The Motorola Television Hour (TV Series) Atomic Attack (1954) User Reviews

"How To Cope With Stress."

[rmax304823 · 5/10 · 18 November 2016]

The air was filled with REAL threat during the fifty-year-Cold War. And not just the air but the movies too. Features were filled with spies and espionage and sabotage and wearing white after Labor Day. John Wayne had to put them down in Hawaii in "Big Jim McLain." But it's understandable that there should have been so many threat movies during the Cold War. A population needs to be inoculated against the possibility of a horrible war, in case the possibility is realized.

These films are actually training films in how to play a new role. I remember training films in boot camp -- one about the Universal Code of Military Justice in particular, in which Lee Marvin played a deceitful sailor on the witness stand. There was some other one about venereal disease and another that showed us how to swim with perfect safety through a sea of burning oil, very amusing.

"A Day Called X" is about how to assume the role of disaster survivor in the event of a nuclear war -- how to prepare yourself emotionally and materially.

Phyllis Thaxter is a middle-class Mom who takes care of the house and her two children in Westchester, a well-to-do suburb of New York, while well-groomed Dad goes off to work in the city. A hydrogen bomb is dropped on the city by "the enemy".

All of a sudden the Thaxter house is turned into a chaotic scene of intrigues, arguments, desperate, visitors and survivors -- a rogue doctor who was once a pacifist, kids too young to understand radiation, a woman who becomes hysterical, another who is benumbed, another who gets constantly smashed. But in the midst of all this hubbub, Thaxter is a pillar of stability.

Frankly, it has a hasty look about it. There's a good deal of rushing from place to place on the single stage set. No one is sure of himself except for the local doctor who is -- Walter MATTHAU, looking great in the tumult.

It's more of a historical curiosity now. Thank God for small favors.

The enemy attacks

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 28 March 2018]

This teleplay has New York hit with a nuclear Pearl Harbor, several other cities as well. Phyllis Thaxter is at home with her two daughters Patty McCormack and Patricia Behrens when the flash is shown and the shock wave hits in their Hudson Valley suburb. The story concerns how the family copes, especially because dad was more than likely in New York at the time.

Robert Keith plays a J. Robert Oppenheimer like scientist who had certain security clearance problems before the attack. He's a bit paranoid understandably. A young Walter Matthau is also in this, also playing a doctor with civil defense training. By the way the Russians are never mentioned, the attackers are referred to as 'the enemy'.

I suppose we should be grateful those paranoid days are gone. This film is a painful reminder.

Surving and thriving during a nuclear holocaust....

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 26 February 2017]

"Atomic Attack" is an excellent little window into the 1950s. While it all seems a bit quaint and dated today, nuclear attack was a HUGE concern...and a reasonable concern considering the huge nuclear build-ups and the nastiness of the Cold War. It's less important for its entertainment value than its historical value.

The story begins in the New York suburbs. Very soon, there is a nuclear attack on the city and the film follows a family and their neighbors during the aftermath of the war.

In many ways, the film was designed to dispense information--what to do and what not to do before, during and after the attack. The show also gave the unrealistic impression that nuclear wars are imminently survivable and that in the end, the USA will win....though common sense says no one wins in such a scenario.

Not super-well made but interesting. And, if you want to read an excellent review of the show, I suggest reading Robert J. Maxwell's...he did a really nice job.

"Listen Carefully! This Station Is Now Leaving The Air!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 14 June 2021]

ATOMIC ATTACK was / is a segment of the Motorola TV Hour. It opens with a typical American family of the period, going about their daily routines. While mom's in the basement getting the laundry going, a huge explosion is heard. Then, sirens.

The different reactions of the two daughters are very interesting. Barbara (Patricia Bruder) falls to pieces, while her younger sister, Ginny (the wonderful Patricia McCormack) is wildly exuberant. An impossibly young / thin Walter Matthau arrives as Dr. Spinelli, and tries to determine if Barbara has been exposed to radiation.

Most of the action is conveyed through grim radio reports. Those unaccustomed to the more melodramatic acting style of the 1950's may smile a bit. When Nancy (Virginia Gerry) stops by, her near-lunacy is a wonder to behold!

A pacifistic scientist shows up, and a moral dilemma is introduced. In spite of the theatrics, AA remains effective. It plays like a sitcom (think: FATHER KNOWS BEST) gone horribly wrong! Unfortunately, its message is always relevant...

