War II. All of this meant that people trusted the government when they said they would do things for us and they trusted that the people would do their part when the time came because, well, the people HAD done their part when the time had come before. There was a mutual trust between the government and the people. I hope there still is, but if recent years have been any indicator, that trust has been shaken—and on both fronts. If the people have lost some faith that the government will step forward and do their job, then it is equally true that the government has shown a real doubt that the people will do any kind of job. At any rate, back in the day, there was a mutual trust that the government would put together a team of folks who sort of knew what they were doing and that they would then put together a plan that the rest of us citizens could implement. This is how we did things like building highways and other major infrastructural improvements and also how we fought and won the biggest war ever.
Nowadays, we just trust that our semi-competent government will contract out to corporations who will then hire some of us to do all of that kind of thing for us so we can go about our daily business without having to worry about our part in it all. We sure have come a long way.

So, what should you know about biological warfare circa 1951?
“Denied the products of our farms and factories we could not wage war on any front.”
Which is to say, denied the products of ADM and the factories of China, we could not wage war on any front.
“We can be attacked despite our excellent defenses.”
Even with a missile defense system? What if we have a really good missile defense system? Oh, no, we’re vulnerable! We should do something rash and panic, right? After all, people say “Germ warfare can wipe out an entire city.”
Oh, but here’s the reassuring tone again. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Well, that’s a relief. We’re told that biological weapons fall into 3 categories: Germs, Toxins, and Plant Growth Regulators.

But don’t you worry your little old head about the details.
“Government regulations assure the purity of many food products.”
I guess regulation ain’t so bad. See, the reason we have the USDA may be because of domestic concerns that business interests might find reasons to want to work around, but the reason to keep that sort of thing honest and strict is because in the end…SAFETY REGULATION OF FOOD PRODUCTS IS A MATTER OF NATIONAL SECURITY.

“Keep yourself and your family clean.”
Some really spotty transfers on this film so that it feels like it’s hiccoughing along the way, but I think the gist of it is that we shouldn’t live like filthy hoboes, because CLEANLINESS IS A MATTER OF NATIONAL SECURITY.

What I really enjoy about this film is the reassuring tone.
“Above all don’t listen to scare talk, rumor or myths.”
You got that folks? Don’t listen to scare talk, rumor or myths. And above all, don’t listen to the teasers for the local news…or to the local news itself for that matter.

7. Operation Doorstep (1953) Produced by Byron Incorporated

If you’re scared of mannequins in black & white then this is going to be a very creepy film.
Operation Doorstep documents the effects of a nuclear blast on houses and cars and clothes…and mannequins. So, if you’ve ever wondered whether your vintage 1952 Studebaker will survive a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union, here’s your answer.
The film begins with a caravan of passenger cars leaving Las Vegas to be left out in Yucca Flat to be destroyed. I like how the narrator says the cars are “loaned” by dealers. Loaned? Really? Did anyone want a glowing green car back? I can only imagine the games a used car salesman would have to play to unload a radioactive lemon on some poor suckers.

The time is March 1953. At 2am troops move into trenches 2 miles from ground zero and they are joined by Civil Defense Administrator Val Peterson.

At 5:20am the bomb is detonated.
There are houses at 1250ft and 1450ft away from ground zero.
House #1 is blasted off the face of the earth in 2.3 seconds thus imparting the important lesson that you should never buy a house that is only 1250 feet away from the target of a nuclear weapon.
Meanwhile, 2 miles away there are no effects from blast or radiation—at least, no immediate effects.

The rest of this film is yet another love song to the benefits of building your own shelter and it’s hard to argue with the results they show. Because if you want to protect your collection of mannequins, then you really should build some form of shelter—with a basement lean-to being the barest minimum you can do to protect your precious mannequins.

Think about these results: House #1, nearest ground zero “first floor disintegrated, second floor collapsed” but in the lean-to shelter in the basement someone (or their mannequin) might have been able to survive.
In House #2 the box shelter in the basement leaves the mannequins intact. Granted, an outdoor shelter is the best protection for mannequins, but as you can plainly see, a little bit of protection in the basement will keep your mannequins from being singed or otherwise damaged by effects from the blast.

