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18. The atomic bomb
For four years following the end of World War II, the United States enjoyed a monopoly on the atomic bomb. On August 29, 1949, the Soviets successfully tested their first atomic weapon. The Cold War immediately grew colder. Motion pictures focused on the effects and possibility of the two superpowers destroying each other, and the human race, became popular. Some, like 1964’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb were black comedies. Others focused on the stark realities of the time, when children were taught to hide under school desks when alarms sounded, communities held civil defense drills, and families built and stocked bomb shelters.
The possibility of nuclear war triggered by mistake, explored in films such as 1964’s Fail-Safe, or by treachery, as in Seven Days in May, released the same year, indicates the level of concern over nuclear annihilation. Throughout the Cold War fears of nuclear war appeared in films and television programs. Many films set during the Cold War in the 1950s reflect two of the great obsessions of the conservatives in the United States of the day – communist infiltration of the government and the entertainment industry. I Was A Communist for the FBI (1951) was a depiction on film of the anti-communist hysteria which marked the McCarthy era and the House Un-American Activities Committee.