Nathan H. Juran: A Look at the Work of the Man Who was an Art Director for John Ford, Directed Live Action for Ray Harryhausen and Wrote Screenplays for Fess Parker

His name was Jerry Juran, Nathan Hertz Juran, Nathan Hertz, Nathan H. Juran or Nathan Juran. Actually this Director, Art Director, Writer and Producer was born Naftuli Hertz Juran in Gura Humorului, Bulkovina, Austria-Hungary now known as Romania on September 1, 1907.

His family moved to the United States and settled in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1912. Naftuli now known as Nathan attended the University of Minnesota where he earned a bachelor's degree in Architecture. Afterwords the young man spent a year in France at the Ecole des Beauix-Arts (School of Fine Arts) in Paris. This was followed with additional schooling at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology earning him a masters degree in Architecture. Nathan Juran was now ready to enter the business world EXCEPT the Great Depression has started and there was no work.

By 1937 Nathan Hertz Juran was in Hollywood finding work in the Art Department of RKO Studios. His first credited work was as an Assistant Art Director, as Nathan Juran, on the 1941 Jack Benny comedy "Charlie's Aunt" released by 20th Century Fox.

The Jack Benny feature was the first of 29 on screen credits in Art Direction covering a period from 1941 through 1952 with a break between late 1942 through 1945. At that time Juran had enlisted in the Army and was a photographer for "The Office of Strategic Services (OSS)" and would find himself being reassigned to the "Royal Air Force" intelligence service.

Prior to entering the Second World War. Nathan Juran along with Department Head Richard Day and Thomas Little shared the Academy Award for "Best Black and White Art Direction-Interior Decoration" for John Ford's "HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY". This was only his third credited motion picture work.









Nathan Juran's work as  Art Director included the Henry Hathaway directed  "Then Gentlemen from  West Point" in 1942 and the horror film "Dr Renault's Secret" the same year. The 39 year old Art Director received his second Oscar nomination along with Richard Day for the motion picture "THE RAZOR'S EDGE", in 1946, starring Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney. This was Juran's first film work after the Second World War had ended.



In 1948 he worked on the Joan Fontaine/Burt Lancaster film noir "Kiss the Blood Off My Hands".



Followed by director Anthony Mann's "Winchester 73" starring James Stewart and the Stewart comedy about a giant invisible rabbit named "Harvey" both in 1950. !951 saw two motion pictures at opposite ends for types. The first was the musical drama "Meet Danny Wilson" starring Frank Sinatra and Shelley Winters.

However, it was that second film that year that was of interested to Nathan H. Juran's fans. "THE STRANGE DOOR" starred Charles Laughton and Boris Karloff.. The picture is described as a film noir thriller horror film.



Nathan Juran's last motion picture as Art Director was a forgotten Universal Studio's Western called "The Untamed Frontier" in January 1952. It starred Joseph Cotton, Shelley Winters and Scott Brady. Both Lee Van Cleef and Fess Parker had small roles and in his first movie was David Janssen.

His next feature was released in December of 1952 and was the first time Nathan Juran was listed as the Director of the entire motion picture and not the Art Director.

This Universal Studio's release is also described as a film noir thriller horror film and was entitled "THE BLACK CASTLE". The picture was not only Juran's first position as a director, but unknown to him in a genre that would include fantasy and science fiction. Which he would be mainly known for directing.

The male leads were Richard Greene, Boris Karloff, Stephen McNally and Lon Chaney, Jr.. The film's female lead's name is very interesting to some movie fans. She was born in Switzerland as Jeanne Paule Teipo-ite--Mama Croset, but acted under the names of Paule Croset, Rita Corday and Paula Corday and had appeared with Karloff in the Val Lewton/Robert Wise "The Body Snatcher" in 1945.



The plot has Sir Richard Burton using the alias of Richard Beckett. The character was portrayed by Richard Greene. Beclett enters the castle of  Count Carl von Bruno, played by Stephen McNally, to investigate the disappearance of his friends. Burton and his friends had set the local natives against the evil von Bruno when all of them were in colonial British Africa and von Bruno is out for revenge.





Two westerns later, in 1953,  one starring Audie Murphy and the other Ronald Reagan and Dorthy Malone. Found Nathan Juran directing a feature that borrowed its concept from the Arabian "One Thousand and One Nights" stories called "The Golden Blade".
Playing the evil Vizier Jafar was George Macready. While Princess Khairuzan was Piper Laurie/ A long way from her future role as the mother in Brian DePalma's "Carrie", but being type cast as the Princess by Universal Studio's. She had appeared twice before with the equally unknown Tony Curtis in bpth "The Prince Who Was a Thief" and "Son of Ali Baba".

Portraying the hero of "The Golden Blade", Harun, was actor Rock Hudson.



For the next three years Nathan Juran directed four more features for Universal Studios and then made his first move to directing on television.

This early work included two episodes of the popular 1955 television program "Fury" starring Peter Graves. The family show was about a boy and his horse. The show was created because of another popular show about a boy and his horse that Juran also worked on "My Friend Flicka". His five episodes of that last program took the director into 1956 and another television series entitled "Crossroads". In "Crossroads" Nathan Juran directed three of his six episodes under his own name and for some reason three other's as Jerry Juran

Released in 1958 was an Italian motion picture directed by Nathan Juran "Le imprese di una spada (Business of a Legendary Sword)". The following year saw the same cast in a companion Italian motion "Mantelli e spade insanguinate (Blood Cloaks and Swords)". The credits indicated it was also directed by Nathan Juran. In actuality these were made from  episodes of a 1956 Italian television series based upon Alexander Dumas' "The Three Musketeers". Nathan Juran was one of five directors including Hugo Fregonese, Joseph Lerner, Frank McDonald and Mauro Bologini.

However, after his last television series of the period. Nathan Juran moved to the first of a group of motion pictures he would always be connected with by fans of 1950's Science Fiction and Fantasy. It was the first of four films he directed in 1957.

Starring the future "Peter Gunn" of the Blake Edwards television series of that same name Craig Stevens and the future Paul Drake of television's "Perry Mason" William Hopper was "THE DEADLY MANTIS"

 

This low budget cult classic utilized plenty of U.S. Air Force stock footage to bad out the story and keep the costs down. It tells the typical monster on the loose story about a prehistoric Mantis that comes to life, because of a volcanic eruption thousands of miles away effecting the entire earth. The title Mantis ends its life from chemical bombs in a Manhattan Island tunnel. I remember seeing it on a double bill with Lex Barker in "The Girl in the Kremlin". A cold war thriller about Stalin faking his death.

