The Big Bang: The Atomic Bomb on Film
Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.
– From the Bhagavad Gita, quoted by J. Robert Oppenheimer when the Trinity test successfully detonated the first nuclear weapon
Today marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. Six years and one day after Germany invaded Poland, the war ended with the United States accepting Japan’s surrender on the decks of the USS Missouri.
As long and as horrible as the war had been, among the final acts were the to-date only wartime use of nuclear weapons, upon the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What made these two acts stand out over a long litany of horrors was its unique status as a true “wonder weapon,” the application of advanced science beyond common experience to eliminate so many so quickly. The atomic bomb not only became the ultimate weapon from a geopolitical standpoint, but the fuel of fears for ages to come.
The shock of knowing that the bomb existed was something that could provide some uneasy comfort in the United States, knowing that at least this was a weapon to keep the peace, because anyone who might want to start trouble would face assured destruction. This changes as of August 29, 1949, when the first successful Soviet nuclear test goes off; suddenly, the terror potential changes as the country becomes a target as well.
And for the next 30 years thereafter, that fear would find ways to be expressed in film and on television. A look at some of the examples of how the bomb was used in the visual arts helps give us perspective on how we came to deal with the nuclear nightmare.
A note of clarification: The following examples limited themselves to story lines where the use of atomic weapons in war are a major plot point. Inclusion of the threat of atomic weapons in “spy-fi” pieces like the Bond films, where their use is threatened as an inducement but never carried out, or films that show the unintended consequences of having and testing devices like “irradiated beast” films (Godzilla, et al), or as devices to get aliens interested in us (such as The Day the Earth Stood Still), would turn this piece into an all-day read. And yes, there may be some spoilers coming up.
Five (1951)
This film gets credit for being the first fictional work to include a plot line tied to a nuclear war; sadly, it deserves a lot more credit than just that passing notice. The adventure of the last five people left alive after a nuclear exchange poisons people while leaving buildings intact (visually effective, if not entirely accurate), the film is especially notable for the way writer-director Arch Oboler places the main focus on the one woman left behind, Susan Douglas’ Roseanne, whose arc is the driver behind much of the film. As most post-apoc lit finds women fading into the background most of the time, the fact that we mainly focus on her coming to grips with the end of the world and then giving birth under the worst of circumstances makes the film feel even more cutting edge than most of the works that would follow it.
Atomic Attack (1954)
Meanwhile, one of the first efforts by television to deal with the issue resulted in this production, which showed the trauma of a family living in Westchester soon after a sneak attack takes out New York and infects the youngest daughter with radiation sickness. Imagine the 1983 film Testament with a smaller budget and a lot more input from the National Civil Defense Headquarters (the precursor to FEMA), and you get the general idea of how this ends up. The most notable feature of this production is the inclusion of Walter Mathau, who gets another chance later on to discuss nuclear Armageddon in a bigger venture.
Day the World Ended (1955)
Sadly, the majority of projects contemplating the end of the world after a nuclear exchange would draw more from this template than the one Oboler had shot around his Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house. The fourth film Roger Corman directed and produced, out of 56 and 409 respectively, so far, sets up the story beats we’d see for most post-apoc films made thereafter. Featuring an authority figure (Paul Birch) who has to meet the challenge of holding together his oasis and care for his daughter (Lori Nelson) against monsters both fantastic and mundane (Mike “Touch” Connors), the bigger issues of loss and remorse make way for immediate action-filled survival, the mindset that would make the late T. K Jones feel right at home. The fact that the deeper issues about the end of civilization get sublimated by the need to immediately survival becomes a main theme going forward for a few years from here.
A Day Called X (1957)
While elements of Hollywood got into the wilder elements of the bomb culture, Broadcaster’s Row tried to stay sober with public affairs shows like A Day Called X. Featuring Glenn Ford and the citizens of Portland, Oregon, who all filled the roles they held at the time with all the acting acumen on a fifth-grade class doing a sight reading, this docu-drama by Harry Rasky reflects the thinking of the time, that with enough warning we could evacuate our cities to allow our citizens to survive. This was a great reflection of the moment when it was thought that we could absorb a nuclear attack, a belief that ebbs and flows throughout the Cold War.
