FILM: Tale Of Two Cities (1946)

United States War Department. 1946. Tale of Two Cities. YouTube video, 12: 03 min, posted by “nuclearvault,” Sep 5, 2009, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPvYw9cm8GY

This short 12-minute film, produced by the U.S. War Department, begins with the Trinity nuclear test in the desert of New Mexico in July 1945. Accompanying the picture of an atomic explosion, the narrator announces that on that day “the atomic age was born.” Shortly thereafter, the destructive forces of the atom are unleashed against civilian targets, for the first and only time in history: the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As if describing a scientific experiment, the narrator takes the viewer on a tour through the ruins of the two devastated cities. It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that the fresh impression of the horrific effects of the atom on the two cities and their people gave way to a strong opposition movement in early postwar Japan. This skepticism and fear would also obstruct the introduction of the peaceful use of nuclear energy in later years. –Christian Dimmer

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Various versions of the film document can be downloaded at the Internet Archive