Hello!

What, another atom bomb-related movie?  It’s a Michael McQuarrie find, a twenty-minute documentary produced by the Air Force for the Atomic Energy Commission, on a series of bomb tests at the Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands in 1948.

Screenwriter Carey Wilson is listed as the narrator. Could he have tweaked the narration as well?  The tone of the writing matches the MGM short subjects where Wilson’s voice is frequently heard.

Only  Peter Kuran would know if better materials for this short subject are lost, as this looks like a 16mm dupe. We’ve seen some of these shots of men at electronic equipment, repurposed for science fiction movies (in better condition). That narration script is very well done, with no thoughtless or extreme remarks to exploit as madness in  The Atomic Cafe. Operation Sandstone is three separate detonations. The opening title card looks like a birth announcement for a new baby.

The final speech is quite a poetic mouthful, however:   “So can it be with the energy Man has created. The road is open, a road which may show us the cure for cancer, a road which may enable us to produce heat, and power and new metals with atomic furnaces. New fuels, new ways to nourish the soil, and correct vitamin and mineral defiencies in the very food we eat.”

Yeah, but the only aim we see is to make bigger and better bombs …

Thanks for reading!