The picture in more detail is part of an article on 1950's Giant Insect motion pictures such as "THEM!" and "Tarantula" I wrote about and you can read it at:

http://www.bewaretheblog.com/2017/03/them-tarantula-monster-from-green-hell.html

The picture was followed by "Hellcats of the Navy". The only motion picture starring Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy Davis. For those fans of the actor Ronald Reagan among my readers. My article on the actor, not the politician can be found at:

http://www.bewaretheblog.com/2016/03/ronald-reagan-motion-picture-and.html


The next motion picture was Nathan H. Juran's first of three for Stop Motion Animator Ray Harryhausen and his friend and business partner Producer Charles H. Schneer. Schneer is the overlooked part of the Harryhausen team and for those of my readers interested to know about him. My blog article on his work can be found at:

http://www.bewaretheblog.com/2016/09/charles-h-schneer-look-at-work-of.html

This feature once again brought Juran in contact with actor William Hopper. He was the son of Hollywood Gossip Columnist Hedda Hopper and was born William DeWolf Hopper, Jr, The female lead was actress Joan Taylor. Taylor had already worked with Harryhausen and Schneer on "Earth vs the Flying Saucers" two years earlier.




The movie was "20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH" and was about a spaceflight to the planet Venus. On its return flight to Earth the space craft crash lands off of the coast of Sicily, The crew has brought back the YMIR for Ray to bring to life on the screen. However, neither Harryhausen, or Schneer worked directly with the actors in the live sequences other than Ray explaining where to look at his creations. The two needed a good director who would understand the problems Ray faced with actor reaction and positioning. Nathan Juran with his background was just perfect and a team of three was formed at the time.




The final entry for 1957 was not directed by Nathan H. Juran, or Nathan Juran. The on screen credit for the director was Nathan Hertz. The first time Nathan Juran modified his name. The picture starred actor John Agar in "THE BRAIN FROM  PLANET AROUS".

Agar had started out with great prospects in "The Studio System" and married "America's Sweetheart" Shirley Temple. Then a messy divorce and he was locked out by the Major Studios. John Agar would make a comeback and become a cult figure in 1950's Science Fiction starting with "Tarantula". His rise, fall and rise again can be found within a biography I did of the actor at:

http://www.bewaretheblog.com/2015/03/john-agar-his-fall-that-led-to-science.html




This low budgeted film is about two brains from the Planet Arous. One is an criminal, Gor, that takes over John Agar. The other is a Police Man pursuing Gor, named Vol. Vol uses Agar's girlfriend's dog as a hiding place. While scientist Agar is threatening the world the dog can get close to Gor without causing suspension. Vol needs Gor to leave John Agar's body for capture.Which the brain must do from time to time.


In 1958 Nathan Hertz was back as the director of another motion picture which was even lower in budget than "The Brain from Planet Arous" and starred 50's Science Fiction/Horror actress Allison Hayes. Hayes had already been seen in both 1957's "The Unearthly" and "The Disembodied", but this picture became a cult classic she would always be remembered for playing. The picture was  "THE ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMEN".
For my readers who may be interested in the work of Allison Hayes and two other 1950's Science Fiction/Horror actresses Peggie Castle and Gloria Talbott. My article on the three can be found at:

http://www.bewaretheblog.com/2015/04/peggie-castle-allison-hayes-and-gloria.html

The movie was written by Mark Hanna may seem to my reader like a female version of "The Amazing Colossal Man" from  1957. In that you would be right. The screenplay writer for Colossal Man, Mark Hanma, wrote the screenplay for this picture. He also wrote the screenplay for Roger Corman's "The Undead" starring Allison Hayes and Corman's original "Not of the Earth".

The plot has Nancy Fowler Archer, portrayed by Hayes, as a rich socialite. Nancy catches her husband Harry Archer, William  Hudson, cheating on her with Honey Parker, Yvette Vickers.

Below Hayes and Hudson.



Nancy gets he revenge when she encounters a gigantic space alien.

This encounter will eventually turn her into the 50 foot women of the movie's title, but not before nobody believes her story because of her known drinking problem.

The motion picture had a budget of $89,000 dollars, How low that budget was is reflected in the following scene of Harry and Nancy's gigantic paper mache hand.



However budget and critics aside. The final United States gross would be $480,000.

Below Nancy rips off the roof of the hotel containing Honey and Harry.



Nancy is killed when she falls into the power lines after the sheriff shoots her.

"Attack of the 50 Foot Women" may have had the name Nathan Hertz on it, but Nathan Juran was back for his last motion picture released in 1958 and his second collaboration with Ray Harryhausen and Charles H. Schneer "THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD".

The budget for "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" was $170,000 more than the total United States gross for "Attack of the 50 Foot Women". Production had started months before for Ray Harryhausen and would take a total of 11 to complete the animation sequences. This meant for Juran a larger challenge than with "20 Million Miles to Earth" with shooting the live action sequences. The previous film only involved one stop motion creature except in the elephant fight. Which just basically meant having the extras stay out of a certain area.

Another problem facing the director was Ray's new process Dynamation. The film frame size was now wide screen and the picture was also in color. It was extremely critical that the actors not infringe on Harryhausen's boundaries. Ray worked hard with star Kerwin Mathews on his positioning.





Above a photo from Ray Harryhausen's "An Animated Life" I took of the team working on "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad". Left to Right: Harryhausen, Charles H. Schneer and Nathan Juran.

The classic example of an actor not invading Ray's space, but reacting to it has Kerwin Mathews fighting the skeleton.



The U.S. and Canadian initial release take for the picture was $3.2 million 1958 dollars. At the time of this writing in 2017 that would equate to just $500,000 short of $27 million dollars..

1959 through 1960 found only one new feature film for Juran, but work on two Science Fiction television series. The feature was a western from Harryhausen and Schneer's "Morningside Productions" "A Good Day for a Hanging". The picture starred Fred MacMurray. but in third billing was a young actor named Robert Vaughn. 

Nathan Juran's television work included 4 episodes of "Men Into Space" starring William Lundigan, Joyce Taylor and Charles Herbert as an Air Force family in a series about the exploration of Outer Space and 4 episodes of "World of Giants" starring Marshall Thompson as a 6 inch tall American Spy working with Arthur Franz.

1961 found Jerry Juran returning to write the original story and it's screenplay for the motion picture "DR BLOOD'S COFFIN".  This British film starred Kieron Moore amd Hazel Court.

That work was followed by another story and screenplay, but as Nathan Juran entitled "The Boy Who Caught a Crook". This was a family film from  Executive Producer Edward Small.




Filmed in Puerto Rico written, produced and directed by Nathan Juran was "FLIGHT OF THE LOST BALLOON". The movie starred Marshall Thompson, Marla Powers and James Lanphier and was based upon Jules Verne's "Five Weeks in a Balloon". Although there was no mention of the French author anywhere on the posters, or in the film's titles and credits. However, there are some interesting stories related to making this motion picture and releasing it on December 28, 1961.

One story mentions that Producer Irwin Allen was making his own version of Verne's "Five Weeks in a Balloon". It was said that "Flight of the Lost Balloon" Executive Producer Nathan H. Juran was attempting to beat Allen to the box office. He did by eight months as the other film wasn't released until August 22. 1962.

Then there was the story that Co-Producers and Distributors Bernard and David Woolner wanted the film to be released prior to Ray Harryhausen and Charles H. Schneer's "The Mysterious Island", because both the stories where by Jules Verne and involved a balloon at one point. "The Mysterious Island" was released just six days prior to "Flight of the Lost Balloon" on December 20, 1961.

