Beyond Reason

Next up is an obscure indie film from Australia. Beyond Reason (BR) was released in 1970 and probably did not see theatrical release beyond Australia. Yet, it’s nuclear-apocalypse topic has a lot in common with mainstream sci-fi films of the era, so it seemed a fun digression. BR was written, produced and directed by the same man, Giorgio Mangiamele. One-man-band projects usually suffer from lack of outside input, and BR is no exception. The cast is made up of local Australians. Some had television acting experience. A few had been in Mangiamele’s prior one-man-project, a film named Clay. Most of the cast were simply extras to fill out the crowd. BR is a basic bunker tale, told on a very tight budget.

Quick Plot Synopsis
At a large mental hospital institution, alarms sound. A nuclear strike is immanent. Staff and patients stream down stairs into a waiting bunker. Dr. White goes back up to fetch more people. He tells Rita (one of his higher-functioning patients) to close the bunker door if things look bad. She knows the combination. The earth shakes from explosions. Rita pushes the buttons and the big round metal door closes. Everyone is sealed in. More explosions buffet the bunker. Pounding and screaming is heard on the other side of the door. Under pressure from the others, Rita cannot remember the combination. Phone lines to the surface are dead. The closed circuit television shows only interference. Dr. Sullivan, Dr. DeGroot and nurse Marion are the only staff, with roughly 20 or so patients. For awhile, the tranquilizers hold out, and a relative (tense) calm is maintained. Richard, one of the patients, makes fixing the television his project. Eventually, the pills run out and tempers flare. Lydia is highly libidinous and prone to taking her shirt off. Marion goes libidinous too, and takes a romantic shine to Richard, who is becoming a somewhat sullen leader type. When Dr. DeGroot goes out to stop a brawl, Richard gets the pistol away from him and shoots him dead. Dr. Sullivan tries to maintain order, but the inmates are running the asylum. They try to tug the door open with a rope, but fail. Richard has the television fixed and says he’s seen the sun. Richard gives a monologue about the new world sweeping away all the unnatural things of the old world (laws, courts, rules) In another brawl, Rita taunts Charles, who then vows to kill her. When he has her trapped against the door, she remembers the combination. The door opens. They all go up to find rubble and ruins. Richard and another man hit Dr. Sullivan with bricks. The others (even Marion) join in stoning the doctor to death. They all then file out of the ruins into a bleak landscape. Fade in ballad. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
BR is another glimpse into how people of the Cold War era viewed the expected nuclear apocalypse. The bunker-view and all the metaphors are amusing food for thought.

Cold War Angle
The same sort of End Of The World As We Know It mindset that pervades many Cold War era stories is also at the core of BR. The premise that there would be a safe underground bunker stocked with a year’s worth of supplies was very much the Cold War way. The destruction when the patients emerge, is the total destruction people imagined.

Notes
Double Meaning — The title, “Beyond Reason”, gets mentioned literally when Dr. De Groot talks of the madness of everyone fighting a nuclear WWIII. Such mutually shared destruction was, in his words, “beyond reason.” Then, there is the “new world” in which the survivors are all mental patients following their instincts, not that old-world notion of reason.

Organ Rejection — The score in BR is like that old joke about the man hitting himself in the head with a hammer. Why are you doing that? his friend asks. Because if feels so good when I stop. The best part of the score in BR is when it’s not there. The warbley electronic keyboard (organ) is jarring and loud -- a migraine set to "music".

Natural Law — Even though writer/producer/director Mangiamele was born in the 1920s, so was of the “Greatest Generation”, he has the Richard character utter a rebelious-youth monologue about throwing off the old civilization and starting over with himself as the leader. Marion asks him what he could do for them. “Your world, your society, your imposed organization of all kinds. Laws and courts, and set ways of behavior. Nothing was natural. In the new world, it will be different. They’ll be free. I can give them freedom. They’ll obey their natural instincts.” Such was the common counter-culture philosophy. If it feels good, do it.

Anti-Establishment — Clearly symbolizing authority and structure, Dr. Sullivan tries to maintain order in the bunker. He berates Marion a couple times for having her nurse’s uniform unbuttoned. He breaks up fights. When the patients are lounging around lazily eating, Dr. Sullivan moves among them, taking away their dirty plates. When the door is finally opened, he leads them out. But when he finds a new supply of the tranquilizers he used to maintain order, he is quickly stoned and killed by the mob. Following Richard’s manifesto, the old order was to be swept aside.

Bottom line? BR is a very obscure film, so probably difficult to find any copies. Unless you happen to be a big fan of low-budget Australian indie films, bunker themes, or harsh electronic keyboard, BR might not be worth the effort to locate. But if, for some odd reason, BR were to be playing on television, fits in with films like Chosen Survivors and Twilgiht Zone’s “The Shelter” episode.

Atomic Angst Films

A great many classic science fiction films had Cold War themes at their roots. There were also many non-sci-fi films in the same era that sprang from the same roots. Listed below is a collection of those films that voiced Atomic Angst in a more direct, less allegorical, way. Devotees of old sci-fi will be able to recognize similar plot themes and tropes.

 Below is a list of AtomicAngst films in chronological order:

 Golden Age Motivation -- Introduction to this Atomic Angst collection.

The Red Menace -- A down-on-his-luck ex-G.I. becomes entangled in a cell of ruthless communists.

Seven Days to Noon -- An upset nuclear scientist steals an atomic bomb and threatens to blow up London if the UK doesn't abandon nukes.

The Whip Hand -- A reporter checks out a mysterious dead lake and stumbles upon a nest of communist agents.

High Treason -- British agents uncover a plot of home-grown communists to sabotage London's power grid.

Five -- A very early post-apocalypse tale of five people who survive the global nuclear war.

The Atomic City -- Communist agents kidnap the son of a nuclear scientist. The ransom is the secrets to the H-bomb.

Duck and Cover -- Civil Defense public service film to teach school children how to survive an atomic attack.

Split Second -- Escaped convicts take some hostages to aid their escape, but choose to hide out in a nuclear test area.

Hell and High Water -- A former WWII sub captain is recruited to discover a secret communist plot to drop an atom bomb.

Atomic Attack -- Television drama about a suburban family's life after New York City is bombed.

Rocket Attack U.S.A. -- Via collective hypnotism, several people in a bar experience what a communist attack and invasion would be like.

On The Beach -- Landmark movie about the last survivors of global nuclear war and how they each face their inevitable doom.

The World, The Flesh and The Devil -- Two men and one woman, sole survivors of a nuclear war. New hope clashes with old thinking.

The Last Woman on Earth -- Something kills all animal life on earth except a husband, wife and business friend who were scuba diving.

The Flight That Disappeared -- A nuclear physicist, mathematician and rocket designer are hijacked by the "unborn" of the future and put on trial.

The Beast of Yucca Flats -- Odd film about a Russian defector exposed to a nuclear test and becomes a deranged killer.

This is Not a Test -- A highway patrol deputy stops people at a roadblock before a nuclear attack. Tensions flare.

Panic in the Year Zero -- Atom bombs fall while a family vacation in the hills. They fight to survive amid privation and armed thugs.

Dr. Strangelove -- A dark comedy satire of errors that lead to the dropping of atomic bombs.

Fail Safe -- A serious drama about a chain of errors that lead to the dropping of atomic bombs.

The Bedford Incident -- A US Navy destroyer hunts a Soviet sub. Tensions run high and mistakes are made. The ship and sub exchange nuclear weapons.

The War Game -- A banned BBC film about how government and society break down after a nuclear attack on Britain.

The Last War -- 1961 Japanese film about a family caught in a world where a chain of errors unleash total nuclear doom.

Panic in the City -- A rogue communist agent builds a nuclear bomb in L.A. Agents have only a little time to discover where it is before it blows up.
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The Red Menace

While Republic Pictures' The Red Menace (RM) is in no way a science fiction film, it is surprisingly relevant to many 1950s sci-fi films. It was filmed and released (1949) when fears of communist subterfuge was ramping up. (more on this in the Notes section). Hollywood was criticized for making films that were soft on (if not favoring) communism. Several studios created anti-communist films. None of them were well regarded by the critics as being much more than B-grade propaganda (an easy epithet to sling around). RM is not a particularly deep film, and filled with preachy moments. Yet, an astute sci-fi fan can see the framework of later hidden-invader sci-fi films.