“Today there is no second-best for family civil defense.”
But tomorrow, you can be sure that we’ll have to settle for FEMA.
“Or will you, like a mannequin, just sit and wait?”
Ooh, burn! Isn’t that so clever how you showed all those creepy mannequins for the whole film just for that punch line?

8. A is for Atom (1952) General Electric Company directed by Carl Urbano, story by True Boardman

This short film is a gem of animation. It is simply a superior piece of filmmaking and is one of the few films in this collection that you can watch multiple times.
It begins with something that would make the black-helicopter conspiracy theorists cringe.
The United Nations seal and building rise from an animated city like a white knight as the narrator says:
“All men of good will earnestly hope that a realistic control of atomic weapons can and will be achieved…”
Sure, sure, that’s great, but what about men of less than good will? It’s interesting how the idea of a formal world body of law and order has been replaced in our time by the idea of an informal expression of world consensus through the use of power. It’s as if we’ve given up on the idea of law and given in to the notion that a protection racket does the same thing as police only cheaper and with fewer problems. Sorry, idealism of 1952, but that part of your dreams didn’t work out so hot.
As for your other dream, though, “…a dream as old as man…a giant of limitless power at man’s command…”…well, I didn’t realize that mankind’s oldest dream has been to have a Golem at one’s beck and call.

At any rate, A is for Atom really takes off with the introduction of our main character, Dr. Atom, a professor wearing a mortar board over his atomic structure head. Dr. Atom is so charming and well-educated. He puts those fellows on Mad Men to shame with his savoir faire.
Dr. Atom now introduces us to the periodic table of elements, proving that this film is a real hoot, and quite informative to boot.
I really like how the periodic table is redefined as a neighborhood where each “Atom Family” element lives in a little house like a nuclear family.
Gold wears a top hat and lives in a fancy house, Uranium wears a black tie tuxedo with tails.
Tin is like a little Irish family with lots of little isotopes running around. Aluminum, on the other hand, is a life-long bachelor living by himself in his little house.
Radium, meanwhile, is a real jazz-age throwback, dancing up a storm in his living room as a demonstration of its instability.
Now, this is science I can really enjoy.
“Particle accelerators commonly called atom-smashers” or as we call them in our less than fun contemporary lingo, “particle accelerators.”
The animation is really neat throughout, though never more so than in the town of the Periodic Table.
The explosion of atomic energy turns into Einstein’s head. Nicely done.
The brilliance of this film is how it brings the science to us in ways that are easily understood.
e.g. It would take Yankee stadium filled with dynamite to equal the power contained in a single baseball of Uranium 235.
Or, put another way, it would take a Wrigley Field worth of people on treadmills coked up on a Fenway Park filled with cocaine running for whole decade to equal the power released by a baseball made of Uranium.

“An atomic energy plant has already proved feasible.” Nice to know that only seven years after Hiroshima atomic energy is considered feasible.
Nuclear powered ships, sure, trains—umm, a little scary and “very large airplanes”? Whoa there, utopians! Now you’re just talking crazy talk. It’s one thing to promise floating cars, but nuclear powered trains and airplanes are just plain insane. Except, of course for the fact that such transportation, if designed effectively could reduce reliance on fossil fuels to the barest minimum. Dang! What a brilliant, but now completely unfeasible plan. But think about it. If American industry had put its mind to it circa 1952 to design and implement a large scale project to make nuclear mass transit possible we might not have had to behave like complete tools around the world in the effort to maintain sole control and access to fossil fuel deposits. Now, we would have still done a lot of dirt to people in the effort to keep them going red, but we might have been a little less high handed about things related to petroleum which might have been nice. My kingdom for a nuclear powered train!

Oh well, at least we have the little people with atom heads in this cartoon to keep us warm with laughter, like when the Private “I”sotopes” show up to solve problems all over the place. I really wanted the Private I-Sotope to gun down someone in order to get to the bottom of a racket, but alas, there’s no time for that kind of intricate plot in this short film.