Finally you have the film's run on television. "TV Guide" described the picture partly on their website as:

A quickie rip-off of the popular AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS (1956) with a low-cost cast, this period piece features Thompson in the unflappable David Niven role. Theater patrons were advised upon entering the lobby that the wild, erratic flight of the title balloon, as depicted on the screen, might require them to consume antinausea pills. The thought was a sound one, but for reasons other than those stated by the promoters. Playing the comic villain is Lanphier, in what is basically the Cantinflas part--an acquisitive Hindu who journeys to Victorian London to persuade the directors of the Geographic Society to mount a rescue mission to save famed explorer Kennedy, a captive in a secret dungeon on the Nile River. It is all part of a diabolical plot; Lanphier is, in truth, Kennedy's captor, hoping to force him to reveal the location of Cleopatra's entombed treasures.

Thompson elects to lead the rescue team, joined by Lanphier and Kennedy's fiancee, Powers. Setting out in a balloon, the intrepid adventurers are beset by peril with every gust of wind, the top-hatted Thompson meeting every challenge with phlegmatic British imperturbability. 

The entire review can be found at:

http://www.tvguide.com/movies/flight-of-the-lost-balloon/review/114941/



The original movie title was to have been "Cleopatra and the Cyclops". There is no actual "Cyclops" in the picture, but the treasure was "Cleopatra's".

IF you're going to rip off a Ray Harryhausen film do it with style and beware of lawsuits. Producer Edward Small originally announced in 1959 he was going to make a stop motion animated feature "JACK THE GIANT KILLER", but there were delays and the picture wasn't made and released until June 13, 1962 through United Artists. The problem was it was obvious inspired by and in some sense copied from "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad".

Small hired the director of the Harryhausen film Nathan H. Juran to direct and co-write the screenplay. The film starred Kerwin Mathews who had been Sinbad to play Jack. Thorin Thatcher who had been Sokurah the Magician was Pendragon. Except for the name change a basic reworking of his previous character. The stop motion special effects were by Jim Danforth who received no on screen credit. The credit went to known effects artist Augie Lohman.

Danforth had worked on "Flight of the Lost Balloon", George Pal's "The Time Machine" and "Atlantis the Lost Continent" plus the Vincent Price film "Master of the World". All without on screen credit by the time he did this picture.

Example of Edward Small's "Rip Off". First a shot of Harryhausen's "Cyclops" and then although with two eyes. One of the giants in "Jack the Giant Killer".

As a result of a proposed lawsuit by Columbia Studios who had released "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" in conjunction with Harryhausen and Schneer's "Morningside Productions". Edward Small pulled the original version of "Jack the Giant Killer", which I saw when it came out, and somehow turned his picture into a Musical and re-released the movie that way.

Small worked with United Artists and a new musical voice track was created and inserted. Who those singers were I could not locate, but the singing was not the original actors. The website "DVD Savant" says the following about the musical version:

Not all of the dialogue is sung. If memory serves, there are only four or five songs in the musical version: (1) a new main title song; (2) We Have Failed Master (which DOES use sung dialogue); (3) a love song Jack sings to the Princess; and, best of all, (4) A Spectacle to See, a happy, jolly song the villain and his henchman sing while Jack fights for his life.

In addition, all the leprechaun's dialogue is sung. None of this is Stephen Sondheim quality but the fact that any of it works is amazing. Torin Thatcher's new singing voice is rather good and most of the time fits his mouth well. I remember the lyrics "Jack! Jack! Jump on the monster's back!" when Kerwin Mathews leaps atop the dragon at the conclusion.

http://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s1263jack.html

I have to wonder what Nathan Juran thought of switching his film into a musical?


Nathan Juran returned to England to direct the motion picture "THE SIEGE OF THE SAXONS".
The picture starred the British heroine Jannett Scott of "The Day of the Triffids". Immortalized in the song "Science Fiction Double Feature" by Richard O'Brien in his "Rocky Horror Picture Show".

Scott played Katherine the daughter of King Arthur. She defends Camelot against one of her father's knights planning to take over the throne.

Nathan Juran returned to the team of Ray Harryhausen and Charles H. Schneer for his third and last feature film with them "THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON".

Exactly five years before Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon's surface on July 20, 1969.  Ray Harryhausen took his audience to the moon as envisioned by author H.G. Wells. The picture was initially released in the UK in July 1964.  The screenplay book ended Well's origin story with what is believed, in the story, to be the first actual landing on the moon by a NATO sponsored crew in 1964. When the land they discover a British flag indicating the moon was claimed in 1899 for Queen Victoria by two men  and a women.

Released in the UK in August 1964 was "EAST OF SUDAN". 

The picture was Produced and Directed by Nathan Juran. Charles H. Schneer was the Executive Producer, but received no on screen credit. The story was set in the Sudan during the period when the Mahdi would led a Holy War against the Colonial British. The film starred Anthony Quayle and Sylvia Syms.

The year after "East of Sudan" found Nathan Juran back directing television with the western series starring Robert Horton "A Man Called Shenandoah" for six episodes in 1965 and 1966. 1965 also found him directing a single episode of "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" followed by two more in 1966.

1966 into 1967  Nathan Juran directed 5 episodes of "The Time Tunnel" and 13 of "Lost in Space" taking him into 1968. After completing "Lost in Space" the director returned to the motion picture screen.

The movie was what was then known as a "Euro Western" and was an American Western filmed in Spain and Hungary. The picture was produced by Charles H. Schneer and directed by Juran. The two stars were Telly Salvalas and George Maharis and the picture was titled  "LAND RAIDERS".


The movie opened first in West Germany on June 27, 1969. A very logical place for a Euro Western as my article on the subject indicates:

http://www.bewaretheblog.com/2015/01/american-westerns-european-style.html

The motion picture would open in five other foreign countries until it arrived in January 1970 in the United States.

While he had been directing "Land Raiders" in mid 1968. Nathan Juran was also directing his first episode of the television series "Land of the Giants" and all five episodes and the feature film would give Juan work into 1970.

In 1964 Fess Parker returned to the television screen wearing a coonskin cap as "Daniel Boone". The show would run from 1964 into 1970 for a total of 165 episodes. Over that period Nathan Juran would direct 29 of them. Only William Wiard's 36 episodes directed more than Juran. Of the remaining 33 directors, including Fess Parker and Christian Nyby, 15 of those did one episode each and 5 did two. The remaining  The remaining 14 directors average 3 to 5 each.




Not to be confused with the Nickelodeon 2010 made for TV film starring Victoria Justice, but with the same title as 1973's  "THE BOY WHO CRIED WEREWOLF". Which was the last work of Nathan H. Juran released on November 23rd of that year.

The film was produced by Aaron Rosenberg. Who to his credit are such films as James Stewart's 1950 "Winchester '73",. Both Hollywood filmed biographies "The Glenn Miller Story", 1954, and "The Benny Goodman Story" ,1956.  1955's excellent war film based on Audie Murphy's autobiography "To Hell and Back" and 1962's epic "Mutiny on the Bounty" starring Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard.