  Quick Plot Synopsis
The movie opens with Bill and Nina driving at night to escape someone. They stop for gas, but race off when they suspect the gas station attendant is tipping off one of "them." The narrator then takes the story into flashback. >> Bill Jones is a former G.I. complaining (angrily) to a bank employee about being swindled out of his GI bonus money by a shady real estate deal. He rants about the little guy being a victim, etc. A man named Jack overhears and befriends Bill, inviting him to a drink in a cozy bar he knows. The the bar are several operatives of the communist party, there to process recruits. A perky blonde named Molly moves in, inviting Bill up to her apartment. There is some talk of communism, but Bill is mostly keen on getting lucky. Playing the Party floozy upsets Henry, who has feelings for Molly. Molly's mother, then her priest, try to talk her out of her party loyalty and return home. She stands firm. Little by little, Bill lets himself get swept deeper into his new circle of friends' political agenda. He attends basement lectures and takes part in a demonstration outside a real estate office. Party zealot Yvonne urges the group to violence at a picket line. Bill, dismayed, is whisked away by Party veteran, Nina. Bill thinks he's going to get lucky again, but no. He gets slapped. Eventually, he and Nina slowly develop a bond as non-zealots. Yvonne, ever suspicious of any wavering in loyalty, gets frustrated Party poet, Henry in trouble for a poem that was not blindly, gushing about Marx. (In a nod to Orwell, Henry insisted on citing facts. The Party insisted on re-writing history.) Henry is outcast and ostracized. Molly gets in trouble for speaking to him. Henry kills himself by jumping out a window. Yvonne next gets Nina under a cloud of suspicion. The increasing violence and lies have both Bill and Nina questioning Party membership. Later, Molly decides to return to her church, where Father Leary and her mother welcome her back. Sam, the african-american copy writer for the communist newspaper (The Toiler), is urged by his father to come back home. He does. Yvonne is picked up by Immigration agents. Her stolen identity unravels. Her unhinged psyche does too, and she's taken away laughing maniacally that the revolution will get them all. Meanwhile, Bill talks Nina into running away with him that night. Two Party thugs watching her apartment try to stop them, but Bill beats them up. They drive away into the night. (Now the flashback has caught up to where the movie began.) They stop in a small (old-west style) town of Talbot, Texas to give themselves up. The ol' west sheriff listens to their tale, but tells them they're not criminals. Instead, they should settle down together and have good ol' American babies. Bill and Nina like the idea, agree to get married and share a long kiss. The End (with footage of the Statue of Liberty under a few lines of "My Country Tis of Thee")

  Insidious Invaders
The power of the story in RM is that "They" are among us, quietly converting normal citizens into one of Them. "They" are rising into positions of power. The insidious invaders seek to overthrow all that is normal and "good". In its place, they seek to install a cold and emotionless dictatorship, for the "good" of the people. This theme permeates many 50s and early 60s sci-fi films. In RM, you see it in openly political terms without the usual allegory.

  Cold War Spotlight
RM is not so much atomic angst as it is Commie Angst. At the time RM was in production, the USSR had not yet exploded its first atomic bomb. Yet, commie angst is the whole reason for atomic angst in the Cold War. The end of WWII did not usher in a new dawn of freedom. Many smaller nations, freed from the clutches of the Nazi empire, were immediately absorbed into the Soviet empire. The second "Red Scare" began. Could American freedom be the next to fall?

  Notes
HUAC Attack -- RM exists as a film, primarily because of the congressional House Committee on Un-American Activities. The HUAC is famous (or infamous) for its "Black List" of Hollywood folk suspected of being communists. It's easy, from the vantage point of 60 years later, to ridicule the committee as paranoid vigilantes, but this ignores the zeitgeist of the era. The majority of Americans shared the committee's concerns. The HUAC accused Hollywood of producing subversive pro-soviet, or pro-communist films. Many studios sought to disprove the allegation by producing rampantly ANTI-communist films. Warner Bros. had Big Jim McLain. RKO had I Married a Communist, etc. RM was Republic Pictures' venture to prove they weren't tools of "Them."

  In Hiss' Shadow -- Validating fears of communist infiltration, were the Alger Hiss hearings and trials. In 1948, Alger Hiss, a State Department official, was called to testify before the HUAC. He was accused of being a communist and a spy for the Soviet Union. Later, he was convicted of perjury. His conviction seemed to prove that Communist spies really were among us, and out to get us!

  Ad Absurdum -- Senator Joe McCarthy was not on the HUAC, but operated independently. He pushed anti-communist rhetoric to a fever pitch, starting in February 1950. McCarthy claimed to have a list of 205 people in the State Department who are members of the Communist Party. Given HIss's recent conviction, the claim seemed plausible, even if it remained unsubstantiated. McCarthy's demagoguery pushed red fears and black listing to absurd lengths.

  Enemy Substitute -- It seems plausible that a major impetus behind 50s sci-fi was expressing commie-angst without being as flagrant as McCarthy. Middle class sensibilities were uncomfortable with McCarthyism's strident histrionics. But middle America was still worried about communists (both their spies and their nukes). Enter science fiction as an alternate form of expression of red fears. A careful watching of RM reveals many parallels to later sci-fi films. The most classic is Invasion of the Body Snatchers ('56). A parallel worth noting is how many good-guys in sci-fi films deliver moralizing speeches too. They defend peoples' right to a "normal" free life. They defy the alien powers' plans for a heartless, unfeeling world without love, (such as Claire's final rant to "It" in It Conquered the World ('56) ). They're very similar speeches to those in RM. Note how the commies in RM are cold-hearted and ruthless. No individuality is tolerated. No mercy is given. Many sci-fi heros fight to retain their human individuality. It's as if the movie industry, and indeed the movie watching public, continued to indulge in Red Fears, but did so via sci-fi, after Senator Joe had made it ridiculous to do so openly.

  Black List Irony -- Note how, in RM, the character of Henry is shunned by his fellow communists for leaving the Party. He is an outcast, denied contact with his former friends, even his love interest, Molly. He loses job after lob when his employers find out who he is. Henry's plight as an outcast former-communist is an ironic parallel to the many actors and screenwriters of that day, Black Listed for being (or suspected of being) members of the communist party.

 Bottom line? RM is not high cinematic art. It's talky at times, and flagrantly preachy about American freedom vs. the evils of communism. But look past that. See in RM's characterizations (good guys & bad guys) a pattern that would be repeated in many Golden Age sci-fi. The sci-fi films would swap out commies for aliens, but much of the format would be the same -- champions of humanity and freedom vs. the iron fist of heartless alien oppressors. RM is ideologically "thick", but it is a good window into the soul of Cold War feelings, both of the people who produced the film AND the people who bought tickets.

Panic in the City

Producer Harold Goldman started out the mid 60s in sci-fi titles, but shifted into crime dramas. Panic in the City (PIC) is firmly a euro-spy / FBI agent story, but with atomic angst at its core. The title is a bit off, as no one (let alone the city) ever panics. It deals with a secret communist plot to assemble nuclear bombs in major American cities. Howard Duff stars as the federal agent. Nehemiah Pershoff stars as the rogue spy. The production values suggest a TV movie, but the presence of a rare poster suggests PIC had at least a brief theatrical release.

Quick Plot Synopsis
A sick man collapses on a Los Angeles street. Doctors discover that he is highly radioactive. A shadowy man named Dean hires a hit man to kill the sick man. It turns out he was a european atomic scientist. The high dosage of radiation and the murder gets the National Bureau of Investigation involved. Agent Dave Pomeroy is on the case. Dave meets Dr. Paula Stevens and thus begins a thin sub plot of budding romance. Dean recruits another atomic scientist to replace the dead one. The NBI take out Dr. Cerbo's house. One of Cerbo's men is trying to get some parts made at machine shops. The drawings are for an unassuming carburetor, but with some odd extra brackets. Those brackets turn out to be part of a "W" device used in nuclear bombs. Some of Dean's operatives die fleeing the police. Dave figures a zone in which the bomb must be. They start searching house to house, disguised as telephone repairmen. Meanwhile, Dean is berated by his spy boss for exceeding his authority in actually building a bomb instead of just planning and preparing to do so. He is to be sent home for discipline. Dean shoots his boss and goes to his basement bomb works. Cerbo finishes the bomb except for the trigger. Dean shoots Cerbo to get the trigger. Click! But the bomb only smokes. Dave finally gets to the right house. He heard Dean shoot Cerbo. Dave shoots and kills Dean. Cerbo (not quite dead yet) says it happens sometimes. Might take an hour or so, but will go off. Dave calls HQ to have streets blocked off and a helicopter brought in. He muscles the smoldering bomb up the stairs and out to the street. Now Dave is weak from radiation sickness. Dr. Paula says he doesn't have much longer to live. Dave hooks the bomb up to the helicopter and flies far out to sea. He dies at the controls. The bomb goes off. Cue footage of the Baker Event explosion of 1946. Paula weeps, but as she sees the city of LA going on about its business, she is comforted that Dave gave his life to save the city. The End.

Apocalypse Avoided
Even though the bomb does go off, the hero saves the unsuspecting city. The sinister enemy had planned mass destruction, but not by the expected means of missiles and bombers. Instead, it would be an inside job. Only the skill and determination of the heroic "authorities" uncovers the plot in time.

Cold War Spotlight
PIC is the tale of insidious invaders. In this, it shares a mood with many sci-fi movies, such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Instead of allegorical pod people, we have a communist enemy with many operatives living and working among the oblivious citizenry. The intended master plan was apparently only to set up the workings of such a bombs-from-within scheme. It was the over-zealous communist, Dean, who pushed the plan into action in order to destroy communism's enemy.

Notes
Post 9/11 Relevance -- PIC actually plays better post-9/11 than it probably had for decades. As the Cold War was losing its hysterical edge, the premise of communists building weapons of mass destruction within American cities, may have seemed like over-active conspiracy theory glands. But, in post-9/11 America, with terrorist cells proven to be working their subterfuge among civilian life, the scheme seems like far fetched.

Hypocrites for Peace -- Of some interest is the press conference speech delivered by Dr. Cerbo (Oscar Beregi). He denounces weapons-use of nuclear energy and preaches about needs for nations to disarm. Yet, even before this, Cerbo was an underground operative of the communists, and apparently loathed American life. He was quite willing to finish building a nuclear bomb in Dean's basement. Was this hypocritical speech a dig (by the screenwriters) at peaceniks and disarmament advocates? The thought being, only enemies tell you to lay down your weapons?

Star Gazing -- Howard Duff stars as agent Pomeroy. Duff was usually cast in authority roles, seldom in sci-fi films. But in 1953, he played astronaut Mitchell in the british space-drama Spaceways. Nehemiah Persoff, who plays the rogue communist spy, was also a busy TV actor in most of the usual TV genre except science fiction. He did play the ill-fated Dr. Meiniker in 1968's The Power. John Hoyt plays a small role as a Dr. Becker. Hoyt, too, was a busy TV actor, but did play the tragic villain, Mr. Franz, in The Puppet People ('58) and Dr. Varno in The Time Travelers ('64).