Somewhat surreal attempt at illustrating the effect of a nearby atomic attack

[rander3127 · 6/10 · 24 March 2011]

It wasn't a complete waste, some of the acting was good. I bought the wife's reactions, but the elder daughter sounded like she was rehearsing for a Shakespeare play. However, the reality of having a hydrogen bomb (at the time, the Soviets only had big ones, no smaller MIRV's)drop on New York was somewhat...lost. The local hospital looked like it would on a normal day, not what it would look like with about 100,000 bomb victims outside it. For reality, watch the British atomic horror movie, "Threads." Even though the town was 50 miles from New York, every hospital within 200 miles or more would be pressed into service, assuming the EMP from the bomb didn't wipe out all transportation. I particularly like the part where Walter Mathau (as a doctor) talks about Strontium 90 radioactive particles in the younger daughter's bones "burning themselves out." Strontium 90, which is byproduct of the blast and is absorbed into bones where it destroys the bone marrow and the body's ability to make red blood cells, has a half-life of 28 years which means the kid would die of leukemia long before the stuff had lost half of its radioactivity. The gist of the movie was that American civil defence preparations would soon have things back to normal (in a couple weeks!) and that even though losses would have happened, America would have prevailed. The second part is at least correct, the Soviets were vastly out-gunned in-terms of nuclear weapons compared to the U.S. in the mid-1950's. However, the Soviets where also far more "rural" than Americans and thus more of their population losses per bomb dropped would have been less. What I did find interesting was that the movie illustrated a greater awareness of the dangers of radiation than other shows produced on this subject in the mid-1950's. While not concerned as much as it should have been, it at least acknowledged that radiation was a problem.

Holes in Civil Defense propaganda mar this adaptation of "Shadow on the Hearth"

[Chien_Noir · 4/10 · 11 December 2011]

In 1950, author Judith Merrill wrote her novel _Shadow on the Hearth_ to show what life would be like for a single suburban family during and after a nuclear attack. When _Motorola Television Hour_ adapted it for broadcast in 1954, its screenplay lacked much of the power of the novel.

The story centers around a mother and her two daughters who live fifty miles from New York City. When New York and many other urban centers are destroyed by a surprise nuclear attack (we assume by the Soviets, but they are only referred to as "the enemy" throughout the film), the husband is at work in the city and the two girls are at school.

Other characters make their appearance throughout the film. These include a Civil Defense block warden, who marches into the home dripping from contaminated rain to run a geiger counter over the children; the older daughter's science teacher, who is on the run from government officials for being an anti-nuclear pacifist (he also shakes off his hat and coat onto the floor, no doubt scattering more fallout); several refugees who are billeted into the home by Civil Defense officials; and a brief appearance by Walter Matthau as a doctor.

Like its later incarnation, _Testament_, _Atomic Attack_ shows none of the nuclear fireworks or graphic aftereffects of the bombing. Unfortunately, it carries none of the emotional power of the later film. Several of the characters come down with a polite version of radiation sickness, wherein debilitating nausea, vomiting, and bloody diarrhea are only hinted at. These folks are taken to an apparently fully-functioning hospital, where we see competent doctors and cheerful nurses taking care of a few patients as though they had harmless common colds.

Matthau is uncharacteristically wooden in his small role, spouting his lines as if reading from a civil defense pamphlet.

Like _Testament,_ the film's most powerful moments are those scenes in which we see the interaction of the family as they ponder the fate of their missing husband/father and try to keep busy in the aftermath of the disaster, though even these are marred by overacting and schmaltz.

In truth, the hospitals would be overrun with sick and injured refugees fleeing the bombed area. The whole family would probably be suffering from some degree of radiation sickness from lack of shielding at the height of the fallout period (no one even thinks to take shelter in the cellar except the science teacher, who is down there hiding out from the government) and the particles so thoughtlessly brought in on the clothing of the block warden (who should know better) and the refugees.

Instead of the character study portrayed in the novel, the gist of this film seems to be that no matter how many major cities are destroyed by The Bomb, this is America, and life will go on as usual with a few temporary inconveniences.

Several other mistakes are simply due to production sloppiness. In one scene, we see what may be a member of the set crew crossing behind the characters as they discuss the youngest child's blood count, and during the scene where the curtains are blown in by the blast wave, there are trees outside, undisturbed. Even the low budget of early television could easily have avoided such errors.

I was disappointed in this film, which took a thoughtful novel of the time and turned it into nothing more than a flawed exercise in 1950s civil defense propaganda.

Timely TV drama

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 2 July 2017]

ATOMIC ATTACK is a timely episode of THE MOTOROLA TELEVISION HOUR, which was a 1950s US TV series of hour-long staged dramas. This one's about a normal American family struggling to survive in the aftermath of a nuclear attack which vapourised a local city and sent a radioactive cloud downwind to their location. In many respects this feels like an American version of the classic British animation WHEN THE WIND BLOWS, but lacking that production's black humour and deftly-drawn characterisation. Instead, the viewer is treated to dated overacting, kids crying a lot, and a youthful Walter Matthau showing how it's done.