Playing the father who gets bitten by a werewolf  was Kerwin Mathews.The picture should have good with these three behind it, but it was very routine for a horror story. As the title implies this is updating the fable of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" with similar results in a small town.






26 years after "The Boy Who Cried Werewolf" Nathan H. Juran was honored with a "Lifetime Career Award" by "The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films". On October 23, 2002 at the age of 99 he passed away at his Los Angeles County home in Palos Verdes Estates.

From General Groves and THE MANHATTAN PROJECT to Stanley Kramer/Nevil Shute's ON THE BEACH: Nuclear Holocaust and Post-Apocalyptic Earth In 1950's Science Fiction Motion Pictures:

Nuclear War destroyed our Earth in 1959. Along with other members of a motion picture audience I watched Stanley Kramer's "On the Beach".

I was born in what was called "The Dawn of the Atomic Age" in 1946 and it should have scared the crap out of me, if I wasn't a baby. Even my parents had no real idea what had finally been created in 1945. What were a few people killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to America? They were our enemy! They had killed Americans and deserved to die! Besides World War 2 was ended and my future father was home. That was all that counted in homes across the United States and our Territories. How little did we know and that included the men and women who let that Atomic Genii out of its bottle.


THE BEGINNING OR THE END


On March 7, 1947 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released a motion picture about the creation of and dropping of those first two atomic bombs. Its final title was a question: "The Beginning or the End?".

The idea for the movie originated in 1945 with 24-year-old actress Donna Reed and her old High School science teacher Edward R. Tompkins. Reed was not in the MGM production, but actor Brian Donlevy portrayed General Leslie Groves and Hume Cronyn was Dr. Robert J. Oppenheimer. Forty-Two years later Paramount Pictures, who had been offered the original story idea by Reed and Tompkins before MGM, released their version of the Atomic Bomb's creation "Fat Man and Little Boy". That picture starred Paul Newman as Groves and Dwight Schultz as Oppenheimer. Neither film really captures this story as the one written by General Groves and his staff.

In a very well written report entitled "The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki" by "The Manhattan Engineering District". The report speaks of the creation of the bomb and the almost day by day frustrations. It provides readable statistics for the layman, or in this case General Groves' superiors in the Army and Congress. Along with what those two Atomic Bombs actually did to those two Japanese cities based upon available, non-classified information, at the time. You can find it as a free E-Book/.




This article is a look at several motion pictures made in Hollywood and other countries imagining what we didn't know about. That is what a nuclear holocaust really would be like and its aftermath? Imaginations ran wild and some of it was really far out in hindsight, but then "That's Entertainment!"

Some of the publicity for Science Fiction Motion Pictures built itself around that standard drama tag line of the 1940's and early 1950's: RIPPED OUT OF TODAY'S HEADLINES!

As I write this article, the idea of Nuclear War and its aftermath is still terrifying to people around this globe we call the Earth. The average person in the streets of America, in the early 1950's, had no idea that images of the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were really any different than from the other bombs dropped during that war on say Berlin. The Eisenhower Administration kept the details secret as I grew up. We did hear stories and have Civil Defense drills and that formed some of the basis for the movies I plan to mention in this article.



To illustrate my point! Just nine years and four months after the Atomic Bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, above. On December 8, 1954 a movie starring Mickey Rooney, Robert Strauss and Elaine Davis opened across the United States. The story was by Blake Edwards the writer for television's "The Mickey Rooney Show" and this comedy was "The Atomic Kid". Mickey Rooney played a down on his luck silver prospector, in Nevada, who finds a housing project for shelter. What he does not know is it's an atomic test site. Rooney's character does notice the dummy people, but the kitchen refrigerator is full of real food and he decides to make a sandwich. As he starts eating it the Atomic Bomb is set off.





According to Blake Edwards' story line. Mickey Rooney survived the blast because he was eating a peanut butter sandwich. The story has the Peanut Butter company promoting their product with Rooney at one point.

The films were a prime example of our lack of knowledge of what an Atomic Bomb really could do and the attitudes in America toward it. Although in Los Angeles there would be those Civil Defense siren tests every week and I was having "Drop and Cover" drills at my elementary school. Where I went under my desk and curled up into ball. Again, based upon our knowledge of the bomb. This was to prevent me from being hurt had an Atomic Bomb been dropped on Los Angeles.

While we American's laughed at Rooney's antics! Across the Pacific Ocean, one month earlier, a motion picture from the Toho Studio's opened dealing in its own way with the flip side of "The Atomic Kid" and the real horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

1954's "Gojira" was an allegory of the atomic bombs dropped on those two Japanese cities and an incident with a fishing trawler called "The Lucky Dragon #5".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daigo_Fukury%C5%AB_Maru

The allegorical Atom Bomb was the prehistoric monster of the picture's title. Two year later in 1956 the terror of "Gojira" would be changed into a typical 1950's giant monster on the loose movie and released in the United States. The original motion picture was re-edited with additional American footage as "Godzilla, King of the Monsters". It would be another three years, 1959, until the originally conceived picture, with English subtitles, played anywhere in the United States except an Asian theater.

That American re-working with Raymond Burr still retained some of the scenes of devastation caused by the allegorical atomic bomb "Gojira", but without that implication. Audiences were looking a creature that was forced out of hibernation by the H-Bomb and goes on a rampage. Nothing really different than 1953's "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms", or 1955's "It Came from Beneath the Sea",

That change in the film's story had the purpose of preventing friction between American's still remembering World War Two and the Japanese American population we had placed in "Relocation Centers" for the length of World War 2. Additionally, the Americanized picture stayed away from the idea, as implied in "Gojira", that American scientists were responsible for those two atomic bombs and what followed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I go into detail about the changes in "Gojira" and why. As part of my article "Gojira Morphing into Godzilla" I wrote in 2015. This is a ink to that article for those interested in a further look at that issue:

http://www.bewaretheblog.com/2015/01/in-our-own-image-like-gojira-morphing.html.




The following films reflect Hollywood's imagination to convey what was thought would happen with a nuclear strike and the warnings they gave us. Some of these films by today's standards are downright silly and others still hold their message. To begin I want to talk about one film from 1952 that reflected American's fears of the Soviet Union at the start of the "Cold War".


INVASION, U.S.A.




With a Tag Line by popular newspaper columnist Hedda Hopper. "Invasion, U.S.A." was a little motion picture that delivered with a solid "B" cast of actors.

The story was simple. A group of people who have never met walk into a New York City bar. The three leads are Gerald Mohn portraying television news anchorman Vince Potter, Peggie Castle as Carla Sanford a New York society women down on her luck and Dan O'Herlihy playing the mysterious Mr. Ohman sitting away from the others.

Supporting them are four other actors completing the bar group. They include Robert Brice as George Sylvester a California Industrialist, Wade Crosby as Illinois Congressman Arthur V. Harroway, Erik Blythe as an Arizona rancher and Tom Kennedy as Tim the Bar Tender. I give you all the actors and their characters to set up for my readers the microcosm of America that screenplay writers Robert Smith and Franz Schultz created. 