Pre-Star Gazing -- Watch for a young Dennis Hopper as "Goff" the hit man. Hopper played many TV roles or bit parts. One for sci-fi fans was his role as Paul, one of the early victims of the blood-drinking alien in Queen of Blood ('66). Look for a young Mike Farrell early in the show, as a minor hospital worker. Farrell would go on to "fame" as B.J. Hunnicut in TV's M.A.S.H. series.

For Car Nuts -- There are many late 60s cars to enjoy amid the many street scenes. Two that get a bit more screen time than others are the little red 1967 Sunbeam convertible and Cerbo's big gray yacht-like '67 Chrysler 300 convertible.

Bottom line? PIC is a workmanlike crime/spy drama with a Cold War spin. It has the middling production values of a late 60s television series. The story plays out a sort of authorities-angst about enemy agents. PIC has some cultural value as an atomic angst view (from the government's point of view) of the danger of communist spies in the nuclear age.

The Atomic City

Paramount Studios put out a Cold War thriller very early in the Cold War era. Despite the name, The Atomic City (TAC), things atomic were background. There are no radiation special effects or explosions beyond a stock footage blast in the opening narration. At its heart, TAC is a spy-crime thriller with nuclear bomb secrets as the MacGuffin. Yet, through all that, atomic anxiety and fear of communism are clear sub-messages. Gene Barry stars as a top nuclear physicist. TAC was nominated for an Academy Award. The filming in restricted Los Alamos and in the picturesque Puya Cliffs add visual interest to an already busy plot.

  Quick Plot Synopsis
Within the fenced perimeter of Los Alamos, the "Atomic City" is fairly secure. The workers, staff and their families live fairly normal lives. Dr. Frank Addison (Barry) and his wife Martha, raise their son Tommy as normally as possible. Tommy is eager for the class field trip and a chance to a fair in a nearby town, and win a bicycle. When the drawing calls him as the winner, his teacher notices he's not there. No one saw him leave. Meanwhile, the Addison's get a telegram giving them instructions. Tommy has been kidnapped. Dr. Addison is to give the kidnappers the formulas to the H-bomb or Tommy dies. Since they were told not to go to the police, the Addisons make up stories about picking up Tommy early, etc. etc. Friends notice they're acting odd. At Frank's office, the FBI intervene. Frank's plan was to give the kidnappers some formulas that failed, which only a mathematician working for a couple days could discover were bad. A hoard of FBI men stake out the hotel where the pickup is to be made. The follow the pickup man to a baseball game. In the crowd, the man transfers his envelope to a peanut salesmen, unseen. Exiting the game, the pickup man's car was booby trapped. Explosion. Film of the event identified the salesman as a "party member" and local crook. While the FBI are too rule and honor bound to get tough, Frank is not the FBI. He roughs up the crook and gets the address of where the envelope went. No one is in the house, but a blackboard full of equations tells them that their bad-formulas were discovered. Meanwhile, Tommy is being kept in some pueblo ruins by thugs hired by the communists. They pose as park rangers. One of them turns a couple and their boy away sang the ruins are too dangerous. The commie scientist arrives to say the formulas were fake. Get rid of the boy. However, Tommy has slipped out of a hole he was digging. The bad guys pursue him to small cliff cave. It's too small for them, so they decide to just block the entry and leave him to die. Back in town, the boy whose family was turned away from the ruins turns in Tommy's winning ticket. An FBI man finds out and all agents converge on the Puye Cliffs ruins. Aided by a helicopter, the agents get the bad scientist. The thugs hole up in the cave, but when two of them figure to turn themselves in, they're shot by the loyal communist. Tommy has, meanwhile found a small exit, but it is in the cliff face. He dangles and clutches the rocks. The helicopter spots him. An agent repels down and saves him. Everyone is happy. The End.

  Insidious Infiltrators
TAC uses the theme of spies-among us, which would become popular in Cold War sci-fi. Except here, the spies and infiltrators aren't disguised as aliens who take human form. They're just plain spies and collaborators. True to the sci-fi form, you can't tell a communist villain (or their hired thugs) from a loyal citizen. They all look normal enough. The thug posing as an authority figure (Park Ranger) is a good example of this.

  Cold War Spotlight
The story itself is very early in the Cold War era, so there is more anxiety about the secret falling into enemy hands. Later atomic angst (after the commies already had their own bombs) would focus on doomsday. In TAC, the kidnappers' motivation and the impetus of the plot center of US having the bomb and THEM doing anything to get it. When Martha suggests that they give the kidnappers what they want, Frank scoffs that this would mean THEY would "wreck half the world."

  Notes
Pot Boiler -- Even though the story is a fairly conventional kidnapping crime drama, the gravity of the ransom price pushes it beyond the ordinary.

  A Whiff of Doom -- A subtle atomic angst message is delivered by young Tommy. At his lunch table, he prefaces his pipe dreams (twice) "If I grow up…" instead of when I grow up. It troubles his mother, that their boy isn't sure he has a future. Nothing more is made of this message, but it was a good presaging of later youth malaise as a response to atomic anxiety.

  Ruthless Villains -- Note that the bad guys are cast as heartless killers. Even their own hired thugs and minions are treated as disposable commodities. They're blown up, or shot when they were done with their assigned duties.

  Noble Heroes -- Note how the FBI are cast as squeaky clean boy scouts. They have a rule book which doesn't allow them to rough up a suspect. When Frank (the upset father) suggests they rough up the peanut salesmen to get more clues, agent Farley says, "We can't do it. It goes against everything we stand for."

  Forties Feast -- For car fans, TAC offers a few scenes chock full of 1940s models. The FBI drive around in long black 1947 Chryslers. The pickup man drives a 1940 two-tone DeSoto Sportsman. The ballpark parking lot is a buffet of old Detroit iron. Chevy, Buick, Mercury. The newest model easily identified is a 1950 Ford Sedan and the spiffy 1950 DeSoto Custom the pickup man parks next to. This suggests that the film (or at least the outdoor scenes) were shot in the summer of '51, before the debut of '52 models (typically in early autumn).

 Bottom line? TAC is a good crime thriller, well paced and well photographed. It is a good movie from that early Cold War era when sneaky, dastardly commies were the focus. It's a film even non-sci-fi fans can enjoy.

Hell And High Water

This 1954 film is a curious sibling to the doom genre film The Bedford Incident ('65). Both feature Richard Widmark commanding a vessel. There's a submarine. Both plots involve searching for some communists with nukes. Both end with a mushroom cloud. Hell and High Water (HHW) is a lesser sibling in some ways, but an early member of the atomic angst genre nonetheless. HHW was a big-scale 20th Century Fox production in Technicolor. Bedford was a lesser-budget black and white film shot in England. Yet, Bedford is the better film.

  Quick Plot Synopsis
Narrators, posing as radio reporters tell of the disappearance of a noted atomic scientist, Professor Montel and his lovely assistant, Professor Denise Gerard while we watch second unit footage of London, Paris, Rome and New York. At the airport in Tokyo, Adam Jones (Widmark), going by the alias of Mr. MacDoughall, goes through some cloak-and-dagger machinations to arrive at a secret meeting of concerned international scientists. Montel is among them. They suspect the Communist Chinese are up to something nuclear on a remote island in the north Pacific. They want Jones to command a submarine recon mission to follow a suspect freighter and confirm or disprove their concerns. Jones demurs, but they offer him money. He accepts. The group bought a WWII Japanese submarine for the task. It needs work and refitting. Before repairs are complete, the freighter departs, so Jones and crew must too. Aboard is Montel and Denise, who causes much hormonal wolfishness among the crew. En route, they are pursued by a Red Chinese sub. There are protracted cat-and-mouse maneuvers and the obligatory silence scene. During all this, Jones and Denise kiss and embrace. Eventually, Jones' sub rams the Chinese sub and proceeds. At the first island, they find nothing. Montel insists they look at another island further north. They do, and Jones sees a B-29 with American markings being loaded by chinese soldiers. They escape capture and flee, but capture a soldier who turns out to be a pilot. The sub's chinese cook poses as another prisoner to coax out what the pilot is up to. He finds out about a plot to bomb Korea with an atom bomb dropped from an American plane, so America will get blamed for it. The pilot discovers the ploy and kills the cook. The plane is to take off in the morning. Jones wants the sub positioned off the island's runway so the can shoot it down as it lumbers aloft. Jones was to go on the island to give the here-it-comes signal, but Montel steals the skiff and goes to the island. Denise screams that Montel is her father. Too late. He's gone and gives the signal. The bomber labors for altitude. Every man on the sub is firing whatever he had, deck cannon, 50 caliber, hand guns, everything. They manage to cripple the bomber's engines. It trails smoke and circles back to the island to attempt to land. Jones orders a crash dive. They go under. The island is engulfed in a big fire ball, followed by a mushroom cloud. The sub is buffeted, but survives. Jones and Denise hug. The End.

  Apocalypse Avoided
Earlier in the Atomic Angst genre, there was a more hopeful mood. The idea that the nuclear apocalypse could be avoided was more popular than the everyone's-gonna-die themes prevalent in the late 50s, early 60s. The Bedford Incident is an example of the latter. HHW is its sibling from the former mood. The gravity of a global nuclear war is understood in HHW, but the heroes, by pluck and courage manage to avert armageddon -- which was being schemed by the dastardly communists.

  Sci-Fi Angle
HHW might, just barely, qualify as a sci-fi, since it has some of the hallmarks. There are some scientists, a geiger counter, and something atomic. In the 50s, that was enough to qualify. The sci-fi family certainly had other tenuous claimants. Yet, HHW is essentially a war/sub movie with red nukes as the MacGuffin. Still, note the common optimism. In HHW, they avert the terrible war. In many sci-fi, the good guys kill the monster, or thwart the aliens, etc. Earlier sci-fi and atomic angst focused on presumed success.

