A high school prodigy builds an atomic bomb with stolen plutonium to win the 45th National Science Fair and expose a nuclear weapons lab posing as nuclear medicine in Ithaca NY.
An Air Force pilot joins a top secret military experiment involving chimps, but begins to suspect there might be something more to the mysterious "Project X".
When a small-town cocktail-enthusiast decides to kill himself after being diagnosed with a terminal illness he must deal with the repercussion his choice has on his son and his community.
Director:
Matthew Campanile
Stars:
Terry Novak,
Francesco Filice,
Len Greenaway
An NTSB investigator seeking the cause of an airline disaster meets a warrior woman from 1000 years in the future. She replaces the people from airplanes before they crash with corpses with the same features.
Director:
Michael Anderson
Stars:
Kris Kristofferson,
Cheryl Ladd,
Daniel J. Travanti
A high school prodigy builds an atomic bomb with stolen plutonium to win the 45th National Science Fair and expose a nuclear weapons lab posing as nuclear medicine in Ithaca NY.
Early in the film Paul sees his mom reading a book she describes as "just another novel". Later in the film when the helicopter arrives over the house, the camera shows the book is by Frederick Forsyth, and the title is "The Fourth Protocol", a fiction book that involves a compact nuclear weapon. It was made into a film released in 1987, The Fourth Protocol (1987). See more »
Goofs
Plutonium must be alloyed with another metal (usually gallium) in order to prevent forming allotropes which cause it to crack while cooling. Cracks in the pit would have significant impact in the weapon, and could result in a fizzle (non-nuclear explosion.) See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Dr. John Matthewson:
Now, the beta synchrotron sends the electrons through this magnet which bends the course of them down to the reaction vessel. Stay away from that elbow joint. All right. Bran, you want to get that? Now, this is a tunable excimer laser. It's tuned to the exact resonance of the plutonium-239 that's in the reaction vessel down at that end. Now, I think we're all set. Hit it.
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THE MANHATTAN PROJECT is a seriously underrated film. It's categorized and advertised as a "comedy," but in fact it's more accurately categorized as a dramatic thriller with light elements. The problem is that anyone expecting to see a comedy will be disappointed because the film is not as funny as a "comedy" needs to be. That, I believe, is why it was not as popular at the box office as it deserved to be. However, the film is an extremely smart dramatic thriller, and anyone screening it with that expectation -- and knowing its main characters are extremely bright high school kids -- will not be disappointed. THE MANHATTAN PROJECT is not a perfect film, but it is an excellent one.
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THE MANHATTAN PROJECT is a seriously underrated film. It's categorized and advertised as a "comedy," but in fact it's more accurately categorized as a dramatic thriller with light elements. The problem is that anyone expecting to see a comedy will be disappointed because the film is not as funny as a "comedy" needs to be. That, I believe, is why it was not as popular at the box office as it deserved to be. However, the film is an extremely smart dramatic thriller, and anyone screening it with that expectation -- and knowing its main characters are extremely bright high school kids -- will not be disappointed. THE MANHATTAN PROJECT is not a perfect film, but it is an excellent one.