The Atomic Kid

During the 1950s, there were a ton of films done about horrible monsters unleashed by dreaded nuclear radiation. The Japanese had their Godzilla-type films and here in the States we had giant bugs and Blix Waterberry! What or who is Blix Waterberry? He's a guy played by Mickey Rooney who just happened to survive a blast near ground zero!! And, unlike these nuclear horror films, this is a comedy about nuclear radiation!

When the film begins, Blix (Rooney) and his friend Stan (Robert Strauss) are lost for several days in the desert while prospecting for uranium. Their spirits rise considerably when they find a lone house in the middle of no where and they assume their problems are over...though they are only about to get much worse. The house turns out to be filled with dummies and the two guys think it's some sort of model house for a new community...little do they know it was built for a nuclear test to examine the effects of the blast on the building! And, to make it MUCH worse, the bomb will soon be detonated. Fortunately for Stan, he leaves the place in a car he finds and is just out of harm's way when the explosion occurs. As for Blix, he takes the brunt of it...and the military folks are AMAZED to find him alive and apparently well...though thoroughly soaked in radioactivity. What's next? Will he grow into a giant menace to society? Will he grow extra limbs? Will he be called to Japan to take on Rodan?! No...he'll have commie spies after him as well as Stan!

I agree with one reviewer who said this easily could have been an Abbott & Costello or Martin & Lewis film. It's entertaining and fun...not the type thing that will change your life but you will have a nice time seeing it despite it being anything but subtle!

This film is a Mickey Rooney production and the nurse, Audrey, is actually played by Rooney's fourth wife, Elaine.