  |
|
|
|
Page 2
If you wanted proof, you didn't have to look far. Here we were, testing bigger and more deadly atomic and hydrogen bombs in places like the White Sands Missile Range and the Nevada Test Range. The Soviets, meanwhile, are busy doing the very same thing in their own wilderness areas. My mother, who grew up in Los Angeles during the 1950s, clearly remembers seeing, late at night, the flash from more than one of the nuclear tests being conducted out in the desert beyond Los Vegas.
What would be the result of all those tests? As scientist Gwenn so ominously reminded the viewer at the close of “Them!”, the results of all those dangerous experiments could not possibly be predicted with certainty. And certainly, Gwenn's question is very much still valid. What did we end up bringing upon the world when the Manhattan Project came to fruition over Japan in 1945? In the end, of course, we didn’t really mutate ants or lizards (let alone scientists), but we still opened a huge can of ethical and moral questions that may never be resolved. No wonder that so many of these bad 1950s films ended with, not THE END, but instead, THE END?. And that big, scary question mark may be one of Hollywood’s great testimonies. The film community was, then and now, a money machine, and the public at the time had a taste for these cheaply made atomic horror shows. But whatever the motivation, the writers, directors, producers, publicists and all the rest ended up creating a collective body of work that even today manages to ask some very hard questions. Questions that, I think, have a very long half life. Go To Page: 1 2
The copyright of the article Them! - Page 2 in Cold War is owned by . Permission to republish Them! - Page 2 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
|
|
|
|
