(In passing- Even though we've managed to dodge the nuclear bullet for 60-odd years, it's best to keep in mind that fateful day in 1962, when only a Soviet submarine commander's refusal to press the nuclear button stood between us and a real test of Duck and Cover.
#ATOMIC CAFE MOVIE#
Anyway, the movie uses irony and black humor to convey a pretty good sense of an anxious period. After all, what would pack a bigger advertising wallop than a few thousand tons of exploding TNT.
Also, there's considerable grim humor in the way commercial culture trivializes the threat by naming drinks and cafés after The Bomb. informing the people about nuclear warfare, The Atomic Cafe shows how the American government and the media tried to sway public opinion in the 1950s. Then there are efforts to calm public anxiety through counter-measures, such as bomb shelters and gas masks, along with Duck and Cover. So, we see efforts to demonize our former ally, the Soviets, plus our own disarmament advocates, in pretty crude terms. As a result, politicians and the Pentagon had a big challenge convincing the public not to seek nuclear disarmament as one way of dealing the problem. Naturally, some sort of civilian measures became necessary once the Soviets came up with their version of the A- bomb making nuclear war a real possibility. Of course, the black humor lies in showing that destructive power in the leveled cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and then contrasting that with anemic defensive measures like the infamous Duck and Cover. It looks like the clips are selected with the idea of justifying The Bomb's existence, and then soft-pedaling its destructive power. The movie's a quirky documentary assembled from news clips from the '40's and '50's, showing how Americans learned to live with The Bomb if not exactly love it.
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