Finally, we are told that atomic power has released not one giant but many: The Warrior, The Destroyer, The Engineer, The Farmer, The Healer, The Research Worker. (The Duke and the Duchess and the Doorman, too.)
“…But all are within man’s power, subject to his command. On man’s wisdom, on his firmness in the use of that power, depends now the future of his children and his children’s children in the new world of the Atomic Age.”
Depending on mankind? Well, I was beginning to think this was an optimistic film until that last line.

9. A New Look at the H-Bomb (1957)
With Val Peterson, Federal Civil Defense Administrator

So, this film pretty much makes mincemeat of the previous films in terms of what to expect in atomic warfare thanks to the developments of thermonuclear weapons. Val, who we last saw a mere 2 miles from an atomic explosion, must have finally gotten the memo about radioactive fallout and what it actually does to people, because he proceeds now to scare the living crap out of people.
Val shows us an artist’s conception of fallout and explains how small particles are sucked into the mushroom cloud, become highly radioactive and then fall to the earth with the wind.
“Radioactive fallout can occur from an absolutely clear sky.”
Clear, that is, except for whatever it was that set the fallout in motion.
“Now I am not here to try and frighten you. As a matter of fact, Americans just don’t scare easily anyway and it’s a good thing that they don’t in this atomic age…”
Ha ha. That’s a good one, Val. In the late atomic age we scare very easily and people try to frighten us all the time. That’s why we buy posthumous lawn care insurance and can be talked into torturing people’s cats in case they may have information about a possible attack. We scare very easily, Val Peterson. You should know something about that. In your time we scared so easy that we were worried that public toilets were a sign of Communism.
“With the smaller atomic weapons we did not have to worry about fallout.”
We didn’t have to worry about fallout in any sense of the word.
“If you are caught in the open around Ground Zero you don’t have to worry about radiation.”
Now, that’s some down home realism. If you’re caught in the open around ground zero, you’re toast and radiation is of no concern to you unless you tool around town in a mobilized easy chair encased in 5 feet of concrete.
So, what do we do Val? You’ve got me scared, even though I don’t scare easily. Well, there are two things to do—either evacuate the city or dig deep enough for shelter.
And who is our friend? Reinforced concrete is out friend. A basement shelter will provide good protection, but a simple underground shelter 3 ft under the ground will protect you from radiation.
“Radiation won’t contaminate the earth forever.”
It’ll just seem like forever.
“Civil Defense, like military defense, must be flexible and adaptable.”
Can we codify that in a manual and call it the Peterson Doctrine, or would that be too much paradox?
“And believe me, there are defenses…” There are? Well, that’s a load off my mind.
This is possibly one of the most dull films on here, but it does drive home the dangers of thermonuclear destruction in a way that the more chipper earlier atomic destruction films didn’t have to think about. You can think of it as a change of approach as the danger of small atomic bombs was simply a magnification of the dangers of having your city flattened the old-fashioned way, whereas the h-bomb suddenly combines all of the immediate destruction of aerial bombardment with the pestilence of the black plague.

10. The News Magazine of the Screen (Pathé News with The Detroit News)
This is a volume from a series that compiles newsreel footage (in this case, about nuclear developments) into a handy collection. The result is a great educational resource and, like all newsreels, much more entertaining than the sometimes equally vapid contemporary equivalents.
Herein we learn about:

i. Operation “Teapot” bomb test with 9,000 soldiers and a 100-inch camera to watch the explosion. “The familiar mushroom cloud snakes skyward…” Yes, that cloud is familiar, and yet so unreal now that we don’t test them in the open air anymore. The soldiers scramble to leave their positions to avoid fallout and are then quickly engaged in cleaning themselves up. “The lowly broom becomes an item of military significance.” Also an item of military significance: the A-bomb.

ii. First Atomic Submarine – USS Nautilus in Groton, CT Keel Laid June 14, 1952
The folks in Groton are hard at work on this new recruit in the silent service.

