After ‘Oppenheimer,’ watch these end of the world movies
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Ever since movies began, filmmakers have depicted the end of the world of the world on screen whether it be from floods, asteroids, comets, alien invasion and even Zombies. But cinema went nuclear after the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945. The arrival of the nuclear age heralded the introduction of a new sub-genre: destruction by atomic bomb. And with the release July 21 of Christopher Nolan’s lauded “Oppenheimer,” which domestically earned some $70 million in its opening weekend, let’s look at some of the vintage flicks of the genre.
Nuclear destruction of London is stopped at the last moment in the taut 1950 British film “Seven Days to Noon,” directed by John and Roy Boulting and winners of the original story Oscar, stars veteran character actor Barry Jones as a brilliant scientist working at an atomic research center in London who steals an A-bomb that is small enough to be portable. He writes a letter to the Prime Minster stating that he will detonate the bomb thus destroying the center of the metropolis seven days at noon unless the British government stops making atomic weapons. The thriller struck a chord with audiences in the midst of the Cold War and the New York Times: “There is certainly no thought more oppressive to urban populations right now than that of an atom bomb exploding in their immediate midst. Let it be written on the record that a more exciting climax for a film than the one arrived at in this picture would be hard to invent today.
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Arch Oboler, best known for his radio series “Lights Out,” wrote and directed the low-budget 1951 “Five,” the first film to depict the aftermath of a nuclear bomb. Five people -one women and four men- who are all archetypes arrive at an isolated house where they must deal with their new existence. The film was made just for under $100,000 with an unknown cast and a crew made up mainly of recent USC film school grads. Reviews were decidedly mixed with the New York Times stating: These people are such a wretched crew that the skeptic is well provoked to wonder whether it wouldn’t be better if everyone were killed.”
The 1950’s ended with two big studio films: “On the Beach” and “The World, the Flesh and the Devil,’ both released in 1959.
Based on Nevil Shute’s controversial novel, On the Beach” is a somber drama directed by social conscious filmmaker Stanley Kramer which finds the world obliterated by an A-bomb save for Australia. But it’s just a matter of time before the nuclear ill-winds make their way Down Under. Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, in his first dramatic role, and Anthony Perkins star.
In “The World, the Flesh and the Devil,” Harry Belafonte, Inger Stevens and Mel Ferrer find themselves the only people left in New York City. Critics were divided Time magazine stated: “A passionately sincere, pictorially brilliantly, monumentally silly example of how people who are obsessed with the race question tend to see everything in Black and White…the audience is asked to believe that when most of humanity has been wiped out by a cloud of radioactive sodium, the three people who managed to save their skins will spend most of the time worrying about the color of them.”
Five years later saw the release of a trio of landmark nuclear holocaust films. For those who want their Cold War fears with a touch of black comedy and sarcasm, there’s Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant ‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” Kubrick earned three out of the film’s four Oscar nominations: best film, director, best writing screenplay with Peter Sellers receiving a best actor nod for playing three characters.
Sidney Lumet’s “Fail Safe” takes a heavy-heavy-hangs-the-heart take on atomic annihilation. Henry Fonda and Walter Matthau head the cast. It’s extremely well done but you may need eat a couple of pints of Ben and Jerry’s after it’s over to calm your nerves.
Also released in 1964 was John Frankenheimer’s superb “Seven Days in May.” Though there no bomb is dropped in this, the thriller revolves around a planned military coup by the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff (Burt Lancaster) after POTUS (Fredric March) signs a nuclear treaty with the Soviet Union,
In 1983, some 100 million people watched ABC’s” The Day After,” a devastating look at the effects of nuclear war on a small Kansas town. Nominated for 12 Emmys, winning two, “The Day After” was directed by Nicholas Meyer, the film starred Jason Robards, John Cullum, John Lithgow, Steve Guttenberg and JoBeth Williams. There was a 1-800 hotline set up to help viewer deal with the movie and after it aired, ABC presented a news special featuring Carl Sagan, who was against the use of nuclear weapons, and William F. Buckley, who believed in “nuclear deterrence.” Their debate was heated but Sagan managed to explain what a “nuclear winter” would look like: “Imagine a room awash in gasoline and there are two implacable enemies in that room. One of them has 9,000 matches, the other 7,000 matches. Each of them is concerned about who’s ahead, who’s stronger.”
Lynne Littman’s haunting and harrowing “Testament,” also from 1983, was originally produced for PBS’ “American Playhouse.” But Paramount was so impressed with the drama the studio gave it a limited release. Penned by John Sacret Young “Testament” revolves around the denizens of small California town that cut off from any news of what’s going on in the world after nuclear attack and are waiting for the effects of the holocaust to end their lives. Jane Alexander received a best actress Oscar nomination; she lost to Shirley MacLaine for “Terms of Endearment.”
Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz of “thirtysomething” and “My So-Called Life” fame directed and co-wrote the 1983 NBC movie “Special Bulletin.” A modern-update of Orson Welles’ legendary 1938 radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds,” the acclaimed thriller present a terrorist attack in Charleston, South Carolina as a news’ broadcast. Ed Flanders and Kathryn Walker are the anchors at the news station covering a group of terrorists on a tugboat on Charleston harbor who have taken a reporter and cameraman from the network hostage and demand the U.S. government give them all the 900-plus nuclear devices in the area so they can detonate in the Atlantic Ocean. Let’s just says it doesn’t end well for the terrorists or Charleston. And yes, some viewers were terrified because they thought it was a real broadcast. Winner of a Peabody, “Special Bulletin” was nominated for six Emmys, it won four including outstanding drama special.
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