This group start to talk among themselves. The talk goes to agreeing they all don't like communism and don't seem to appreciate their own material wealth being an American gives them. The conversation also brings up a want for lower taxation and not seeing why the government has to support everything.

At this point in the discussion Ohman, swishing the brandy in his large glass, adds that American's want safety and security, BUT do not want to make any sacrifices to obtain and keep those two goals.

Suddenly on the television comes a report that "The Enemy", unnamed but obviously Soviet Russia, has staged a full-scale attack on Seal Point (Aleutians East) and Nome, Alaska. Next, we see paratroopers landing on a military base and a female communications officer being killed.

The movie next follows each person in the group as they attempt to return home, or in the case of Vince Potter report the Invasion as military bases in the United States are wiped out by Atomic Bombs. The audience witnesses American cities destroyed in Nuclear War.

In short, we watch America's worst Cold War fears play out as one by one the group from the bar dies in different invasion related circumstances. The last to be killed is Carla Sanford. Her death happens when a group of "The Enemy" dressed as American military break into her apartment and she jumps from the balcony.

As Carla falls around her the scene swirls and she appeared to be inside Mr. Ohman's brandy glass. Which he is still swirling around and everyone is in the bar again. Ohman is a hypnotist! He had the others experience their worst fears and realize they are worth something.


Today, looking back at "Invasion, U.S.A." a person may laugh at the story. However, if you're from my generation and heard those Civil Defense sirens going off. Experienced "Drop and Cover" drills not just at schools, but in the work place. Read, or heard about the activities of the "House Committee on Un-American Activities" and Senator Joseph "Tail Gunner" McCarthy and his Communist Witch Hunts. The picture was frightening in its own way.

The fear of the Soviet Union was also reflected on many of the television programs of the time. Like Richard Carlson in "I Led Three Lives". It was based upon Herbert A. Philbrick's book of that title. Philbrick was portrayed as an average American family man, life #1., but also was both a member of the Communist Party and an undercover operative for the FBI, lives #2 and #3

It is no wonder that one's mind set might lean toward distrusting even your neighbor as being a possible Communist agent. A point made in Government publications and broadcasts. All creating fears of Soviet Russia and the potential of a nuclear attack at any moment.

However, it was documented that from the end of World War 2 through the first half of the 1950's. Out of a population of 150 million Americans at the time. Less than 50,000 were members of the Communist Party. Yet the Federal Government would have us think otherwise.


THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL


First released on September 18, 1951 Robert Wise's "The Day the Earth Stood Still" remains a classic continuing to be watched 66 years later as I write these words.







The motion picture works on several levels. The first is its great science fiction story telling with a strong script and equally strong cast. However, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is also a subtle look at the same fears expressed in "Invasion, U.S.A." about the Soviet Union and nuclear war.

From "the heavens" comes a messenger Klaatu. He lands in Washington, D.C. after circling the earth several times in his flying saucer. That alone has caused fear and panic in the world population. That fear will be clarified at a simple rooming house breakfast as its source being the Soviet Union.

Earlier after his ship lands it is surrounded by the army with all the weapons possible at the time including tanks and howitzers. When the hidden door opens and out walks Klaatu wearing his spacesuit the tension mounts. As he reaches for an object, which will turn out to be a means of predicting weather for the United States President, Klaatu is shot by a soldier reacting out of his own fear of the unknown.

When Klaatu leaves Walter Reed Army Hospital to "go out among the masses". Fear grips the United States and the scene at the boarding house takes place. Yet, in all appearances Klaatu looks just like you and I, but it is that fear that your next-door neighbor may be a Soviet agent that goes through the minds of both the characters on the screen and those in the audience. The Visitor will befriend a widow's son at the boarding house. A boy who is looking for answers and is the only one that sees the Spaceman as a possible friend, or a means of gaining knowledge in the film.








"The Day the Earth Stood Still" comes with "a miracle" as everything that is powered suddenly stops at noon for one hour, but planes in flight still fly and hospitals and their related work still goes on. Klaatu is not here to kill us as we fear, but to give the world a message of either hope, or destruction. It all depends on how we interpret it. At this point after revealing himself to the boy's mother. He gives her instructions should sometime happen to him.

The widow's boyfriend sells out Klaatu to the military and he is pursued and killed. Following Klaatu's earlier instruction's the boy's mother goes to the robot Gort with a message. This results in the Visitor's body being taken into the space craft. Where before the mother's eyes she witnesses his "resurrection".

Klaatu's "sermon on the mount" takes place as he stands on his spaceship looking down at a group of gathered earth scientists from all over the world.



It is the unless the earth people's stop making nuclear weapons and killing one another. The planet and all its population will be destroyed for the good of the other inhabited worlds. A subtle plea to the 1951 audience against nuclear proliferation and testing.

There is another underlining subtle plot to the picture that many viewers still have never gotten. I ask my reader to look at the words I have put within parenthesis, "the Heavens", "go out among the masses", "a miracle", "resurrection" and "sermon on the mount". Additionally, Klaatu takes the name of the army officer whose clothing he uses, "Carpenter".

Director Robert Wise and screenplay writer Edward H. North have created an allegory of Jesus Christ revisiting earth. He walks among us, but not one person of supposed faith recognizes him. He has become the unknown we fear. A fear the ordinary Americans at that breakfast table turned into an agent of the Soviet Union. We kill Jesus a second time, because of that fear.

Klaatu's warning is a biblical prophecy come true. In 1962 director Robert Aldrich made a typical Hollywood Biblical epic known either as "The Last Days of Sodom and Gomorrah", or just
"Sodom and Gomorrah". When Lot's wife at the end turns to see what God has wrought upon those twin cities of sin. Aldrich envisions two atomic bombs destroying them as this story board sketch illustrates from the picture,



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ROCKETSHIP X-M
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While not considered a nuclear holocaust film 1950's "Rocketship X-M" released May 26, 1950 is in actuality the first such motion picture. This is through the message contained in the screenplay by Orville H.Hampton, Kurt Neumann and future "Black Listed" writer Dalton Trumbo,

A group of four men and one woman are launched from the White Sands Proving Grounds, the site of the 1944 "Trinity" Nuclear Test, in Rocketship Expedition-Moon (Rocketship X-M). Something goes wrong and the space craft's crew find themselves not orbiting the Moon, but Mars.

The ship is landed on the Red Planet and it is here that the movie goes nuclear when the crew explore.



They find that the Martian civilization has been destroyed by a past Nuclear War and this is confirmed by residual radiation.



The screenplay portrays Mars as having been turned into a desolate wasteland with signs of the great war that destroyed an apparent civilization equal to Earth's, Next the five space explorers discover there is still human life on the planet, but as one of the character's Dr. Eckstrom remarks. The Martian's have gone:

From the Atomic Age to the Stone Age

A plot point first seen in this movie, but will be carried through in other post-Apocalyptic screenplays.




The crew is attacked by the now primitive people and there are deaths and injuries to the group. The survivors make it back to the ship and take off for Earth. It is discovered that because of the change is destination there is not enough fuel to make it back to Earth. A garbled message gets through, but the warning to mankind about Atomic War does not as "Rocketship X-M" crashes into Nova Scotia.