iii. First Films: Underground Atomic Blast
It’s not just an underground atomic blast; it’s the test of a very small nuclear device. “This weapon can reportedly be carried by one man.” That’s right folks: Reavers, we made them.
The upbeat narrator gives us a cheer for the development of “The Atomic Satchel.” And thus was born the arms race that would eventually lead to the hydrogen Trapper Keeper, the Plutonium Pocket Protector and finally the Neutron Fanny Pack.

iv. Mamie Eisenhower launches the USS Nautilus – “The Age of Atomic Navies is born.” 1954.
The Nautilus was eventually decommissioned in 1980 and is now a museum.

v. Britain explodes its 2nd Atomic Bomb in Australia
This film answers several questions. The first is: where did the UK do its bomb testing? Australia…it makes perfect sense. The second is: was there ever a time that the news in this country would actively cheer nuclear proliferation? The answer is right here. Hooray for proliferation!
“Scientists term the test a complete success—another milestone in the atomic age!”
Yay! More countries with nuclear weapons!

vi. The narrator tells us about how within the last 2 years there were 20 atomic blasts in the Nevada desert. Ah, halcyon days.

vii. The USAF is now able to fly planes through radioactive clouds.
Eyegear tests include an eye-patch sunglass, which is about the silliest thing ever.

viii. A B-50 “codenamed Rosebud” is loaded with an A-Bomb and we get the closest ever view of an atomic bomb being dropped onto a target. Nice shot.
“This is the story of America’s ever expanding atomic weapons program”
EVER EXPANDING? Terrific.

ix. On the corner of fake Main St. and fake Elm St. a fake house is loaded with mannequins. I have to admit that the scene with the sergeant putting a chesty mannequin with a painted on bustier into a bed feels a little bit intrusive and a big bit hilarious. He spends just a little too much time tucking her in.
This is the same test of cars as we saw in Operation Doorstep.
Soldiers take their places n the trenches as we saw in the other film. They are the closest to an explosion anyone’s gotten since Hiroshima and Nagasaki—which, admittedly was a lot closer than anyone’s ever been.
Troops are unable to penetrate to the center of the blast area because of the radiation.
On the bright side, the mannequins in the basement bomb shelter are found to be unharmed. Granted, they didn’t have to breathe air…
“This could be your house and your window.” But, it isn’t.
“The stronger our homefront defense the less chance that an atomic attack will come.”
I don’t know if I can completely concur with the deterrent capability of effective civil defense. It seems to me that the value of being able to effectively absorb a blow and recover is much more effective as a surprise to an overconfident enemy that would launch an attack confident of success no matter what the defenses are.

x. “This is atomic energy. This is the force of 20th century man a powerful force for destruction a force that may be preventing a new world war.” Well at least it’s preventing a new world war…
Now we see a dangerously radioactive metal rod—just like one that Homer Simpson has in the opening credits of the The Simpsons. We are introduced to some basic robotics including the unfortunately named “master-slave manipulator.”
We get an overview of the old security entrances at atomic sites that seem so quaint now as well as the Los Alamos mounted security patrols. The Atomic Mounties would be my favorite, but they’re in close competition with the giant anti-aircraft guns at Hanford, Washington. Now that’s some serious civil defense. They have to keep the place from being hit by aircraft while biologists test radioactivity on fish.
That’s right. Reaver Salmon—they made them.
We are assured that there’s “not enough radioactivity to harm the fish or people eating them.”
I’ll have the salmon a la Hanford with the plutonium remoulade please.
They also feed radioactive pellets to sheep in this clip. You can have the salmon or the lamb chops but either way, your food has a half-life. Enjoy.

xi. Meanwhile a patient at Oak Ridge drinks an “Atomic Cocktail” which (I hope) is for a real ailment and not for Nuclear Rickets. Mmm-mmm good. That’s some powerful medicine.

xii. The H Bomb
Eniwetok 1952—the world’s first hydrogen bomb will be detonated at Elugelap.
The cloud goes up 10 miles. The footage here isn’t that great.
The island is gone—replaced by a crater.

xiii “Survival Town” Atom test.
Tanks take part in atomic maneuevers. The dust from the blast flies over a trench filled with soldiers. That can’t be good for them. Survival town isn’t going to make it, is it? No, Little Sally, Survival Town isn’t going to make it. Not unless it’s made entirely of reinforced concrete. “Concrete or cinder block houses weathered the best.”
And, of course, we have to turn ourselves into mannequins to increase our odds of survival.
That was quite a collection of newsreels strung together. Thanks Warner Brothers. I won’t sleep again.

