Wednesday, February 18, 2009

THE ATOMIC CITY (1952)

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044382/

It was 1952, and the "Atomic Age" had just begun. If there was anything cooler than having a rumpus room decorated with bullfight posters or bongo drums, it was anything "atomic".

The daily life of those who live and work in Los Alamos, New Mexico seems strange and exotic. There are fenced in areas everywhere, Dad gets thoroughly checked by geiger counters every morning on his way into work, and a co-worker on a perfectly ordinary day gets sent to the hospital with severe burns from radioactivity overexposure. Mom wants to move away because her little son has stopped saying, "When I grow up..." and has started to say "IF I grow up...". This is a big time company town. During a school trip, the son is kidnapped and held for ransom; not money, but nuclear secrets.

Basically a police procedural, THE ATOMIC CITY is crisply directed by Jerry Hopper (whose credits include THE PRIVATE WAR OF MAJ. BENSON, a rare comedy from Charlton Heston), with a very tense chase through the New Mexico hills comprising the final third of the film.

Gene Barry and Milburn Stone star, a couple of years ahead of their TV western fame. Young Lee Aaker deserves special credit as the best performance. He would go on in the next year to play "Red Chief" in the "Ransom of Red Chief" episode of O'HENRY'S FULL HOUSE.

I'd bet that the FBI field phone in the pic above (taken off the TV screen — please excuse the quality) triggered lots of oohs and aahs from an audience in 1952.


Steve Jobs as THE NEW YORKER's Eustace Tilley


the forbidden fruit by ~capitanicopor on deviantART

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Impatient for Spring

Tuesday, February 17, 2009
City Blooms

Photo taken in Madison Square Park in April of last year.