FIVE

"FIVE" premiered on April 25, 1951 from a story and screenplay by its producer/director Arch Obler. Obler was known as the main writer/producer of the horror radio program "Lights Out" from 1936 through 1939 and then it's one year revival 1942 to 1943. Those stories still scare today. Obler would produce/direct and write the first commercial 3-D motion picture "Bwana Devil" in 1952.

"FIVE" is considered the first true Nuclear Holocaust motion picture made World Wide and like "Rocketship X-M" set a concept that would be used throughout the 1950's in science fiction motion pictures.

Behind the opening credits for the picture is the explosion of an Atomic Bomb and with the film's one word title is quite effective.




Obler introduces the audience to his "Five" survivors of a nuclear war. We meet pregnant/married Rosanne Rodgers. She was in a hospital's X-Ray room that with its lead lined walls protected her. We meet Michael who is at Rosanne's Aunt's isolated house when she arrives. He had been in an elevator of the Empire State Building when the bomb went off. We meet two more survivors an elderly Bank Clerk named Oliver P. Barnstaple who is being taken care of by an Afro-American named Charles. The two were in a bank vault when the attack came. The fifth person found on the beach is named Eric. He had been flying back from Mount Everest, where he had been climbing at the time of the attack, and his plane ran out of gas.

The reasons for Obler's group to survive an atomic war fit what was known at the time and that included how radiation from the bomb was supposed to work. Looking back from today my reader would be shaking their head, but again one has to remember how little was known even by the scientific community, for sure, in 1951.

The bank vault survival idea was used by Rod Sterling in Episode 8 of Season One of his "Twilight Zone". This was a full eight years later on November 20, 1959 in "Time Enough at Last". It was also about a Bank Clerk. That episode further illustrates 14 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki the average American's lack of real knowledge of how to survive an atomic attack and the properties of radiation. "DROP and Cover" anybody?

The five people believe they are the only survivors and begin to discuss their options. Eric's ego starts to show as he believes they're all immune to radiation. Shortly after rescuing Eric the Bank Clerk Barnstaple, who had been experiencing sickness, dies. On another front with Eric is that he's a racist and can't stand being around Charles. This idea would be explored in more detail in 1959's "The World, The Flesh and The Devil".

In that major motion picture, there are only three survivors of an Atomic War who meet in an empty New York City. They are an African American played by Harry Belefonte, a women portrayed by Inger Stevens and the racist played by Mel Ferrer. The screenplay for "The World, the Flesh and the Devil" by Ronald MacDougall goes farther than Obler dared in 1951. It has white Stevens falling in love with Afro-American Belefonte while Ferrer also wants Stevens. The picture used its post-apocalyptic theme to address racial issues not mentioned in most homes of the time.

Returning to "FIVE" Eric attacks Charles and while their fighting Rosanne goes into labor. The fight stops and Michael delivers her baby boy. One night Eric talks Rosanne to come with him to the city to see if her husband is still alive. Before they go Charles becomes suspicious of Eric's motives and in a fight is stabbed and killed. Eric and Rosanne go to the city where they discover her husband's skeleton.

At this point Rosanne realizes she wants to be with Michael, but Eric won't let her go. The two struggle and Rosanne rips Eric's shirt revealing signs of radiation poisoning. Eric who believed himself immune and superior goes into shock. He turns and leaves her just standing there.

Rosanne and her baby start the long walk back to her aunt's house. As she travels the baby gets sick and dies. Michael appears having been looking for her and buries the boy. The two realize they may be the last people on Earth and face their unknown future.



THE UNKNOWN WORLD


As good as the low budget "Rocketship X-M" was for Robert L. Lippert Productions. "The Unknown World" written by Millard Kaufman was as bad, but the premise was perfect for the minds of 1951 America. A Bomb Shelter for the Human Race. The picture was released October 26, 1951 six months after "FIVE" and became the second movie made to play on our nuclear annihilation fears.

Dr. Jeremiah Morley is concerned about what he perceives is imminent Nuclear War and its consequences for the human race. So, Morley puts together a team of scientists to go look within the Earth for a bomb shelter for mankind.

His plan is to drill into the Earth in a machine called the "Cyclotram" right out of author Edgar Rice Burrough's "At the Earth's Core",

Over several subplots, including a romance, the group finds what appears to be the perfect inner world bomb shelter for mankind to survive an atomic cataclysm. There is breathable air, its own ocean and phosphorescent light. A plot device lifted from Jules Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" as the above movie posters blatantly promotes in this very low budget science fiction entry.

However, all the test rabbits give birth to dead babies and an autopsy reveals the animals have become sterile. Dr. Morley's dream of saving us from ourselves is ended in failure as the volcano the group is in starts to erupt and they must escape somehow to the surface.

The idea of bomb shelters to save the human race used in "The Unknown World" and joked about in the 1999 movie "Blast from the Past". Had been an actual 1950's salesmanship job by the Eisenhower Administration to those living in the suburbs of America. The product being "Sales Pitched" were "Backyard Bomb Shelters" to save a person's family from a Soviet Atom Bomb attack. As I mentioned above this was the Government's playing on the fears, they had help create.

The following is from a United States History Website and explains the Eisenhower Administration's thinking in the early 1950's when I was a very small boy:

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h3706.html

The Federal Civil Defense Administration

The federal government responded to heightened public anxiety by creating the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA), later called the Office of Civil Defense, to instruct the public about how to prepare for a nuclear assault. The Eisnehower administration distributed information to educate Americans about how they could protect themselves. Survival literature was written primarily for a suburban audience, since it was assumed that cities would be targets and most urban dwellers would not survive. Officials at the FCDA stated that if people were educated and prepared for a nuclear attack, they could survive an atomic bomb and avoid the wholesale death and destruction that had occurred at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

What is a fallout shelter and how were they built?

A fallout shelter is a civil defense measure intended to reduce casualties in a nuclear war. It is designed to allow those inside it to avoid exposure to harmful fallout from a nuclear blast and its likely aftermath of radiation until radioactivity has dropped to a safer level. A basic fallout shelter consists of shielding that reduces gamma-ray exposure. Since the most dangerous fallout has the consistency of sand or finely ground pumice, a successful fallout shelter need not filter fine dust from air. The fine dust both emits relatively little radiation and does not settle to the earth, where the fallout shelter exists. Concrete, bricks, earth, and sand are some of the materials that are dense or heavy enough to provide fallout protection.

Concrete was the favored building material of fallout shelters, with walls at least 12 inches thick. The required shielding could be accomplished with 10 times the amount of any quantity of material capable of cutting gamma-ray effects in half. Shields that reduce gamma ray intensity by 50 percent include 0.4 inches of lead, 2.4 inches of concrete, 3.6 inches of packed dirt or 500 feet of air. When multiple thicknesses are built, the shielding multiplies. When I was working for the Post Office one Christmas my supervisor asked another employee and myself if our wives would permit us to come over to his house for a Christmas drink, or two, or three. When got to his house what I found amazing was not that Bob Seaberry made his own beer and wine, but that he made it and kept it in a backyard Bomb Shelter he had purchased in the early 1950'.