11. Operation Hardtack (1959)
Operation Hardtack consisted of 72 atomic tests. This series of films is perfect for someone looking to be put to sleep but then suddenly woken up by disturbing nightmares.

Part 1 Basic Effects
Brought to you by The Defense Atomic Support Agency
Here we are put through the paces of Basic Effects: Structures and Materiel.
Sound like fun? No? Well, you can skip ahead to the more interesting parts.
Welcome to the Cactus and Koa detonations. There’s some great film of the preparations.
The tone is scientific and detailed, with some informative animations that don’t make it any less dull.
The guy putting the instruments in place needs to put his shirt back on before he adds skin cancer to the list of ailments that will plague him from his line of work.
A lot of data explained are too complicated (or too classified) or too inconclusive for this film to draw much in the way of conclusions.
Rockets are fired to test the mushroom cloud, but the rockets fail to provide any data. B-57 and WB-50 air sampling was more successful.
In either case, the plane and rocket footage is great from an aviation perspective. The aircraft testing is the best part of this film, certainly the most photogenic.
My personal favorite is the testing of the B-52, first tested in Operation Redwing and the A-4D
And FJ-4. The B-52 test in particular is really interesting as this test helped determine whether a B-52 would actually survive a bombing run. The underside of an FJ4 is showed with various degrees of blistering and scorch marks from the test.

In other tests fuses are exposed to neutron and gamma dosages. Resistors, transistors, vacuum tubes and fuses are all tested.
Skin simulants, uniforms, metal ablation are all included in the tests. (Because when you’ve got 72 tests, you might as well check everything.)
The film concludes with a summary of the general results of the testing.

Part 2: High Altitude Tests
Okay, this one has a bit more excitement than just a B-52.
This film starts with a ballistic missile launch and the excitement begins.
Prior to 1958 there had been only 2 atomic tests higher than 10,000ft (Operation Teapot, seen here in color, and the 1957 Plumbbob detonation as shown here.)
Now, the plan was to do some serious high-altitude testing: Yucca, planned for 85000ft, Teak for 250,000ft and Orange at 141,000ft.
Yucca was put on a balloon and launched from the USS Boxer. That’s right, it was an atomic bomb ON A FREAKING BALLOON.
The data collection was supposed to be managed with 2 modified B-36s at 12 miles away, a P-2B 15 miles away measuring infrared phenomena and various instruments on the balloon lines.
1440 hrs, 28 April 1958 at 85,000ft the Yucca weapon was detonated by radio command.
The balloon line devices failed to operate properly, but the aircraft data were good.
Again. This was a NUCLEAR WEAPON ON A BALLOON. Why not just put one a little red wagon next time?

Teak and Orange, meanwhile, were fired from Johnston Island. Redstone missiles were launched with detachable pods to collect data.
The Teak missile was launched on 1 August. It was supposed to go 6 miles away, but “due to a programming failure” it exploded directly over the island. You can see the scientists scrambling back into their shelter. Oops.
Orange went a little more smoothly on 12 August traveling 26 miles away from the island before detonation. The missile launch footage is very colorful.

Then we have the Chorioretinal Damage tests. This is the hardest to bear, because they’re basically blinding a bunch of very large rabbits.
I understand the need for this from a scientific perspective, but why did they have to use bunnies? Why couldn’t they blind a bunch of rats?
The rabbits are on the island, and on a ship and in a plane. I know these rabbits are long since deceased, but I still feel bad for them.
Granted, there’s a moment there where the image of them in their stocks is really absurd, but I still don’t think it’s funny.
I suppose there’s some valuable data here. The flash occurs before blink reflex can set in, which can cause chorioretinal damage.