On the Beach (1959)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uncnniRPvzI
By the time this adaptation of Neil Shute’s novel hit the screens, the reliance by both the US and USSR on land-based ICBMs changed the thinking about nuclear war from one of survivability to resignation in the face of (potentially accidental) mutually-assured destruction doctrine. With no potential to be found in the chance of surviving a nuclear exchange, we end up with a bleak picture, watching Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, and Anthony Perkins come to peace with the end of humanity in a country that suffered the effects of nuclear war without a single device ever coming over its air space. Peace movements around the world would emerge at this time independent of the film to organize for the Limited Test Ban Treaty, hoping that this step would ultimately lead to the end of nuclear weapons.
The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959)
As the concept of nuclear war being unwinnable became a more accepted possibility, the idea that such a conflict would allow the survivors a chance to “start fresh” came into vogue, as this film suggests. When Harry Belafonte not only ends up with but shares Inger Stevens with Mel Ferrer, we have not only an acceptance of how the end of the world means the end of older ways of thinking about race and relationships, but replacements of the same. Shot in a New York that no longer empties out on Sundays (which allowed for the location shooting in the film), this is done at the time of the beginning of the acceptance of an ideal that the disruption from a nuclear war might be a good thing long term.
The Twilight Zone: “Time Enough at Last” (1959)
At the same time, the idea of the futility of nuclear war reached television and helped establish the reputation of Rod Serling, whose work on The Twilight Zone would go on to influence generations of writers and creators. Burgess Meredith’s Harry Bemis is a low-grade everyman whose fate following an atomic attack resonates with us long after the fact that even with a game changer like nuclear war. Fate can still be a complete bitch, making the exercise of going to DEFCON 1 no greater an improvement over what was had before the nukes went off.
Panic in Year Zero! (1962)
Opening just a few months before the Cuban Missile Crisis, this futility in the face of nuclear war story gave us Ray Milland’s only theatrical direction effort, where he also starred as the father of a family on their way to a camping holiday as the bombs fall. (Said family included Frankie Avalon, as far from the beach as you could imagine.) Whether this give-me-my-gun film was as responsible for psychic damage as dearly as John Milnius’ Red Dawn was, we can only surmise, as American International never seemed to care all that much for direct customer feedback.
This is Not a Test! (1963)
Another cheapie produced to tie into our fear of nuclear annihilation, this film is notable for its suggestion that our police may not be up to the job of keeping order. Dismissed at the time, the fact that police misconduct is now so au courant makes the film of more interest now than it was during its initial release. Otherwise, watching this movie makes you aware that yes, sometimes rocks elicit performances.
The Twilight Zone: “The Old Man in the Cave” (1963)
While the series would have a number of episodes that looked at the end of civilization-grinding warfare, including the classic episode “Two,” by the time this episode aired, it was considered common knowledge that a nuclear exchange was per forma a losing strategy, less likely the result of considered policy than grand foolishness, which gave the next two major theatrical efforts to deal with the bomb their framework.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Columbia Pictures, 1964
This film is a classic, not only among post-apoc aficionados, but audiences at general. This was done during Stanley Kubrick’s ascendance, at the height of Peter Sellers‘ career, and at a time when nuclear annihilation was expected, should a third world war come. The bleak comedy about the march to war that would have made Barbara Tuchman giggle as she sighed is one of the more iconic films ever released, and its influence cannot be ignored. Every time we see a man ride an atomic bomb or find ourselves in the War Room, we’re forever in the shadow and fallout zone of Kubrick’s classic. The fact that much of what we got on screen was likely to happen, despite what USAF General Curtis LeMay stated (or more likely because of what he wanted to do), gave the film its deep relevance even this far forward.
Fail Safe (1964)
Released by Columbia a few months after the same studio released Kubrick’s classic, this film extended the craziness of the Cold War to a whole new level: The idea that in order to maintain peace after we launch an accidental attack, we would need to allow for one of our own delivery systems to take out one of our own cities (in this case, New York), adds a level of self-destructive crazy that no one thought was possible when the other film was in pre-pro. With Walter Mathau showing up again as a Curtis LeMay-esque character, we find ourselves tempted yet again to, if not love the bomb, have a 30-minute-long one-night stand with it.