  Notes
Token Feminism -- Whether it was the story's creator, David Hempstead, or (more likely) the screen writers, Jesse Lasky, Jr. and director Samuel Fuller, the script is hyped-up bipolar mix of male chauvinism and feminism. The script can't decide which it is. On the one hand, all the men pant and drool over the only woman in the cast: Belle Darvi as Professor Gerard. She is, handily enough, young, trim and pretty. The men presume they can kiss (or paw) her. Isn't that what women are for? In an attempt to counterbalance this meaty viewpoint, the writers go to awkward lengths to let Denise be super smart. She speaks many languages including Chinese. She 'saves the day' at one point by being able to read the japanese labels on some valves. And, not least of all, she's a nuclear scientist. But, for all that, she screams like a girl, faints and gets carried to bed when she's weak.

  Cowboy Scientists -- There is a subtle optimism in the plot device that it is an international cabal of atomic scientists who assemble (and finance) the mission to save the world. The understated "dig" is that national governments are too entrenched in whatever Cold War posturing they've gotten themselves into. So, into the do-something vacuum rides our secret society of scientists, like cowboys, to save the day.

  That's Your Plan? -- The script writers said that the sneak-attack bombing of Korea would start World War III, but no hint is given as to just why the communist Chinese thought this was a good idea. Perhaps, as the nuclear-club weakling, they hoped American and Russia would blow each other up, leaving the Chinese as the strongest (surviving) power? Even in this scenario, the early Cold War optimism is expressed. Damage would be localized to America and Russia. The total disaster, ala On The Beach was not in view.

  Commie B-29s? -- Turns out, it was not all that far fetched that the Red Chinese would have a B-29 with which to pull off their deadly frame job. During WWII, three different American B-29s had to set down in the Soviet Union after missions over Japan. The Russians refused to return them. Lacking any sort of bomber as effective as the Super fortress, they took one completely apart so as to reverse engineer their own copy. Despite some minor differences, and slightly lesser performance, they succeeded. The Tupolev Tu-4 was a very good copy. With it, the USSR could conceivably reach the US mainland. The Tu-4 was the main Soviet bomber until the early 50s, when it was replaced by a more modern jet bomber. Some of the Russian Tu-4s were sold to China. So, there ya go.

  CinemaScope -- If you took away the widescreen format and color, HHW would be a fairly mediocre war film. What carries it into the lower A ranks is the strong use of color and the widescreen grandeur. Fox bought and developed the anamorphic format to give audiences wide screen visual feasts. Television, with its boxy 3:4 ratio, was becoming a bigger diversion. Movies needed something that TV couldn't do. HHW is Fox's ninth CinemaScope film. The first was The Robe in '53. Anamorphic lenses compressed (horizontally) a wide image into the boxy 35mm frame. The theater projector needed a matching anamorphic lens to decompress the squozen images. It was all still a visual treat in '54, so HHW's plot or action shortcomings were more easily overlooked. Modern audiences aren't as dazzled by color and wide image, so the mediocre plot is more apparent.

 Bottom line? HHW is an okay movie, if one is already predisposed to like submarine war movies. It would make an interesting Widmark-Subs-and-Nukes double feature with The Bedford Incident. It's not a thoughtful film, and drags at times and at other times almost painfully corny or trite. Yet, it is a representative sample of Cold War zeitgeist of its time. Disaster could be averted by action heroes.

The Bedford Incident

Columbia pictures put out yet another atomic doom film in 1965 that fits in well with its two '64 films: Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe. While more tightly focused, The Bedford Incident (TBI) follows the same Atomic Angst. Tensions build between nuclear-armed rivals. A mistake occurs that touches off disaster. In several ways, TBI is a blend of the prior films' elements. Everyone dies. Richard Widmark stars the tough captain. Sidney Poitier plays the journalist. And while Poitier is black, his role is race-neutral.

  Quick Plot Synopsis
Journalist Ben Munceford (Poitier) and Dr. Chester Potter (Martin Balsam) are dropped aboard a US Navy destroyer on patrol in the arctic. As they both go about their different tasks, they both discover that something is oddly different about Captain Finlander (Widmark) and his crew. Finlander is certain there is a Russian submarine sneaking around the waters off Greenland, scouting for nuclear missile launching positions. Eventually, they detect the unseen sub and follow it amid the ice floes, far inside Greenland's territorial waters. Finlander forces the sub to stay submerged, using up its air and batteries. He wants to force it to the surface, as he had to a sub off Cuba years ago. He wants to "catch" the commies red handed. His superiors, however, order him to only watch and wait. This infuriates Finlander. The sub makes a break for the open ocean and slips back into international waters. While all this cat-and-mouse action is going on, Ben slowly exposes Finlander as a driven and somewhat unstable mix of Ahab's obsessiveness and Queeg's paranoia. Potter comes to see the crew as over-stressed and Finlander as an heartless authoritarian. Out in the ocean, Finlander still manages to keep the sub submerged, making the sub commander increasingly desperate. Finlander demands it surface "and be recognized." The sub radios to its mother ship. No answer comes, so the Russian commander is on his own. The sub rises enough to put its air vent up. Finlander has the Bedford charge it and force him back under. The Bedford's crew are on edge, having been at battle stations far too long. At one point, asked why he has his weapons systems armed if he doesn't plan to fire the first shot, Finlander replies, "If he fires one, I'll fire one." Ensign Ralston, often castigated for hesitating, hears "fire one" and pushes the button. The rocket propelled nuclear-warhead torpedo flies off the ship. People scramble to try and send disarm signals, but it's too late. The torpedo finds its mark. Four sonar blips indicate that the Russian commander fired his torpedos too, before he was destroyed. The Bedford cannot evade all four. Still photos of the significant actors each get a melted-film effect. A mushroom cloud rises into the sky. The End.

  Armageddon
Where the well-known films in the doom genre dealt with armageddon on a global scale, TBI plays out the same scenario, but in microcosm. The American destroyer Bedford and the Russian sub, nicknamed "Big Red," serve as proxies for the two super powers. The two jockey and maneuver, each armed with nuclear weapons. In a blend of the tropes of the doom genre, both a madman and a mistake cause the mutual doom. The ending, in which the still images of the key players degrade with a melting-film effect, is similar to the ending in Fail Safe. Brinksmaship goes bad. Everyone dies.

  Cold War Spotlight
The scenario in TBI is pure Cold War. At the margins of the globe, isolated elements of both sides' military play games of cat and mouse. Yet, it is not mere play. Even small "gains" in the game are seen as national victories. Any loss, no matter how small, is seen as the first domino in the chain to national ruin. Such inflated stakes infuse any loss with a flavor of disaster. Ensign Ralston, then, personified the average soldier. In their microcosm, the Bedford and Big Red play out the doctrine of "Mutually Assured Destruction", and nightmare everyone feared. Somehow, someone would launch the first rocket -- even if by mistake. From there, all hell would break loose. Everyone would die.

  Notes
Moby Dick II -- TBI is based on a 1963 novel by Mark Rascovich. His story was a Cold War recast of Melville's "Moby Dick". Knowing the classic tale, it's easy to see how Captain Finlander fits the role of Ahab. Journalist Ben Munceford assumes somewhat the role of Ishmael as the audience gets, essentially, his outsider look at everything. The submarine, "Big Red" takes on the role of the white whale, though with none of the destructiveness that the whale was given. In Melville's tale, the whale smashes some ships and kills some men -- almost more out of anger at being hunted than simple malice. In both Rascovich's novel and the screenplay, the Russian sub much more benign than the white whale.

Faceless Foe -- Interesting for a Cold War doom film, the "enemy" remains nameless and faceless. Finlander talks of untrustworthy "commies" and implies the terrible things they would do, but the lone representative of the Evil Empire is almost always unseen. For most of the movie, a sonar ping is the only evidence that there even is a foe. Towards the end, we hear some intercepted Russian radio and see the tip of the periscope. The Russian crew, relentlessly hunted into desperation are cast in an almost sympathetic light. This is unusual for a Cold War doom film.

  Wolf On Deck -- Enhancing the sympathetic tone (mentioned above), but complicating things a bit, is the presence of Commodore Schrepke, a German naval officer who had commanded a U-Boat in WWII. We're quickly told that he was not a Nazi, but an officer in Doenitz's navy. (Doenitz being the originator of the "wolf pack" tactic) As the veteran submarine commander, he was Finlander's "native guide" for the hunt. As much as Schrepke might dislike the Russians and be dutiful to his job as a guide, he was clearly torn. His heart was quietly rooting for "Big Red". On several occasions (such as when they almost lost the sub at the iceberg) it was subtly shown that Schrepke wanted the Russians to escape Finlander's relentless (and remorseless) pursuit.

  The Button -- TBI plays out one of the scenarios feared during the Cold War. A lower officer, somewhere, would get jittery and by mistake, "push the button." In TBI, this is played out by Ensign Ralston. He is constantly chided by Finlander for not acting quickly enough or obeying orders without question, etc. Near the end of the movie, Ralston is a hair-trigger. When he overhears Finlander say, "…I'll fire one…" he doesn't hesitate. He pushes the button, unleashing the doom of "Big Red" and the Bedford.

  Star Gazing -- Look for a young James MacArthur as the stressed-out Ensign Ralston. MacArthur would go on to become the famous Danny, in the TV series Hawaii-5-0, hence the immortal line: "Book 'em Danno." Martin Balsam plays the misfit doctor. Watch for Wally Cox (the voice of Underdog) as the "Radar O'Reiliy"-like sonar man, Merlin Queffle.

