The Atomic Cafe

Rating:
Summary: a frightening and humorous look at cold war propaganda.
Review: This tape is both a humourous and a scary collection of government training films that deal with nuclear war. It shows how the U.S. Government has in the past lied to it's citizens. Most of the films in this collection are about how to servive a nuclear war. The advice is so bad it's laughable. END

Rating:
Summary: You will never believe it
Review: When my teacher showed this movie in class I couldn't believe what I was seeing. This movie really opened my mine. I hope that every kid my age would be able to see this movie. I know it changed the way I look at the world, not in a bad way but a different way.

Rating:
Summary: Funny, sobering, shocking, pacifist
Review: With a clever montage of 1940s/1950s news clips and Civil Defense and military training films overlaid with off-beat contemporary songs about The Bomb, the creators of THE ATOMIC CAFE produced a film that will amaze the post-Cold War generation and cause those who lived during that period to ask, "Could that be us?"

This docu-drama begins with the Trinity atomic test blast in New Mexico in 1945, then proceeds through the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the subsequent atomic test at Bikini atoll. With the acquisition of the A-bomb by the Soviets in 1949 - my birth year - and the Korean War, the film gets into the meat of the piece, which is a visual commentary on the paranoia about the Red Menace and Nuclear Armageddon which gripped the United States during Eisenhower's two terms as President.

THE ATOMIC CAFE is alternately funny, sobering, and shocking. Funny, as when Kruschev and Nixon verbally joust in a comedic Tricky Dick and Nicky routine during the former's visit to the States. And the training films depicting citizens, singly and in large groups, on the streets and in schools, doing the "duck and cover" drill in response to the hypothetical Big One. Sobering, as when a priest discusses the merits of excluding non-family members from your personal bomb shelter. (In a departure from Christian charity, he was all for it.) Or the message given to Army troops assigned to the near vicinity of test explosions, which was that in a real atomic war it would be the blast that kills them, not the radiation. And shocking, as when we see the disfiguring burns and blisters affecting the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the pigs exposed to subsequent test detonations in the desert Southwest. (My wife, an animal lover, left in horror after seeing the latter.)

Released in 1982, THE ATOMIC CAFE is a pacifist and anti-war statement produced, I suspect, in response to President Reagan's confrontational stance vis-a-vis the Evil Empire after his 1980 election. While the film inspires many different emotions, its consistent and overall tone is to mock the U.S. government for the nuclear fix it got the country into with the development of the A and H-bombs, the wild-eyed propaganda it disseminated to rally the citizenry against the Commie Hordes, and the Best Face the Civil Defense authorities put forward on the possibility of surviving a nuclear holocaust.

As a child of the 50s, I also remember the periodic tests of the air raid siren, and the "duck and cover" exercises. My Dad built us an elaborate bomb shelter under the garage around the time of the Cuban Crisis. While I found THE ATOMIC CAFE fascinating, it certainly wasn't balanced. (For example, the narrative tellingly ends prior to Kennedy's election. Bay of Pigs and nuclear brinkmanship? Say what?) I would also like to have seen some of the equivalent anti-American propaganda the Soviets disseminated to their citizens during the period. Perhaps, best of all, the film would be better produced today after decades' distance from the events.

Rating:
Summary: Sure, and irradiated food is healthy too.
Review: Wow this movie is an eye opener. After watching it I can believe in almost any conspiracy theory,because they all sound more reasonable than the truth about the Government's Atomic testing programs. Back then people were told that mny forms of radiation will bounce harmlessly off human skin! Hosts of Kid Tv shows talked about bomb shelter preparedness! No wonder everyone went nuts in the 60's. It was backlash against all the "Atomic War" talk. Children were regularily reminded in classs that an A-bomb could hit at any time.Hmm explains alot about the Boomers. You probably already know that this movie is a collection of propaganda films shown in America to calm the fears of the public over nuclear war. It's brilliantly edited. Hope the makers have a long and prolific career. Some of it is VERY funny when you look back at the attitudes of the time. There's a great part where Nixon appears on a variety show with Nikita Kruschev, and Nikita makes Dick look pretty shabby as they attempt to one up each other on Aamerican national Tv.When you lack the people skills of even a hard line Communist Premiere then you know you're in trouble. Ah Dick, you should have learned. The most important message I got from this film is that the Gov't needs to be watched very closely to ensure its honesty. There are too many agendas floating around Washington that don't have the public's best interest in mind. Don't accept anything that is spoon fed to you because it's probably a load of crap. Except irradiated food, I'm sure the Gov't wouldn't let that happen if it wasn't safe. NOT!

Rating:
Summary: Duck, Cover, And Blow Away...
Review: Yep, get those fallout shelters dug and those lead suits pressed! It's time for THE ATOMIC CAFE! Culled from archival footage and spliced together to make the best presentation of the nuclear nightmare I've ever seen. Watch as politicians talk about the benefits and wonders of the hydrogen bomb! See ordinary folks being lulled to sleep by official propoganda! Listen to the military brass tell their troops about the minor threat of the live nuke test they are about to experience up close! Hear the pure balogna told to the poor natives of the Bikini atoll, just before the test blast that would bring tons of radiation raining down on their smiling heads! This is more than a movie, it's a damning slice of history. Nothing gets across the vastness of our own insanity like our own words and actions! The atomic age becomes the atomic culture as we live in fear of the russians and the bomb. Most of the statements by politicians and military types are so ridiculous, it's as though they were scripted by Mel Brooks! The true horror of this movie lies in it's presentation of real people saying and doing irrational, stupid things. Watch it and tremble...