Monday morning quarterbacking has to be one of the most popular activities in America. How deceptively easy it is to look back at a historical period, shake our heads, and ask, "how could anyone be so stupid as to fall for that?" As a product of the 'duck- and-cover' drills of the '50s, I, along with everyone else in Los Angeles, would rise early in the morning on the day of atomic bomb tests, look east towards Nevada, and be amazed at the glare that rose over the San Gabriel Mountains as the blast lit up the sky. With the superpower scope of "hindsight," the producers of Dark Cloud have an easy target to ridicule: the cheesy propaganda films that were produced to "educate" the public about nuclear testing (oh sure, maybe some South Pacific islanders had to be relocated and a few ducks and sea otters were killed, but--damn it!--we had to fight the godless Commies with every weapon in our arsenal!). While the program makes the not terribly revelatory argument that the American public was lied to concerning the full effects of nuclear testing, the fact remains that at the time these films were made, there was a very real fear that the Russians were coming, the Russians were coming. Making fun of that fear is easy; making certain that contemporary "propaganda" films don't work the same magic today is the much harder task. Optional. Aud: C, P. (J. Carlson)
Dark Cloud: Our Strange Love Affair with the Bomb
(2000) 29 min. $39. Center for Defense Information. PPR. Vol. 15, Issue 6
Dark Cloud: Our Strange Love Affair with the Bomb
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