  Models Ahoy! -- A minor, but notable concession to budget, is that most of the shots of the Bedford as a whole ship, are models in tanks. The icebergs are foam or paper mache. Some actual footage aboard a British destroyer are used, but they're tight shots that mask (pretty much) the differences.

 Bottom line? TBI is a well made thriller with great acting too. For some of its tension, it relies on audiences already knowing and fearing a global nuclear war. Viewers without that fear (or understanding of it) could find themselves asking "what's all the fuss over?" Yet, TBI can be a good lesson in Atomic Angst for those trying to understand the zeitgeist of the era. This fear of total destruction underlies many Golden Era sci-fi.

The War Game

A dark companion to the Doom genre, which almost didn't see the light of day, is Peter Watkins' 1965 film, The War Game (TWG). It is a story about a fictional nuclear attack on Britain, particularly focused on communities and citizens in the Kent area. Instead of being told in a more conventional fiction style, like Fail Safe, or The Last War, etc., Watkins created a pseudo-documentary form. The BBC "reluctantly approved" the script, according to Watkins, and funded the project. He was warned that it might not get finished. When it was done, it was strong on the horrors of nuclear war and critical of government's planning. The BBC brass forbid it to be shown publicly. Much drama ensued. Despite their ban, TWG won an Academy Award for best documentary.

  Quick Plot Synopsis
A narrator opens, telling how Britain's nuclear deterrent policy is that it's V-force bombers would retaliate. Those bombers were dispersed around England to prevent being an easy target. This then exposed most Britons to danger. The flashpoint is told as American deployment of tactical nukes in South Vietnam. As a show of communist solidarity with the Chinese, Russia surrounded West Berlin. Skirmishes grew. The NATO troops in West Berlin were buckling. President Johnson allows use of tactical nukes on the Russians. This triggers a missile attack from Russia on NATO nations -- such as Britain. Evacuation had already begun as tensions mounted, but wasn't going smoothly. People complained that they were told to make shelters in their homes, but materials, such as sandbags, were in very short supply. Some with adequate shelters were belligerent about sharing. While a doctor is making a house call, a soviet missile explodes nearby. The flash blinds some people. The blast sets homes on fire. Firemen battle a warehouse blaze. The narrator recounts factoids about cities experiencing fire storms, like Dresden did. People tumble in the strong wind towards the flames. People collapse for lack of oxygen. British bombers cross the Russian border to drop bombs on people there. Several man-in-the-street clips have people saying they're all for retaliation. The dead are laid out in rows. Even Kent, which was lightly hit, suffered thousands of casualties. Hospitals could not care for all the wounded. Severely wounded were left to die, or shot in the head to end it quickly. Inadequate food supplies meant rationing, but emergency workers (police, fire and civil defense) were fed first. This set off food riots. Police and troops guarding the food are killed. Looters and those thought to kill policemen were executed. A doctor tells how inadequate vitamin C would mean scurvy would be common in a few months. A priest manually turns a record player, playing Silent Night at Christmas. Gaunt parishioners sit motionless. Children asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, replied. "Nothin'" The narrator recounts how nuclear stockpiles have doubled and continue to grow. He predicts that the scenes just watched are likely to happen before 1980. End text says the film was based on information from the bombings of Dresden, Darmstadt, Hamburg, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The End.

  Armageddon Unavoided
Watkins plays out what he thinks a nuclear strike would be like on the populace. Watkins' conviction was that the British were ill-prepared for what would happen if the unthinkable did happen, so he told his story from point of view of the hapless. Where prior films in the genre stopped at the moment of the blast -- leaving the viewer to imagine the awful outcome -- Watkins showed that outcome. Narrators told of melted eyeballs. A nurse talked of a boy with his legs burned off, etc. Make-up portrayed many facial burns and open sores. TWG would have been the 1960s' shocker film, as The Day After was in the 80s. had the BBC not succeeded in stifling it until much later.


Cold War Spotlight
While not as blatantly propagandistic as Rocket Attack U.S.A. was for the pro-nukes side, TWG was more powerfully propagandistic on the disarmament side. It played out a similar scenario to others in the genre, about how a smaller squabble becomes the flashpoint for WWIII.

  Notes
It's Only A Movie -- From reading accounts of people who saw TWG as youths, some people at the BBC may have been right. They came away feeling like they had seen actual footage of a nuclear attack. Television, and the documentary, still had some credibility. If it was presented as news, it must be true. Yet, TWG was a work of fiction: actors in make-up, being filmed by a crew, saying lines memorized from the script. It helped that Watkins used no famous actors. He did a brilliant job creating his "what if". People easily forgot they were watching a movie. The documentary style for fiction was not new in 1965, but rare enough to catch viewers off guard. Note Watkin's use of fast cuts and wiggly-cam, intercut with stiff man-in-the-street "interviews". Sprinkle in a few equally stiff "experts" (always unnamed) and some text onscreen. The fabric of the film is so broken that it appears to not have a story line -- but it does.
  Live and Let Die -- Watkins theorizes that a management shake-up at the BBC mean his script got more approval than it might have otherwise. Perhaps finding themselves between ideological rocks and reality hard places, they let his project come to life, but warned that it could get killed later. Sure enough, once complete, the BBC refused to air it, or allow it to be shown. They blew smoke about it being an "artistic failure" but were happy enough to accept the Academy Award for it, nonetheless.
  Awkward Position -- Nuclear disarmament was a hot and divisive issue in the early 60s. Prime Minister Harold Wilson's Labor Party had supported unilateral nuclear disarmament (before his PM-ship) Around three-quarters of the CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) were Labor Party members. Things were already unsettled when Wilson's government not only didn't push for disarmament, but expanded Britain's nuclear force. (Perhaps, like other "opposition" politicians, it was easy to promise things which, once in office, were proven to be not nearly so easy, or even a bad idea after all). All this inner turmoil did not help Watkins' project. His pro-disarmament propaganda piece (TWG), which was critical of the government, was doubly embarrassing for Wilson's Labor coalition. Small wonder that politicians pressured the BBC to make it go away quietly.
  Propaganda Spin? -- The label of "propaganda" is usually assigned to views one disagrees with. Watkins' ideology is transmitted by the more subtle directorial arts (as opposed to the ham-fisted writing in Rocket Attack USA). He portray's only exposure victims, not survivors who did take shelter. The British bombers were reported as going to bomb people not military targets. In focusing on the victims, Watkins handily avoids the larger, driving issue of international power, of which nukes are just one tool. He often cites what happened in Hamburg and Dresden for the horrors of war, but skips that those were "conventional" wars resulting from international power struggles. Watkins had the luxury that pre-Prime Minister Wilson had. It's easy to take a bold stand, when you don't have to balance the whole cart.
  Python Moment? -- At one point, about half way in, text on the screen says: "An Ecumenical Council meeting at the Vatican says that the faithful should learn to live with,though need not love, the nuclear bomb, provided it is clean, and of a good family." Given the grim seriousness of the topic, this insertion has a bizarre Monte Python quality to it. One wonders what Watkins was thinking with this.

 Bottom line? TWG is a good example of the disarmament voice in the Cold War era. As a film, it is particularly well done. People forget that they're watching actors reciting lines, wearing "burn" makeup, and think they're watching reality. Watkins' skill as a director can be seen in how much TWG does not look directed. The horror he portrays is that taboo topic everyone back then knew: nuclear war would be terrible. The mood of the day preferred it left unsaid, with mutant monsters standing in as metaphors.

Rocket Attack U.S.A.

It would be easy to dismiss Rocket Attack U.S.A. (RA) as one of those worst-movie-ever films, but that would be too hasty. RA is part of the same Doom genre as Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe, and a product of its time. It was produced, directed and probably written by Barry Mahon. One-man-show productions usually suffer for lack of review, and RA is no exception. Mahon may have aspired to be a Roger Corman, an Ed Wood Jr. or perhaps a Larry Buchanan. He wasn't up to even that level, but it wasn't for lack of trying. With RA, he was certainly topical, and actually beat the more famous members to the screen.

Quick Plot Synopsis
A narrator tells how Sputnik changed modern warfare with musing over what valuable data it was collecting for the Russians. The head of American spy operations in West Berlin assigns John Marston, his "best man" to find out if the Russians are gathering data from Sputnik. He will meet a girl in Moscow who will help. John is flown across the boarder in a small plane, then makes his way to Moscow on foot. There, he meets up with Tannah (Tanya?) in the night club she works in. Later, he comes to her apartment. She explains that as mistress to the Minister of Defense. "When the pig is drunk, he talks." She knows the Russians already have all the data they need and are completing their missile. John persuades her to let him stay in her apartment. In the Kremlin, generals and leaders debate whether to attack soon or not. Back in the Pentagon, general Watkins hears that American missile plans are lagging. The rocket scientist bemoans lack of funding. Back in Moscow, Tannah tells John that Joseph (the pig) is taking her to the missile base. While she's away, a British agent named Morris Steel comes by to give John explosives to blow up the Russian missile. In the Kremlin, the hawks prevail and the launch is set for tonight. At the missile base, John meets up with Tannah. Guards arrest Morris. Another guard follows John and Tannah's footprints. He shoots Tannah, but she pulls out a pistol and shoots him too. John sneaks inside the fence and places the bomb. He sneaks out, but is shot by yet other guards. Soldiers take his bomb off the missile. Meanwhile, in New York, people go about their routine lives. A radio announcer pooh-pooh's his wife's worries and goes to work. A brooklyn warehouse worker tells his wife he'll wear a tie on the next date. A financier lands by small seaplane to manage his wealth. Bill Deale, the announcer, tells how America has launched some satellites too and how there is an important meeting at the Kremlin. Meanwhile, back at the Russian missile base, the order to fire comes through. With much beeping, the missile is finally launched. General Watkins laments that America has no anti-missile defenses. Sirens blare, but drill-weary New Yorkers aren't taking it serious. Cue Bikini Atoll test blast footage. Shots of burning rubble represent New York. A burning necktie hangs from T-shirt man's battered truck door. The narrator talks of how selfish interests lead to all this. Text on screen says: "We cannot let this be -- The End." (but it is).