The high altitude tests were in part designed to see what the possibilities are to use nuclear missiles to destroy incoming nuclear missiles. I suppose you could just put up a large field of massive nuclear armed balloons and use them as anti-ballistic missile devices. Why not?
The film wraps up with electromagnetic effects on communications. Guam, Christmas, Kwajalein, Johnson, Oahu communications were all affected by the explosions, as noted by cosmic noise receivers on Johnston, French Frigate Shoals and Oahu.
There’s another dull summary at the end, if you managed to stay awake through the bunny tortures and the communication tests.

Part 3 Underwater Tests
I can only hope this film doesn’t involve torturing otters or more rabbits or kittens.
Dolphins, stingrays and sharks are fine.
This is about determining safe standoff distances for anti-submarine nuclear weapons and kill ratios.
We start with some recycled footage from the Able shot 1946, followed by the 1955 Wigwam shot which was detonated underwater. There’s nothing like a big cloud of radioactive water going up into the sky to make for a pretty picture.

And now for our feature presentation: we get the 1958 Eniwetok Hardtack tests.
The Wahoo test device is submerged at 3,000 ft.
Target ships are put out.
A target Liberty ship with barges in between and 3 unmanned target destroyers
A submarine test on USS Tang (SS563) for effects.
USS Bonita observes at periscope depth. Another submarine is out with the surface observation ships.
The Wahoo deep water shot is amazing. A small pointed dome at first and then a big white sphere.
Umbrella shallow water shot. More of a tall peak that goes straight up. These explosions don’t look like destruction. They are deceptively attractive, like instant temporary mountains.

The merchant ship’s hull was only lightly damaged, but the machinery onboard was significantly damaged on the shallow water shot as it was for the destroyer closest to the explosion.

There are two studies on minefields.
One experiment to study the effectiveness of nuclear weapons to clear naval minefields.
(Seriously? How bad do you need to get through a naval blockade to do that?)
The other experiment is to see what the effect would be on mines in general. The results are mixed. Turns out a naval minefield has a good chance of surviving even a nuclear blast underwater.

The surface views are shown again. Wahoo goes up only 900 ft. The explosion and surge from the Wahoo shot are really photogenic. The Umbrella shot goes up 5,000 feet.
Flooding was negligible.

And just when it seems safe enough to wrap up this film sure enough, those look like dead bunnies they’re doing autopsies on to see the results of shipboard radiation exposure. Why bunnies? Why couldn’t they use chimps? Damn you, Cold War Scientists and your anti-Lapinism.

Bonus Features
1. Radio Interview – In the Marianas with Col. Paul W. Tibbetts (& others)
Still photos of the Enola Gay, the flight crew and the subsequent destruction of Hiroshima rotate while we get some lengthy pre-show music followed by a report from the Army Air Forces combat reporter in the Marianas Islands.
It is approximately 48 hours after the bombing of Hiroshima.
“The atomic bomb was not unleashed with any surge of elation or glory…”
We hear from Brig. General Thomas Farrell, Deputy Commanding General and Chief of Field Operations of the Manhattan Project.
Col. Paul W. Tibbetts talks for a bit, so does navigator Capt. Theodore Van Kirk, followed by Maj. Thomas Ferebee, the bombardier.
Farrell talks again about an effort that might have taken 30 years in peacetime and comparing it with an ordinary bomb “It would be like comparing elephants with fleas.”
The reporter asks “Do you think that Japan has any comparable weapon?”
Yeah, buddy. They've just been saving it all this time.
Of course not, otherwise it would be a pointless demonstration.
The crew was handpicked by Col. Tibbetts, and most of them had flown together in Europe so they trusted each other. And the kicker…they weren’t sure that the plane would be outside the range of concussion.
(That’s what all those peacetime tests are for.)

2. Counterspy “The Statue of Death” Part 1
A radioactive statue is being imported to create mayhem in this radio “thriller.” No wonder the age of radio died. This is no Shadow.