Man, this is one dated piece of work, and less than accurate, yet we must give it a pass. In 1947, it was all news to the public. It's a sort of "history for dummies" in which something like "a chain reaction" is explained to the requisite newcomer, who represents the audience and must have everything laid out for him. In this instance the audience proxy is Tom Drake, an all-American boy, who undergoes a kind of heroic self immolation. That incident, though out of synch, is accurate enough. This is hot stuff we're dealing with and the danger can't be emphasized enough.
Leslie Groves, the general in charge of "Manhattan District," is played by Brian Donlevy. In a hilarious scene, he's showing the crowd around Los Alamos, where the gadget will be built, plunges a stick into the desert, and says, "We'll start right here. The barracks will be over there. The laboratory over here," and so on. I kept waiting for him to say, "Put the cyclotron over there" and "Let's get olive green carpets." I respect the film, clumsy as it is, for at least representing the objections of scientists who have doubts about building the bomb and, once having built it, actually using it. Tom Drake has self doubt too, but he pays for his sin.
Hume Cronyn is no J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was skinny, ten-feet tall, had a nose like a peregrine falcon, and an IQ that reached ad astra. How many guys do you know who can read Sanskrit? How many would bother to LEARN Sanskrit? I was disappointed that, among the egg heads shown, Hans Bethe was noticeably absent. He was on the faculty when I took my comprehensive exams and was entitled to walk in unannounced, sit down, and ask me questions about my subject. Not that a Nobelist would have bothered.
You want to see a sophisticated treatment of Oppenheimer, Bethe, Groves, and the rest of them? See if you can get hold of a BBC production called "Oppenheimer."
Leslie Groves, the general in charge of "Manhattan District," is played by Brian Donlevy. In a hilarious scene, he's showing the crowd around Los Alamos, where the gadget will be built, plunges a stick into the desert, and says, "We'll start right here. The barracks will be over there. The laboratory over here," and so on. I kept waiting for him to say, "Put the cyclotron over there" and "Let's get olive green carpets." I respect the film, clumsy as it is, for at least representing the objections of scientists who have doubts about building the bomb and, once having built it, actually using it. Tom Drake has self doubt too, but he pays for his sin.
Hume Cronyn is no J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was skinny, ten-feet tall, had a nose like a peregrine falcon, and an IQ that reached ad astra. How many guys do you know who can read Sanskrit? How many would bother to LEARN Sanskrit? I was disappointed that, among the egg heads shown, Hans Bethe was noticeably absent. He was on the faculty when I took my comprehensive exams and was entitled to walk in unannounced, sit down, and ask me questions about my subject. Not that a Nobelist would have bothered.
You want to see a sophisticated treatment of Oppenheimer, Bethe, Groves, and the rest of them? See if you can get hold of a BBC production called "Oppenheimer."