The War Game (1965)
This mockumentary, intended to show how limited the British government was in planning the advent of a nuclear war, ended up being more influential than any other presentation made thereafter. Strands of its DNA can be found many years later in both BBC’s Threads and ABC’s The Day After, even though The War Game never saw an airing between 1965 (at which time it won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature) and 1985, by which time the BBC was finally able to release it to a general audience. In many ways, the hour-long presentation had a more pronounced influence by its absence than it would have had it actually been in circulation, using its reputation to influence others without being there to directly mark out what was expected or accepted.
The Bed Sitting Room (1969)
Who better than Richard Lester, who was so dismissive of the military in Help! and How I Won the War, to be charged with the ultimate indictment of nuclear warfare? His vision of an England reduced to only 20 people after a third world war fought in less than three minutes is the greatest condemnation of any military operations he has ever provided before or since. The fact that he had on hand such dismissive deconstructionist comics as Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, and Marty Feldman makes this the harshest calling out of the “military-industrial complex” ever committed to film, and an even harsher criticism of “nuclear thinking” than Stanley Kubrick had ever been.
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
It’s at this time that we start seeing more considerations of nuclear war where we look not minutes after the attack, but decades, even centuries. While its predecessor had established better how things had gotten so bad, it’s only with the sequel that we really see how horribly the long term post-bellum era ended up in the ape-dominated era. Of special note is how the council of mutants, including such luminaries as Don Pedro Colley and Victor Buono, can decide that the bomb is worthy of such worship that any madman with the trigger codes can thus allow it to eliminate the entire planet; even scarier is that said madman ended up being Charlton Heston, who thought that blowing up the world would be the end of the ape story.
Genesis II (1973) and Planet Earth (1974)
Two iterations of the same pilot produced by Gene Rodenberry, we continue putting the bomb behind us while bringing someone from our time forward to remind people about some of the good that came before the nukes flew. One could make the argument that starting here and going through the end of the decade that the “displaced man” theme in nuclear fiction could be considered an effort to apologize and explain for having blown up the planet; how much its presence is apology and how much is “make good” can be debated.
A Boy and His Dog (1975)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkJV19sxKgc
This film, based on Harlan Ellison’s narrative cycle of the same title, is infused with more insane crazy than what would be needed to choose to use nuclear weapons. That the film takes place in 2024 after World War IV should give you some sense of how insane the film gets, as we watch Don Johnson argue with a telepathic dog while scouring the wastes for food and women.
Wizards (1977)
Ralph Bakshi’s epic fantasy, based on Vaughn Bode’s Cheech Wizard, goes even further forward in time after the bombs went off, about 10 million years forward. Featuring rotoscoped battle scenes lifted from Wehrmacht newsreels and Alexander Nevsky along with some early voice work from Mark Hamill, the film doesn’t try and explain how a Nazi propaganda film on film stock could still be around and able to be shown on a projector, but then again, there are wizards in this story, so, hey, y’know…
Damnation Alley (1977)
Taking considerable liberties with Roger Zelazny’s novella and novel on which the film is based, as well as concocting more far-fetched set of consequences of a nuclear attack than could be expected, the film failed to find an audience in its initial release. Which surprised Fox executives, who anticipated that the film would do much better business than the other SF release they were releasing that year, Star Wars, a film with what in this instance could be considered a very ironic title.
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979-1981)
Commissioned by the network to produce a space-battle heavy SF show for themselves, Universal exercised their rights to the original Buck Rogers, cannibalized Battlestar Galactica for props and sets, and reimagined Rogers’ world to have come about because of a nuclear war in 1987. As only three episodes from season one ever actually touched on the nuclear exchange, we can see how the fear of the bomb had started to fade by now, at least until the Reagan Administration encouraged the next wave of bomb fears on screen, along with one last look at the past.
The Atomic Café (1982)
Compiled from films on atomic weapons and civil defense mainly commissioned by the US government between 1945 and 1962, the film presents such pieces as Duck and Cover and Atomic Alert (with a soundtrack containing such music from the time as Slim Galliard’s “Atomic Cocktail” and Bill Haley’s “Thirteen Women”) to audiences that might not have seen them in decades, explaining what attitudes were held by those with their fingers on the button. While everything else on this list tried to process the atomic nightmare, this movie showed you what caused it.