Armageddon Arrives
As in the more famous films, like Fail Safe, RA plays out the Cold War nightmare of a nuclear attack on America. We get to see the first missile fall on New York, with the same sort of literary device of showing us some "average" lives both rich and poor, before they're snuffed out. The story thread of wife Pat reluctantly sending husband Bill to work in NYC (from Hazlet, NJ) is reminiscent of the 1954 television drama, Atomic Attack. The stock footage of B-52s taking off in response to the incoming missile lets the viewer know that Russia was about to feel a similar fate. Burning rubble (of NYC) is then the fate of millions.

Cold War Spotlight
Unlike the others in the Atomic Doom genre, this nuclear attack was not the result of a mechanical glitch (Fail Safe, The Last War) or a single deranged mind (Dr. Strangelove), although in the latter, the "safeguards" which would have prevented a single man from starting the war were a procedural glitch. In RA, it is plain and simple aggression. The Russians want to attack America quickly any first before America catches up in the "missile gap." This was the nightmare lurking beneath most issues of the day. Will X or Y put us at a disadvantage?

Notes
Lobby By Fiction -- Some reviewers of RA chafe at its blatant socio-political agenda, as if such a thing were rare and out-of-bounds. Lobbying via fiction goes way back. In 1871, a Captain Chesney in the British Army was concerned about British military unpreparedness (compared to the Prussian army which just defeated France). So, to make his case for more military spending -- via fiction -- he wrote his famous novella, "The Battle of Dorking." This kicked off a whole genre of invasion fiction, which would be one of the roots of Golden Era sci-fi. Later, Erskine Childers would write his famous "Riddle in the Sands" (1903) as a wake-up call to British naval unpreparedness. There were many others, some with less subtle delivery of their lobbying payload. "If only Britain had not divided her fleet," or "If only Britain had voted for more warships…" It wasn't only rightist military agendas that got fiction-lobbying. Even modern environmentalism gets it's lobbying films in which the lead character laments aloud, "if only we hadn't cut down all the trees…" or "If only we had been more careful with the environment…" (as in the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still.) Same method, different agenda. RA is hardly unique in lobbying. It was just a bit too obvious for some people.

Slow Project -- Barry Mahon produced several low-budget films in the late 50s, very early 60s, before taking the easy route and producing soft porn titles like Bunny Yeager's Nude Camera, and The Adventures of Busty Brown. Before that slide, Mahon was on a more topical and Corman-esque trajectory. Rocket Attack used actors John MacKay (John) and Monica Davis (Tanya) which Mahon would also use in his Rebel Cuban Girls ('59) and The Dead One ('60). Judging from the cars, such as Pat Deale's gorgeous black 1956 Buick Special Estate Wagon, Mahon may have been shooting shortly after Sputnik set off the whole space scare in October 1957. The newest car seen, is a glimpse of a '58 Chevy Biscayne. In some ways, it seems like Mahon started out with one story about an attack on New York, then later inserted the spies in Russia segments. The isolated character groups (who don't interact) suggest Mahon shot this project over an extended period (not Corman's 10 days). Imdb lists the release date as 1961. Perhaps it took Mahon awhile to get RA marketed.

Missing Matte -- One spot in the film which suggests a certain low-budget air comes when the soviet officers go out to admire their missile. There's nothing there -- not even a shadow. He already had the aft-section mockup (what John puts the bomb on). Mahon may have intended to insert a shot of a more complete model or some matte art via post-production for the missile they're supposed to be admiring, but he didn't get to it. Perhaps he thought the scene was good enough as it was, so why waste the money. Indeed, in several shots, the actors somewhat stumble over their words, or have pauses while they recall their next line. For Mahon, pretty-good was good enough -- and more economical!

MST3K -- Mystery Science Theater 3000 lampooned RA in the fifth episode of their second season. It may be the only way for average folk to view RA. It is passable, but Joel and the bots do too much bantering and riffing to hear some of the softer lines. While not one of their best episodes, it is amusing at times. RA is a pretty low-quality film, so ripe for riffing.

Plane Crazy -- A bit of a stock footage treat are shots of the Lockheed EC-121 Warning Star, a forerunner of the more famous Boeing E-3 Sentry AWACS of the later Cold War. Also note the Piper Tri-Pacer, three-wheeled variant on Piper's Pacer model -- which was a big brother to Piper's famous Cub model -- as the little plane that smuggled John into Russia.

Bottom line? RA is a good compare-and-contrast film for great productions like Fail Safe. Watch the two as a New York Gets Nuked double feature. They're like siblings. One struck it rich while the other picked cabbages. If you cannot abide poorly made films, avoid RA. It's only a couple pegs above amateur. If you're looking for more insight into the Cold War mood, RA as a lobbying tool, is a perfect (if very cheap) example.

Fail Safe

Curiously, Columbia Pictures ended up with two Brink-Of-War films in 1964. Fail Save (FS) came out 10 months after Columbia's Dr. Strangelove. They're bookends. FS was well directed and well filmed. It had big name actors, such as Henry Fonda and Walter Matthau. It even had some "free" pre-release publicity. Yet, FS did not do well. Unlike the satire, Dr. Strangelove, FS was a serious drama on the same topic, but following comedy made it harder to be taken seriously. The film deserved better. Watch for a young Dom DeLuise in his first film. A bit part as Sgt. Collins.

Quick Plot Synopsis
General Black wakes from a recurring bad dream, but composes himself, leaves his wife and two boys in New York City and flies to a pentagon briefing. Professor Goetschele (Matthau) is a political scientist and advisor to the Pentagon. He thinks nuclear war can be survived. The real question is which superpower is better prepared to survive and emerge. At an Air Force Base in Omaha, generals give a tour for a congressman. They get a brief moment of tension as a UFO scrambles fighters and puts patrolling bombers on alert. The UFO turns out to be commercial plane off course. A faulty circuit box is replaced, causing a brief blip in the system. This blip sends the attack order to bomber Group 6. They head for Moscow. The Russians have a radio jammer going, so the recall order doesn't get to Group 6. The President (Fonda), the Pentagon and Omaha base confer on what to do. The President orders some fighters to intercept and shoot down the bombers. But, with such a head start, they fail to reach them. Hawks among the advisors, such as Colonel Cascio and Professor Groeteschele urge that America capitalize on the error and launch a massive first strike. Win the Cold War right now. Doves among the advisors speak of the millions killed and moral wrong. The President calls the Russian Premier to discuss options. After some bickering and jockeying, and the Soviet's failure to shoot down all the bombers, the President orders defense secrets given to the Russians to improve their success. This works, but patriotic Colonel Cascio can take no further compromise and takes command of the Omaha SAC base. He is taken into custody. The Russians shoot down all but one bomber. Their last defense is to launch up all their surface to air missiles (heat seekers), in hopes of making a fireball and trap the low flying bomber. To prove his sincerity that it was all an accident, the President tells the Premier that if the bomber gets through and Moscow is bombed, he will order an American bomber to bomb New York City. The trade is horrible, but keeps the general peace. Grady, the pilot of the bomber, figures out the Russian missile tactic and evades it. The blast irradiates them (he says) so they decide to blow up with their bombs over Moscow. The President hear's the ambassador's phone squeal, so orders General Black to drop the bombs on New York. He does, then injects himself with poison. He realizes he is the matador from his dream. Routine life in NYC is shown in mini-video vignettes. They all zoom in and freeze frame for the moment the bombs explode. The End.

Armageddon
All four of the big Nuclear Doom movies came out of the late 1950s. On the Beach ('59) was the first movie. The stories from which Fail Safe and Dr Strangelove would come, were written in 1958. The Last War came out in 1961. At that time, Russia had the bomb, and post-Sputnik ('57), they'd proven they had capable rockets too. Diplomacy was not going well. Things looked especially bleak. The Cuban Missile Crisis was coming together. All four stories imagined the unimaginable -- that global nuclear war would happen, and wipe out all life on earth. In FS, it is only the two major cities, Moscow and New York that are wiped out, but they serve as proxies, representatives for what would happen to the whole world if that terrible compromise had not been reached.

Influence on Sci-fi
As mentioned before, many of the post-armageddon stories that populate sci-fi, usually pick up their stories well after the above-mentioned nuclear armageddon has taken place. These four apocalyptic films serve as understood footnotes for how those future worlds of mutants and cave-dwelling remnants got that way.

Cold War Spotlight
FS is pretty much 100% Cold War as a topic, but a little bit of American boosterims manages to seep through. The American President is the cool, calm leader type. The Russian Premier (all off camera) is more flighty and prone to brag and bluster. American weapons and defense systems are superior to the Russians. The moral of the film is delivered by Fonda near the end, talking to the Russian Premier. "We're to blame, both of us. We let our machines get out of hand. Today we had a taste of the future. Do we learn from it, or go on the way we have What do we say to the dead? We must say that it will not happen again. What we put between us, we can remove." FS preaches reconciliation.

Notes
Battle of the Books -- Before both films, Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe, had been released, there was a rather public legal battle. The writer of the story that would become the basis for Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, sued the writers of the book "Fail Safe." (published in 1962) for plagiarism. While the book had been on the shelves for over a year, it was news of Max Youngstein (former of United Artists) working on a film version of "Fail Safe" that prompted the suit. Peter George's "Red Alert" was published in 1958. He alleged plagiarism. Harvey Wheeler, one of the authors of "Fail Safe" countered that the book was based on his prior story, "Abaraham '58" and that George took no legal action until news of the movie broke. The parties settled out of court, with part of the settlement being that Columbia be granted rights to the Fail Safe. Now Columbia had two Doom movies.