WORLD WITHOUT END

The third motion picture considered as actually "Nuclear Holocaust" premiered back in 1952 on a double bill with "Invasion, U.S.A.". This 64-minute-long picture was entitled, at the time, "1,000 Years from  Now":

The picture would be re-released in the United States in 1956 as "Captive Women". "IMDb" has the years reversed causing some confusion, but the above poster confirms the correct sequence of release. When I saw both movies after I had just turned six.

The picture was released in the United Kingdom, and Brazil under the screenplay's original title "3,000 A.D.".

In 3,000 A.D. New York City there are three groups of survivors of an atomic holocaust. You have the "Norms" who are still healthy humans and live in the old subway system. "The Up River People" who are a group of "Raiders" that live in the wooded areas surrounding the city and are pretty much also still human. Then there are "The Mutates" who still show genetic deformities from the Atomic Holocaust.

However, the story is simple. "The Mutates" capture some "Norm" women and a rescue mission sets out. This will lead to a meeting with "The Up River People" and a joint attack on "The Mutates".

However, in "The Mutates" village there are two factions. One is led by a man saved from death by the "Norm" Leader that is attempting to overthrow the current evil Mutate leader. Battle will ensue and friendships will overcome animosities toward each other. In the end the "Norm" women Ruth marries the good "Mutate" leader Riddon bringing hope for the entire human race and a restoring of faith in God.

In December of 1955 a Roger Corman directed motion picture from a screenplay by Lou Rusoff entitled "The Day the World Ended" was released. The story is formatted like Arch Obler's "FIVE" in that we have a group of survivors of an Atomic War meeting, talking and interacting.

The picture was released through what would become American International Pictures. They had a tendency to make posters to lure the audience in that was far better than what we saw on the screen.

However, this picture had added an element to this tale that "FIVE" did not have and that was mutation of a human being from the atomic radiation. It also began somewhat differently than any previous film:

As Atomic Bombs explode and the world apparently ends giving Roger Corman his title.

A radioactive cloud has stayed stationary over a canyon with lead lined walls. Believing, as was Obler's "FIVE", that lead will protect a person from radiation during and after a Nuclear War. The cloud creates its own dead zone which reaches slightly below the tops of the canyon walls.

The owner of a house at the Canyon's bottom is an ex-Navy Commander who was part of the early Atomic Tests and became a survivalist over his fears of a Nuclear Holocaust. He stocks pilled food, water and other supplies for three people to survive until the radiation level drops below dangerous. His daughter was engaged to a man who disappeared after the attack. The two have only one real fear and that is rain. It hasn't rained since before the nuclear attack and their fear is new rain will bring them death as it passes through the nuclear cloud.

Into their twosome comes five other people. One is Rick a geologist, Then, there's a small-time gangster named Tony and his girlfriend Ruby. Also an old prospector named Pete with his burro and a man called Radek who was exposed to radiation andis  starting to show it on his face.

The food shortage becomes an immediate problem as will jealousy by Tony over the Commander's daughter, Louise, who is falling for Rick. There is a fresh water pond and the two women take a swim, but Louise thinks someone is calling her name.

When we meet Radek it leads to the Commander showing Rick drawings, as photos weren't permitted, of test subject animals that survived for a time after the Atomic Bomb experiments he was part of.

Eventually a man-sized monster is observed that keeps going for Louise. Like Radek's skin which was becoming a form of armor as he started to mutate from the radiation. This creature has its entire body covered in that armored skin. Plus, the third eye on the sketch of the mutating monkey and the other smaller arms from its upper shoulders. The creature will kill Radek to protect its small food source.

The creature finally takes Louise, but tenderly and carries her away. Rick pursues as it starts to rain and he observes the creature fall to the ground and dissolves. The rain isn't radioactive, but clean and fresh and the creature cannot live in a non-contaminated world. The Earth is restarting itself and destroying the pestilence man had created.

Before it is destroyed by the clean rain it becomes obvious that the "Monster" was Louise's fiancee. The movie concludes with Louise and Rick walking out of the canyon and the words:

The Beginning

Which would also be used in 1959 for the ending of "The World, The Flesh and The Devil".

Overlooked and not showing on any of the lists of "Nuclear Holocaust" motion pictures is "World Without End" released on March 25, 1956. Among its future world of beautiful women is a very intelligent and thought-provoking screenplay of the Post-Apocalyptic United States. It was also the first Technicolor film of this genre,

This picture starred solid "B" supporting actor Hugh Marlowe, who had played the boyfriend in "The Day the Earth Stood Still", and was the first American feature film for Australian actor Rod Taylor. These two along with Christopher Dark and Nelson Leigh leave the Earth in 1957 for the first trip to circle Mars. The mission goes better than as planned, but as they leave Mars orbit and head home something goes wrong with the propulsion system. The ship reaches speeds beyond the builders' computations and the spacecraft crash lands on a snow-covered mountain.

The story really takes off from this point.

The four men first discover the air is breathable, the radiation level is residual and far below even what a person would be exposed to with X-ray exams. They decide to explore below the snow line and venture out.

The group makes a comment that the mountain range there in seems similar to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado back on Earth.  They don't know it at the time, but that is exactly where they are.

As the four men move further from the space craft. The group come upon a cemetery and a shocking discovery. They are back home, but from the grave markers sometime beyond a devastating Atomic War they speculate occurred in 2188. Later they will learn that in their time terms the year is actually 2508.

The screenplay now explains how this happened by referencing "Time dilation". In Einstein's theory of Relativity this is the difference in elapsed time between two events measured by observers. In this case 1957 and 2508.

Immediately a problem arrives with Christopher Dark's, far left in above still, Jaffe. He is the only married member of the crew and realizes his wife and children are long dead. He also speculates about unknown possible Grandchildren he will never know.

Further exploration leads to a cave with a giant spider web and a mutated spider.

The group is then attacked by Mutated humans. Who like the Martian civilization in "Rocketship X-M" have reverted to the stone age!

The four men discover a cave during this attack and move back into it as shelter. Suddenly a metal door slides down blocking the outside world. Another opens further in the cave and they enter to discover an underground city of the still human descendants of those who survived the Atomic War four hundred years before.

It will be discovered that although the women are still fertile. Living underground has started to turn the men infertile. This society refuses to go out into the now safe Earth for two reasons. The first is the obvious fear of the Mutates and the second they say they're comfortable where they are.

However, besides the descendant's young women is a girl named Deena. It turns out that she is actually from the outside world and the Mutated population is very small. The Mutated humans are killing off or enslaving the now normal children being born like Deena.

There's an ongoing confrontation with a man on the council named Mories. He is jealous over their leader's daughter falling in love with one of the men from the Earth's past. Mories felt Garnet would be his and he murders another council member. Then plant the guns, taken away from the time travelers, to blame them. Deena unobserved knows the truth, but she becomes jealous also. After she thinks Ellis, whom she now loves, is interested in another women.

