The Atomic City

source: The Atomic City

Trailer—The Atomic City

The Atomic City

This was just shown today on British tv and I had never seen it before. The lead actress is Lydia Clarke, none other than Charlton Heston's wife in the first part of their life long marriage and at the time he was just starting his Hollywood career. It would have been interesting if he had taken the role of the husband in the film. It is a good, modest thriller with some interesting location work. I won't give too much away but when you think about it what the kidnappers plan to do to the boy at the very end of the movie is cold blooded and nasty. Lydia Clarke has some good scenes early in the film. Interesting too to see Milburn Stone just three years before Gunsmoke started. Worth watching.

I found "The Atomic CIty" somewhat disappointing after two viewings. It starts from an interesting platform; young son of big-shot post-war nuke scientist bottled-up in New Mexican middle-of-nowhere research base is kidnapped and held for intelligence ransom. But after 30 minutes it descends straight down to a very mediocre, run-of-the-mill kidnapped kid story complete with all cliché trimmings (hysterical mother, overwrought macho dad). The film drifts between styles. The lead-in sets up a documentary-style narrative. But then the early family scenes present a more dramatic style. Scenes where the cops are tracking down the kidnappers slide back into documentary. It's a goofy stew with uneven pacing. To make matters worse none of the characters are well developed and by the end you'll probably find that you just don't care what happens very much any more.

I sat down to watch this film for my Saturday morning ritual of watching a sci-film to start off the day. I was not disappointed, as it was a very good film. However, it has absolutely nothing to do with atomic energy or science fiction. It is basically about living and working in Los Alamos, the town that developed the Hydrogen bomb. The plot surrounds the kidnapping of a son of the leading atomic scientist by commie spies and the search for the boy. It is pretty engrossing, and well-directed. Catch it if you can.

I had it on tape from a tv showing. The DVD by Olive Films is missing a portion of a scene. The wife Mrs. Addison talks to Tommy on the phone to prove he is alive. However it was a tape recording she heard. They told her it might be a tape. Then later on around min. 57 police break into an apartment where the kidnappers held the boy. they find a tape recorder with the boys voice on it. this scene is cut. police go into the next room and find a blackboard with nuclear info on it.

THE ATOMIC CITY is something of a misnomer of a title for an otherwise ordinary kidnap thriller with an interesting setting in the form of Los Alamos. Gene Barry, in his debut screen performance, plays a dedicated scientist who struggles with a real moral dilemma when his lad is kidnapped and he'll only facilitate his return by sharing top secret information. It's a nice premise for sure, and the film looks good for what is clearly a limited budget, but at the same time there's something lacking here: suspense. You can't fault the performances, but you never really care all too much about what's happening, and thus the extended chase climax never really draws you in as it should. Serviceable, but hardly great...

A slick, good-looking thriller with excellent location work, which uses the backdrop of Los Alamos to bring it's story bang up to date. It acknowledges that despite the comforts of postwar affluence the world was never the same again after the development of the atom bomb; the kid in this film giving voice to the existential trauma wrought on every succeeding generation when he says "if" rather than "when" he grows up... The title suggests sci-fi, but kidnapping children for a ransom had been an ever-present nightmare since the abduction of Charles Lindbergh's son twenty earlier. This time the kidnappers are dastardly commies whose price for the return of the kid is atomic secrets; and choosing between the life of a cute kid and countless others remains a perennial nightmare, as Col. Helen Mirren was recently reminded in 'Eye in the Sky'.

Here is a much lesser known 50's sci-fi with a little different twist. An atomic researchers son is kidnapped and held for a ransom of the the Father's atomic secrets. This is a tightly knit atomic sci-fi thriller with great production values and above average acting, even from the kid. The Atomic City actually has a movie feel to it unlike a lot of other 50's sci-fi of this time which which came off more like an episode of a TV show. The Atomic City was also actually nominated for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay - how many other 50's sci-fi can tout an Academy Award Nomination? Great pacing, tight direction and some superb location filming in the 'real' Atomic City of Los Alamos, New Mexico make this one worth hunting down. The collectors print in circulation is an above average transfer and makes for a great double feature with the Atomic Man!! Recommended.