Early Trace -- Harvey Wheeler asserted that he did not plagiarize Peter George's "Red Alert", but wrote a similar story a year earlier. His short story had a similar scenario and was titled "Abraham '58". There is a hint of this in the screenplay. At one point, the President asks Blacky if he remembers his Old Testament. Particularly the story of Abraham. Not much more is said in the movie, but this was a reference to events in Genesis 22, where Abraham follows orders from God to sacrifice his son Isaac on the altar. (God stops him at the last minute.) Wheeler used this imagery for a president's burden in deciding people's fates, hence his title. Perhaps this is a bit of his short story that survived into the script. It's interesting that Wheeler assumed he could include a mere mention of Abraham and that his audience would be familiar enough with the Bible to catch his inference.

Nascent Technophobia -- The distrust (if not fear) of machines had been perking in the background during the 50s. It showed up only a few times. In Gog ('54), robots and computers kill, but it is still by a human (enemy) hand guiding them. In Invisible Boy ('57), a super computer becomes sentient and tries to take over. Amid the Cold War, technophobia got a huge boost as people realized the vast power (nukes) that their machines controlled. In the Marathon of Doom films (see below), mechanical failures are the sparks that blow up the world. Fear of computers would grow as the 60s and 70s wore on. These Doom films highlight that moment when people realized they had voluntarily yielded too much power and responsibility to them. Many a sci-fi tale would spring from this.

Dying Phones Squeal? -- An iconic element in FS was the pronouncement that they would know if the bombs were dropped on Moscow because the phone line would emit a loud squeal as the ambassador's phone melted. It's dramatic, like a symbolic technological metaphor for the screams of the millions of Moscovites. The reality would be less dramatic. A nuclear bomb would be more likely to have broken phone lines (simple, undramatic dead air) than it would have left them intact long enough to melt the phone. The death squeal is undeniably more powerful for storytelling, though.

Star Plane -- Where Dr. Strangelove had some of its story play out in the cramped interior of a B-52, FS's counterpart was the cramped cockpit of a Convair B-58. In real life, the B-58 was called "Hustlers." In the movie, they're called "Vindicators". (Also note how the planes are always shown in negative) In reality, the B-58 was America's ace in the Cold War game. Capable of flying at mach 2 and very high, it was thought that the Hustler would be nearly impossible for the Soviets to stop, far better than the huge, lumbering B-52s. Strategic Air Command imagined the B-58 performing just the role depicted in the film. Actually, advances in Soviet missile technology made high altitude approaches too risky. The B-58 was then planned to fly in low, under radar, but at the lower altitude, it could not fly as fast. The B-58 was also tricky to fly and expensive to maintain. By the mid-60s, the Pentagon sought a better, less expensive alternative. By 1970, the B-58 was retired. The FB-111 was that smaller, cheaper alternative. Ironically, the B-52s that the Hustler was designed to replace, stayed in active service into the 21st century as the only viable carrier of air-launch cruise missiles.

Doom Marathon -- An interesting movie marathon (though not necessarily a "fun" one), would be to start off with The Last War ('61) for a third party's view of Armageddon-Via-Mistakes. Follow that with Fail Safe ('64) for an American view of the same scenario (just expand Moscow/New York to mean the world). Third up should be Dr. Strangelove ('64) for a satirical view of the same. Stop there if you wanted a fun evening with friends. But, if you wanted the complete Atomic Angst experience, wrap it up with On The Beach ('59) for that last forlorn look at mankind's end. Any Generation Y or Millennial who doesn't understand what everyone was so stressed about back in the Cold War days, should have a pretty good idea after this Marathon of Doom.

Bottom line? FS is a solid film, well paced, well acted, and visually strong (aside from the odd negative airplanes). It is well worth watching as a drama-thriller, but especially so as a window into the soul of Cold War fears.

Dr. Strangelove

Stanley Kubrick created a masterpiece of Cold War satire in 1964 with Dr. Strangelove (Dr.S). The full title includes the line "…or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb." It stars some big-name actors who live up to their reputations. Peter Sellers, especially, plays three important roles as Colonel Mandrake, President Muffley and Dr. Strangelove. George C. Scott plays General Turgidson. Sterling Hayden plays the unbalanced General Ripper. Dr.S is another Atomic Angst movie to fret openly about the imminence of destruction of all life on earth, but it does so in the rare style of satire and dark humor. Gallows humor? Much has been written about this movie already, so this review won't be exhaustive.

Quick Plot Synopsis
The commander of a Strategic Air Command base in Texas issues an attack order to his 34 B-52 bombers who are on routine air-readiness stations aloft. General Jack D. Ripper (Hayden) also orders the base closed with shoot-to-kill orders for anyone approaching. The commies will disguise themselves as American troops. The bombers open their Attack Plan R envelopes and proceed to targets. The rest of the government are aware of the bombers heading for Russia, but they cannot be contacted. Plan R ordered radio silence and allowed only one secret recall code, known only to Ripper. The president (Sellers) and other advisors debate what to do. General Turgidson (Scott) urges for full scale attack with missiles too. Might as well do the job right and prevent retaliation. Meanwhile, Colonel Mandrake (Sellers) is holed up with Ripper, who is clearly a paranoid psychotic. It unfolds that he sees fluoridation as a communist plot to weaken the American male's "bodily fluids." The president orders nearby troops to storm the closed base and get Ripper for the codes. A protracted fire fight ensues. When it is apparent that the bombers will reach their targets before the code is obtained, the president contacts the Russian premier, giving them the data necessary to shoot down the bombers. The SAC base is stormed, but Ripper commits suicide before being captured. Mandrake deduces the secret code from Ripper's desk doodles. He eventually contacts the president and all the planes are recalled -- except one. Major "King" Kong's (Slim Pickens) plane suffered radio damage in a near miss from a soviet missile, so did not get the recall. Suffering other damage too, Kong opts for a target of convenience, an ICBM base. The bomb bay doors are also damaged. He splices the wires while sitting atop one of the bombs. The doors open. He rides it down like a bronco. Back in the Pentagon war room, they find out that the Soviets have a Doomsday Device, which will automatically launch missiles with extra deadly radiation that will wipe out all life on earth -- if anyone bombs Russia with nukes. Realizing that doom is coming, the men in the wareroom listen to Dr. Strangelove's notion that they find 100,000 people to hide deep in mine shafts and wait the 100 years until it's safe to come out. He paints a male fantasy scenario of 10 women (all eager to breed) to each man, who has little else to do down in the mine shafts, so… Turgidson worries that the Russians have their babes in mine shafts already and that there is a "Mine Shaft Gap." The film ends with a montage of many different nuclear test explosions, with Vera Lynn singing her famous song, "We'll Meet Again." The End.

Armageddon
Dr.S shares with others in its doom genre that total global destruction is not averted. It shares this pessimistic view with On The Beach ('59) and The Last War ('61). It has more in common with the latter, in that it plays out in detail just how the nuclear powder keg gets touched off. Unlike The Last War in which errors eventually result in Armageddon, Dr.S makes it the willful act of a single deranged man. Interestingly, Columbia pictures felt they needed to include a scrolling-text disclaimer at the start, saying how the Air Force's safeguards would prevent anything like this from happening. Many classic era sci-fi took the presumption of events in Dr. Strangelove occuring, then spun out the tales of what happened to the scant survivors. 1000 Years From Now ('52), World Without End ('56), Planet of the Apes ('68) to mention just three of them.

Cold War Spotlight
Peter George's original novel was a cautionary tale of how the best laid plans for security in the Cold War could backfire and actually cause the cataclysm they sought to prevent. Kubrick's adaptation added the mythical Doomsday Device as a single focal point for all of the nuclear arms dangers. Just one bomb dropped would launch the end of the world. Mutually Assured Destruction.

Notes
Based on the Book -- Dr.S's primary story came from the 1958 novel by Peter George: "Red Alert". George's story is essentially the same as the primary plot in the movie, except for the ending. In the book, the president offers to let the soviets bomb one American city (Atlantic City, NJ) as compensation for the one bomb that the unreachable bomber will drop. It turns out that the lone bomber fails to drop its bomb, so all ends well. Kubrick changed that 180 degrees. George later sued the writers of the story "Fail Safe" (also made into a movie) for plagiarism.

Sex and Violence -- Kubrick's screenplay and directing interweave sex into just about every aspect of the plot. From the opening scene of a B-52 and air tanker "coupled" with lounge music in the background, to the names of characters and many visuals and scenes, Kubrick makes the story almost more about sex than nukes. Examples:
General Jack D. Ripper ( a killer of women) is paranoid about communist plots to weaken his "bodily fluids". We later learn that he means sperm, specifically. When besieged, Ripper wields the huge machine gun in particularly phallic fashion (actually impossible for the real gun).
Colonel Mandrake: The mandrake was a root plant thought to be an aphrodisiac or would enhance fertility. It's even mentioned in the Old Testament in a spat between Rachel and Leah.
President Merkin Muffley: A merkin is a pubic wig. A "muff" is the natural hair in the same role. The president is cast as a sort of feminine-side leader who is too easily side-tracked into quibbles over feelings.
General "Buck" Turgidson: is the hyper-male counterpart to Muffley. Turgid means swollen. Buck is all for getting in there and getting the job done. Very macho. He is shown in a hotel room with his secretary in a bikini. He is also keen on Dr. Strangelove's scenario of 1 man per 10 women secluded in mine shafts. There are more, too numerous to list here.