Deena finally reveals the truth about Mories. Who is banished to the outside world and immediately killed by the Mutates! Deena also reveals that like primitive people of the past. The Mutates choose a leader by combat. It is decided to challenge Naga for rule of the Mutates. Deena joins the four men as a translator.

Naga is defeated and the few remaining Mutates are told by Deena the new leader wants them to leave and never return. As a result, the underground dwellers return to the surface and joining with the normal born children of the Outer World to start life again. Also, Jaffe finally finds solace in becoming a teacher for the children of both groups reflecting the film's title "World Without End".

In July 1958 Roger Corman was back with a film that was originally to be called "Primitive World", but starred 25-year-old Robert Vaughn as the title character the "Teenage Caveman". The film was called "Out of the Darkness" in the UK and that title actually fits better.



To be honest the first 90% of this movie is a prehistoric reworking of sorts of James Dean's "Rebel Without a Cause". As it deals with "Mom and Dad you don't understand me". The title change was made to be part of the "Teenage" horror/science fiction aimed movie craze. It had been started the previous year with Michael Landon in a similar "Rebel Without a Cause" remix "I Was a Teenage Werewolf".

However, it is that last 10% of "Teenage Cave Man" that is of interest here and the reason I consider it, as others do not, a Nuclear Holocaust feature film. There is a legend in the Tribe about a God that lives across the river. The side the Tribe lives on is barren and rocky. While the God's side is lush and fruitful, but still, they are never to cross over that river. Those who have never returned.

Of course, a group of teens including Vaughn's girlfriend cross the river with him.



There they meet the God of legend. Robert Vaughn's "Teen" attempts to make peace, but another of his group is afraid. That person takes some stones and kills the God with it. Vaughn in turn kills that boy with an arrow from his bow.

As the remaining group approach their God it appears the head is coming off. The head turns out to be some sort of headpiece. In fact, the whole God's appearance is not what it seems as there is a very ancient man inside.

What was thought to be a monstrous God was in reality a man in a radiation suit and the only survivor of the Nuclear Holocaust that destroyed the world. Eventually taking the survivors of mankind back to the stone age. As my reader by now knows a major prediction by Science Fiction writers of the period.

As to the radiation protection suit. At one time it became covered with fallout and somehow it actually kept the man alive to roam the new world for decades beyond his normal human lifespan.

Around the old man's neck is found a strange object. Which is a photo album and as the group of Cave Teens looks at what it contains. There is a voice over narration by the dead man. He explains the Atomic War as we see photos from the past

"Teenage Cave Man" ends with the dead man asking the question:

Will humanity someday repeat its nuclear folly after civilization has once again risen to its former heights?

Then there was-----------


ON THE BEACH


On December 17, 1959 Producer/Director Stanley Kramer released his version of British author Nevil Shutes 1957 novel "On the Beach". After all the above Apocalyptic Science Fiction fantasy. The motion picture industry got serious as events were overtaking the world. In three short years President Kennedy would be faced with "The Cuban Missile Crisis" with actual Soviet Union Nuclear Armed Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles just 90 miles off the Florida coast.

"On the Beach" was an "A" picture with an "A" list cast.




Stanley Kramer made many changes to Nevil Shute's novel and the author would not assist him, because of them. Gregory Peck was also upset about these changes, but while some were made for cinematic reasons and others because the United States Navy refused to cooperate with Kramer and he borrowed the Australian. The overall film is still very effective in making its point about Nuclear War and its result.

The audience learns from a calendar on the wall of the home of Anthony Perkins character Lieutenant Commander Peter Holmes, Australian Royal Navy, that the year is 1964 only months after World War 3 has ended. A date that was reverting to the 1959 American audience who was now caught truly within the Cold War and that fear of Soviet Attack.

The film mentions that Australia being in the southern hemisphere was not directly attacked during the war, but the radioactive cloud is slowly making its way toward the country. One of the last remaining areas of untouched humanity. Into the harbor of Melbourne comes the U.S. Nuclear submarine "Sawfish". It is under the command of Commander Dwight Lionel Towers portrayed by Gregory Peck. Lt Commander Holmes will be assigned to him as liaison officer from the Australian Navy. Actually the "Sawfish" is placed under Austrian Navy command as it is believed no other American Naval vessel still exists in the world.

The Australian Government has been picking up a garbled Morse code signal from the West Coast of the United States. The plan is to send the "Sawfish" to investigate. Prior to the mission there is a party held one evening and Commander Towers meets two people. One is the alcoholic Moria Davidson, Ava Gardner, and the other a Scientist who will accompany him, Juliam Osborne, Fred Astaire in an unusual dramatic role.

While the submarine still awaits its departure the audience follows these people and Lt. Commander Holmes. Holmes has acquired suicide pills for his family. These have yet to be dispensed by the Australian Government and will be shortly. So that people will not suffer the effects of radiation sickness before dying. Peter is having difficulty getting his wife Mary, Donna Anderson, to accept what's happening to their family and that if he is not at home. She will need to give one of the pills to their baby daughter and then take one herself.

Moria has been attempting to get Dwight interested in her and her plans are running into the memory of his recently deceased wife.

 While Julian has been building a race car to run in what will be the last Australian Grand Prix.

The "Sawfish" finally puts to sea and heads for Point Barrow, Alaska to prove one scientist's theory. That theory concerns radiation levels near the Arctic Circle believed to be lower than in the mid-Northern Hemisphere, if true this indicates that the cloud will dissipate before it reaches Australia. The reverse is occurring as the level is actually intensifying.

The submarine next reaches San Francisco and one of the crewmen whose family is in the city leaves the ship against orders. The next day he is seen fishing and tells Commander Towers that he could not locate his wife and children, but everywhere he goes people are dead. He says good-by and remains fishing in a boat awaiting his fate as the submarine dives.



The "Sawfish" arrives at San Diego the source of the signal. A decision on how to locate it and the possible survivors is made.

Lieutenant Sunderstrom volunteers to go ashore wearing a radiation protection suit. He has one hour to leave and return to the ship before his oxygen will be depleted and faces radiation sickness. Sunderstrom goes ashore and locates the signal that started the mission. It isn't a person, but a Coca Cola bottle tied to a window shade cord tapping in the wind against the Morse code set.

He stands the Coke bottle up and uses the Morse Code set to explain the situation he has found and returns to the submarine within his hour. The "Sawfish" returns to Australia.

Moria and Dwight finally fall in love as the end is nearing. Julian enters the Grand Prix and while other drivers are crashing and dying the scientist wins it.




However, fate catches up to everyone. Julian blocks the door of his garage and turns the race car's motor on to die by carbon monoxide poisoning. Mary Holmes has had a nervous breakdown but regains her senses in time to help her husband end their baby's life and their own as a family. Dwight is forced to leave Moria, because the crew of the "Sawfish" wants to return to the United States to die in their own country. Moria watches from a cliff as the submarine heads to sea and diver under the ocean. She will take one of the suicide pills with a drink.



The movie fades out as the audience sees the empty streets of Melbourne and in closing the banner once more reading:

THERE IS STILL TIME....BROTHER