Filmmaker Rob Rapley’s PBS-aired American Experience documentary shines a long overdue spotlight on the invaluable contributions made by Alfred Lee Loomis to the Allied effort during World War II. A lawyer who became a Wall Street financier, Loomis wisely withdrew his fortune from the stock market prior to the 1929 crash, using his money to create a private laboratory at his mansion in Tuxedo Park, an exclusive village in upstate New York. During the rise of Nazi Germany, Loomis invited German scientists who were fleeing from Hitler--including Jewish refugees--to work for him. He also attracted the attention of Winston Churchill, who sought out Loomis and his team for the development of radar technology that would be used against the Germans. The importance of Loomis’s role in developing scientific breakthroughs to help win World War II was not made known to the general public; Loomis worked diligently to avoid publicity, shutting down his lab in 1945 and refusing to give either interviews or access to his Tuxedo Park estate until his death in 1975. Rapley deserves much credit for piecing together this story, given the scarcity of archival film and photographs detailing the work at Loomis’s lab. Some aspects of Loomis’s life were less than heroic, most notably his divorce from his wife Ellen in 1945 after she developed severe depression. Nonetheless, his important wartime work deserves the attention paid here. Highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (P. Hall)
The Secret of Tuxedo Park
(2018) 60 min. DVD: $24.99 ($54.99 w/PPR). PBS Video. ISBN: 978-1-5317-0396-7. Volume 33, Issue 3
The Secret of Tuxedo Park
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