The Atomic Cafe
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Movie Reviews of The Atomic Cafe
Movie Review: Superb Look at the Dark Side of the Fabulous 50's
Summary: 5 Stars
If you're of a certain age, you'll recall duck-and-cover drills when your teachers told you to slide under your desk, face away from the windows, and cover your head. These exercises were practice, just in case the Soviet Union decided to drop an atomic bomb or two while you were learning your times tables. This was the 1950's, a time of nationwide paranoia about the Bomb.
"The Atomic Cafe" is a wonderfully nostalgic, often hilarious documentary about those days when the government produced instructional films about how to survive a nuclear attack, with announcers in stentorian tones assuring Americans that anyone can withstand a nuclear attack if simple rules were followed. Director Kevin Rafferty has assembled in this 1982 film vintage clips, music from military training films, campy advertisements, presidential speeches, and pop songs that revolve around the apprehension surrounding the relatively new atomic bomb.
What makes the movie a hoot today is the propaganda and lopsided optimism of the Fabulous Fifties. The editing creates much of the film's irony, such as footage of a totally leveled Hiroshima braided into suburban duck-and-cover routines with actors who look like June and Ward Cleaver's next-door neighbors. However, the film also illustrates how pervasive America's obsession with the new bomb was and how advertisers latched onto the word "atomic" the way they later embraced the phrase "new and improved."
"The Atomic Cafe" has more than its share of jaw-dropping moments. Average folks compare a nuclear holocaust to a tornado that rages for a few seconds and then quickly calms down. A California man proudly states that after most of his neighbors die in an attack by the Soviets, extra food will be available for prepared families like his. A happy, middle-class American family heads for their bomb shelter, equipped with a periscope. Two school girls display twelve Mason jars filled with bomb shelter provisions they made in their home economics class. The sense one gets is that nuclear war was sold to the American people as a bearable inconvenience, not unlike a two-hour power outage.
The icing on the cake in this two-disc Collector's Edition is eight complete government propaganda films, including "Self Preservation in an Atomic Attack" (1950), "Duck and Cover" (1951), and "Our Cities Must Fight" (1951). These black-and-white movies are both funny and creepy in that they were shown all over America and peddled distorted ideas about the potency not only of the atomic bomb itself, but of the devastating effects of radiation poisoning.
Movie Review: Frightenly funny
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw "Atomic Cafe" when it first came out in 1982, and the film has lost none of its zip in the intervening years. The film is a montage of military and civilian footage of Americans attempting to deal with the destructive enormity of atomic power, overlain with the cheesiest A-bomb related period music. Starting with an interview with an unapologetic Paul Tibbetts (who flew the Enola Gay on its bombing run over Hiroshima) through the Nixon-Khrushchev "kitchen debates" of the 1950s, the film takes us on a wild and irreverent ride through an America terrified by the prospect of instant annihilation.
What's neat is that the movie is not narrated except by the voices of the times. President Eisenhower urges America (in its consumer greatness) not to panic. Bert the Turtle teaches a generation of children to duck and cover when they see the atomic flash. Government films urge the country into fallout shelters where they can wait a few minutes before coming up to take a look around and start the arduous job of straightening the picture frames knocked askew by the blast. Catholic clergy are filmed dispensing the government to build the bomb and permitting homeowners to stock "protective devices" in their shelters against those poor souls trying to get in.
The torrent of disinformation and misinformation is fascinating, and would be funnier if the possibility of nuclear war were not so real. Ironic too is the population's level of trust in a government clearly unwilling to level with it about the level of destruction that the bomb would perpetrate.
The film mis-stepped only once, in allowing for sympathy to the Rosenbergs. Subsequent years have shown that they most probably did give nuclear secrets to the Soviets. I can feel pity for their children and abhor their executions without excusing their wickedness.
"Atomic Cafe" does have an agenda. By juxtaposing pictures of children hiding under beds and school desks with images of the obliteration of bombed test homes, it makes clear the fact that nuclear war is not the mostly-survivable thing that might lead some to complacency about atomic attack. The film does not stint on showing the horrors of nuclear attack and fallout. As such, it has done a great service by laying out the true cost of atomic warfare as well as of blindly trusting those who control the detonation of those awful weapons.
The DVD extras are nothing special -- little more than trailers and credits.
Movie Review: we're gonna live, live LIVE---IN MY FALLOUT SHELTER !!!
Summary: 5 Stars
The Atomic Cafe gives us an excellent look at the development of the atomic bomb, the H bomb and the repercussions it had on the world, including America. Although some parts provide black humor, I saw things like the "duck and cover" scenes as being symptomatic of a time when people truly thought America could at any time come under nuclear attack by its arch enemy, the former Soviet Union.