Subtle Humor -- The excellence of Kubrick's humor lies in its understatement. It also plays on absurdity set against the backdrop of the terrible and serious topic of global nuclear war. Some examples include: when Turgidson and the soviet ambassador are scuffling, the president tells them, "You can't fight in here, this the war room." When Colonel "Bat" Guano (Keenan Wynn) allows Mandrake to call the president on a payphone, he doesn't have enough change for the call. He tells Guano to break into the nearby Coke machine. With armageddon near, he refuses (deadpan), because it's private property. Also, with armageddon looming, the president and the soviet premier continue to get into protracted telephone spats over their feelings. Or, when they all discover that the soviets had a doomsday device, Dr. Strangelove points out that a deterrent is pointless if you don't tell people, the ambassador says sheepishly, "We were going to announce it on Monday?" As with the sexual references, the dark deadpan humor moments are too numerous to list here.

Military Machine -- As an interesting counterfoil to the bumblings and ineptitude of the politicians and the generals, the men aboard the B-52 carry out their roles with machine-like rhythm. Even when their plane is damaged by the soviet missile, they go about their emergency operations with cool dispatch. In Kubrick's hands, they become a human metaphor for the fabled Doomsday Device which will operate automatically -- free from meddling by fallible men.

Ghost Plane -- Admittedly a small thing, but when Kong's B-52 is flying low over the snowy Russian landscape, there is one spot, about 1 hour 35 minutes in, where the shadow can be seen. It is the shadow of a WWII bomber, the B-17. Just plane trivia.

Bottom line? Dr.S is a must-see as a cultural icon alone. Slim Pickens riding the bomb bronco style has been repeated and parodied many times. Aside from its value as an insight into Cold War mentalities (sane and insane), the acting from the stars is not to be missed. Peter Sellers plays all three of his roles amazingly well. Yet, he is almost upstaged by George C. Scott's comedic talent. Also look for an early film appearance of James Earl Jones as the bombardier on the B-52. While Kubrick gave the world a cathartic black humor look at the topic, another 1964 film, Fail Safe would examine a similar scenario, but from a totally serious point of view. The two make a great double-feature.

The Last War

In 1961, the same year as Beast of Yucca Flats,Toho Studios put out a blatantly preachy anti-nuke film titled Sekai daisensô. It was their rendition of On The Beach but with the anti-nukes message unencumbered by subtlety or allegory as in Gorath. Toho Studios president M. Shimisa said, "We of the Toho Company are employing every vestige of our technical skill to present as realistically and appealingly as possible exactly what will happen if this colossal horro befalls us. It is our sincere hope that by producing and exhibiting this film we can serve the cause of peace."Sekai daisensô was later edited and dubbed into english, released as The Last War (TLW) in early 1967. This review is for the dubbed version, but comparisons are drawn to the original as well.

Quick Plot Synopsis
The sailors on a Japanese merchant ship say they wish to return to Tokyo, even though they'll die of radiation. The main character, Takano, narrates the story as flashback.Tokyo was a busy, bustling city. It was also the home of the Tamura family whose eldest daughter, Saeko, was his girlfriend. Takano returns from a voyage. He and Saeko deal with how to best ask for her father's blessing for getting married. Intermixed with the family story are news reports of worsening international tensions between two super power alliances (thinly disguised America/Nato and Russia/Communist Block). Military maneuvers with live nuclear weapons increase tensions. A spy sub is captured. Things get more jittery. Both sides experience accidental almost-pushed-the-button moments that were narrowly averted. Other human interest characters are introduced. Takano's ship's cook recovers from surgery (kidney?), so is helping his daughter who is a kindergarten teacher. Lots of cute kids. One of them, Suzuo, is sick and her single mom works far away. Opposing air patrols start firing at each other over the arctic. Nuclear air-to-air weapons are used. The vaguely communist block cross the 38th parallel in Korea but their tanks are stopped. There are appeals for peace by the Japanese government, but summits break down. Takano must ship out again. Saeko goes to Yokohama to see him off, but they get married and enjoy their one night before he does. He ships out. The communist block decide to push their buttons. Missiles are launched -- some to Japanese cities. Panic in the streets as millions flee. Suzuo's mother dies of exhaustion trying to get to her girl. Saeko returns home. There is no defense, so everyone just sits and waits. Tokyo is blown up and consumed by fire storms. Other missiles are launched. Models of Washington DC, London, Paris, and Moscow are blown up too. Everything everywhere is destroyed. Takano finishes his contemplative flashback. Excerpt recordings of JFK's UN speech talk of need for disarmament. Fade to black. The end.

Apocalypse Suffered
Like On The Beach ('59), TLW is a tale in which total global nuclear war is not averted and everyone on earth dies. Like OTB, the intent is to preach disarmament by shocking audiences with the utter horror of global nuclear war. TLW provides a graphic look at how the war started, which OTB left as unseen and unexplained prior events.

Cold War Spotlight
TLW depicts the Cold War scenario with two super power alliances (The Federation and the Alliance, in the original movie), both of which have amble nuclear weapons to annihilate each other. TLW focuses on the hair-trigger dangers in a tense international arena. There is nothing allegorical. Only the names America and Russia are thinly disguised.

Notes
Original vs. Remix -- The original movie ran 125 minutes and told the story in chronological order. About 15 minutes of non-essential footage was edited out of the english-dubbed version. The major re-edit involved starting at the ending (the sailors deciding to return to destroyed Tokyo), and telling the story via flashback and narration. The dubbed dialogue is fairly faithful to the original, though no less awkward as most dubbed foreign films are. A few other peculiar variations exist too, which will be covered below.

No Kaiju -- TLW feels like a typical kaiju movie. It has model landscapes and cities which get destroyed. It has model tanks and planes which fire their little missiles. All it lacks is the monster. Both the special effects men, Eiji Tsuburaya and Akira Watanabe, worked on many of Toho's popular kaiju films: Godzilla, Rodan, The Mysterians, Mothra, Gorath, etc. Their work has a distinctive look and feel, even if there isn't a monster. I suppose the nuclear explosion is their kaiju in this case.

Heart Strings -- The story centers around the Tamura family. Father Moichi, mother Oyoshi, beautiful adult daughter Saeko, and her two young siblings, Hanu and Ichiro. Moichi is the good father, working hard to provide his family with prosperity. Oyoshi is the kindly but sickly mother and family peacemaker. Saeko is in love with merchant seaman Takano (who is also a boarder at the Tamura household, no doubt how he and Saeko got to know each other). Hanu and Ichiro are stereotypic kids. All of the character development is crafted to make the viewer care about the Tamura family. Thus, the viewer's heart strings are supposed to be pulled when at the end, they sit together silently in their living room, waiting for the missile to hit Tokyo.

Blasted Landmarks -- As has become traditional for apocalyptic movies, many familiar landmarks get destroyed. Among them are the US Capitol building, the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty, London's Tower Bridge, the Arc d'Triumphe, the Kremlin and Japan's National Diet building. The pyramidal top of the latter gets show several times at the end, the only recognizable bit amid the rubble and flames of Tokyo. How to show the destruction of Paris? Blow up the Eiffel Tower or Arc de Triomphe. Must faster on screen. This pattern of destroying symbolic landmarks would become an almost-required element for later doom films.

Bad English -- In the original, the two super powers both spoke English (and were played by caucasian actors). Japanese subtitles translated. But, the english spoken by these actors was mumbled or inarticulate, or just badly delivered. To Japanese ears, it probably sounded fine -- a bunch of "foreign" blather anyhow. Interestingly, in the english dubbed version, TLW, the caucasian actors' english was dubbed in too, by better voice talent. Listen for the distinctive voice of Paul Frees.

Random Act of Disney? -- In the original, the old cook's daughter has her kindergarteners sing him a farewell song. It is a traditional New Year's song (though the lyrics were not subtitled). In the english-dubbed version, the kids are dubbed to be singing "It's a small world (after all)." As unrelated as a Disney tune seems to an anti-war film, it actually does have a connection. Disney's songwriters Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman wrote the tune in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis -- which occurred only a year after the original film was released. The song debuted at the '64 New York World's Fair, and later became a Disneyland hallmark.

Biblical Variants -- In the original, Saeko sees that the sweet potato street vendor has a Bible at his cart. She picks it up and reads from it James 4:1-3. These are the verses that say "why are there wars among you? Because you lust and have not." On the one hand, it's clear that Toho was using western tradition (the Bible) as an indictment. On the other hand, it's interesting that a bible in Japanese is included at all. The old street vendor took it with him everywhere, and Saeko was familiar enough with it to flip it open and read from James. In the english version, Saeko reads from the Bible too, but the writers started with Psalm 140, verse 1 and 2, " Deliver me, O LORD, from the evil man: preserve me from the violent man". Then they added excerpts from Jeremiah 49:2,3 about alarms of war and daughters burned with fire. After that, they resumed the original verses out of James.

JFK Epilogue -- TLW wraps up with an extended quote from JFK's speech to the UN assembly in September 1961. The occasion was a memorial for the death of the Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold. He died when his plane crashed in Rhodesia (later Zambia) while on a peace-brokering mission. The loss of such a capable peace-maker at a time when US/Soviet tenses were flaring, was troubling. JFK used the occasion to denounce nuclear proliferation. The writers/editors remixed parts of JFK's 3rd and 13th paragraphs, including the famous quote that mankind must end war, or war will end mankind.

Bottom line? TLW is interesting as a snapshot of Cold War mood. Told from the Japanese point of view (not one of the warring sides), it captures some of that helpless feeling most people had. The message is delivered with little subtlety, but even this conveys some of the sense of urgency people felt. The model work has its interest, but it's not the focal point. For a personal (if depressing) double-feature, watch TLW to get the war, then On the Beach for doom of survivors, such as the sailors on Takano's ship -- A double dose of doom.