The film begins with the test detonation of an atom bomb in the desert of New Mexico and proceeds roughly chronologically to tell the story of how the atom bomb helped to end World War II. We get footage of the bomb's mushroom cloud after it was dropped on Hiroshima; and there is a plethora of footage and film clips from the era regarding how government taught Americans to think about the bomb as the tool to destroy all our enemies. We also see much paranoia fueling these government films which are often little more than poorly disguised propaganda films of the day.
However, a closer look reveals the absolute obsession Americans experienced about the threat of the Soviet Union to rob them of their "American dream." Communism was fought against vigorously--not just in Congress but in the form of protest marches, films churned out by the American government and radio and TV talk shows of the day. I could not help but feel sympathy for people who genuinely believed that at any moment an enemy like the Soviet Union could destroy almost all of Los Angeles, Minneapolis or New York. I remember how I myself had those fears at times when I was a young boy.
Overall, the footage and the pace of the documentary provide us with excellent insight about how Americans thought and dealt with the newborn atomic age during tough times; and this film held my attention well.
The DVD comes with few extras. We get scene selections and credits but little else. Oh, well.
The Atomic Cafe is indeed a cult classic; and it also makes for a rather interesting look at the abject fear and dread Americans truly experienced at a time when the "cold, cold war" between America and the Soviets was full blown. I highly recommend it for people studying this period in time. People who want a better understanding of the American experience in the aftermath of the atomic bomb will do well to watch this movie.
Movie Review: American Cold Wa Paranoia Uncut
Summary: 5 Stars
'Atomic Cafe' presented this subject in the best possible way. Made early in the 1980's this takes old news reel footage,interviews,educational and US Army training videos and footage of many atom bomb tests from the "atomic age",starting from D-Day up until the end up the 50's and strings them together without any modern commentary,as if they're one long film in and of themselves.Of course the paranoia of this era need not be discussed;this footage all speak for itself. We begin at the end of WWII when the atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima so,while America is "celebrating victory" the innocent civilians of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki are suffering the after effects of the then largely unknown radiation poisoning. The whole film plays out that way;America is finding different ways to justify the merrits of the atom bomb,and eventually the hydrogen bomb so they can "maintain freedom" while the soldiers and often innocent civilians,such as those from the Bikini islands are displaced for the sake of the "progress" that comes along with the development of this new technology. In the end this attitude gives way to outright paranoia;atomic weapons become linked with communism after the very unpleasant death (some would say murder) of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and the vulgarities of the McCarthy hearings that followed.In the end America and the Soviet Union of course are head to head and...well the outcome is up for much debate even today. Now for my opinion.Considering that both my parents grew up during this time (my dad during it,my mom at the tail end of it)it's no doubt that the generation that were children during the events depicted in this films became a bit self indulgent,even if they're views and intentions were essentially the correct ones-to live in peace with each other. It explains without doubt where the "live for today" attiude comes from. So watching this film with my folks my dad especially probably viewed some of it as part of the instruction manual of his youth. To me it serves very much as a blackly comic warning (one we often still have trouble confronting today) to learn from the machines of violence and not allow it to box us into a culture of fear.Movie Review: Wonderful (scathing) Documentary
Summary: 5 Stars
Atomic Cafe (1982) is a scathing documentary on the atomic age created from archival film from the 40s-early 60s. The scope of the material is extensive: military training films (often the most morbidly hilarious and poorly acted of the bunch), television news, various other government-produced propaganda films - they convey the American fear and obsession with atomic weapons and their disastrous consequences (both historical and potential).
The first third is more historical in nature -- it shows clips the atomic bombs dropping on Nagasaki and Hiroshima (with interviews with the pilots), the effects of radiation, the jubilation at the end of the war, and (one of the more uncomfortable sections to watch) American soldiers explaining to the Bikini Atoll islanders that their home will soon be the site of nuclear testings (and they smile, and laugh, and occasionally look bewildered).
The last two thirds of the film is less chronological and consists of various propaganda films. Of course we see the notorious Duck and Cover.... But some of the others are just as good/bizarre/uncanny/morbid: a boy whose radiation protection suit is made partially from oven mits, overweight school girls in deadpan voices describing how to put together fallout shelter provisions, scenes of Nixon and Krushchev, the effects of atomic weapon radiation on hair, the effects of radiation on pigs, towns which experiment with Stalinism, various fallout shelters, and fathers rationalizing that at least food will be easier to find if most of the population is killed by a blast, etc etc.
What strikes the viewer immediately is the complete lack of narration (besides the original narration in the film clips). Instead a WONDERFUL sound track of atomic age inspired songs create a surprisingly horrific atmosphere. For example:
A wealth of fascinating clips can be found here -- and of course with the advent of youtube and imdb.com the actual documentaries and songs can be tracked down online.
A great documentary and an amazing sound track... One doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at the second third...
Highly recommended!