Topical Reference: Rock Around the Doomsday Clock
Hi, welcome to Topical Reference where we take current events and hand pick film that set the mood for all the doom and gloom! Last week there have been tensions rising between the United States and North Korea. It's a dick measuring contest of epic proportions between Donald Trump, America's Commander-in-Derp, and North Korea's leader and resident lady boy, Kim Jung-Un. As a child of the 80s, I'm getting to the age where I get nostalgic and with all this back-and-forth and looming Armageddon, I can't help but think back to living during the Cold War. I'm getting the warm and fuzzies guys. For those of you didn't crown until after the Berlin Wall fell, let me take you back to a time when we were all learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.
Here are some of my top picks to help you pass the time as you are waiting for the fall out to settle.....
First a Little Education
To really enjoy a nuclear war you have to learn to prepare, and while most of you will probably scoff at the idea of watching something educational, I insist that these are some must watch films so you can survive and help rebuild humanity in the post-nuclear wasteland.
Duck and Cover
This is a classic and a must watch obviously. Duck and Cover tells the gripping tale of Bert the Turtle, a mild mannered safety minded turtle who is besieged by a dynamite wielding suicidal monkey. That monkey is a dick. Bert is just minding his business when that damn monkey dangles a stick of dynamite in front of his face. Bert must have had some experience with this problem before because he naturally ducks into his shell where he is safe from the powerful force of the explosion.
You may laugh at Bert for walking around wearing a helmet, but when you live in a world where some damn dirty apes are trying to blow you up it's the sensible thing to do. However, this entire reel isn't just about Bert, it's about what little kids like you can do to save yourself during a nuclear attack. The narrator kind of gets off point by talking about fire departments and driving laws, but he manages to get to the point. His droning monotone is sure to fill you with confidence as he instructs you on what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. Take notes.
Survival Under Atomic Attack
Perhaps you don't like being talked down to like a child, that's fine, I get that. Maybe you're not entirely sold on the whole duck and cover thing. That's fine because the 1951 Defence Department film Survival Under Atomic Attack will give you the straight dope about how to survive an atomic bomb.
It talks a bit about how a nuclear bomb works and makes a scientific observation from the nuclear bomb drops on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. Now if you think it's going to give an accurate account of anything, this film was made during a time where America was still stroking its glistening boner following the war.
Yes friends, in the event of a nuclear bomb attack, find a sturdy railing to hide behind. I'm sure the nuclear shadows that were created in Hiroshima and Nagasaki will be happy to know how this film downplays the devastation caused to Japan by the nuclear attack of World War II. Also, if you have OCD, you'll be happy to know your obsessive cleaning habits will have a place in the post-nuclear apocalypse. Got some fall out in your hair? Just a good scrub with Head and Shoulders can help clean that radioactive dirty away and your screams will cover-up the fact that you're removing patches of flesh off your burning scalp. YAY!
Okay, now that these educational film reels have set the tone, let's get into these movies:
Red Nightmare
This short film, made by the Department of Defense with the help of Warner Brothers, Red Nightmare tells the tale of Jerry Donovan, a honest-to-goodness red blooded American. However, he doesn't have time for PTA meetings and thinks that his daughter is too young to get married. According to this movie, Jerry is taking the freedom of being an American for granted. That evening, he has a nightmare where America has been taken over by communists. Suddenly, Small Town USA is filled with spies, you need a permit to use a telephone, and your family is willingly going off to work in communal farms. Jerry doesn't like this at all and balks at everything that doesn't fit with his ideals. This gets him in trouble, naturally. When he tries to force his children to go to church he discovers that it has been replaced with a museum of Russian "achievements". Jack is then put on trial and well... check out what happens:
Whoever wrote this script must have really liked the Twilight Zone because the entire film plays out like one. However, instead of getting Rod Serling to do the narration, they got Jack Webb, the guy from Dragnet. The fact that they didn't have Dragnet style epilogue after the court room scene seems like a missed opportunity to me.
Also, if not getting involved in community events and dictating when your child gets married are examples of taking advantage of freedom, then we're all guilty. Somehow I don't think Jerry would have found himself in front of the McCarthy Hearings for being lazy. Another funny moment is the scene in the "Museum of Russian Achievements". As you'd expect in a film like this, the Russians have claimed ownership of every modern invention, including the telephone. Jerry calls shenanigans on this, saying "The telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell, an American!" Technically speaking, that's not entirely accurate. Bell was a Scottish immigrant who had citizenship in both the United States and Canada. Also, he invented the telephone in Canada, so technically, it's not an American invention, but I digress.
Well, that's how clean cut red blooded Americans thought about a looming cold war, what about the religious nuts? Well I am glad you asked....
If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?
This 1971 film was the brainchild of Estus Prikle, if his name screams "Southern Baptist Preacher" to you that's because that's exactly what he did for a living. However, Prikle wasn't just satisfied with shouting fire and brimstone from the pulpit on Sundays, he wanted to get his message out there and did he ever, much to the entertainment of everyone else. Estus wrote books and made a few films, all of which depicted his wacky ideas in living color. To give you an idea, he made a movie called the Believers Heaven where he tries to wow people that Heaven has taller skyscrapers than New York City. He spends the entire film shitting on New York and does a hard sell for heaving using singing midgets. So with that level of insanity in mind, you can just imagine what If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? has in store for you.
Well, Estus had this crazy notion that if people didn't stop with all the sex education and violent television and go to church the communists will take over the United States.... On horseback. Yes, these socialist Four Horsemen will come into American and kill billions of people and take over because you want your sex and your booze. Ironically, for someone who was against violent media, he certainly liked using it as a medium for his message.
This movie is all over the map, and Pirkle tries tell you that all the information he is imparting is based on fact. However, I think you can get the idea of how this nimrod processed things. At the start of the movie he harkened back to the days of one room school houses and educating children with the McGuffy Reader. If you're unfamiliar, congratulations you weren't a child between the years 1836 and 1960, but they were educational books for children that combined religious morality with phonics, although they rooted out most of the religious content in the late 1800s. These books were written for kids in grade 1 to 6, so it's easily understandable that Estus doesn't have the smarts to understand geopolitics, the benefits of sexual education, or irony.
For someone who hates violence on television, Pirkle certainly loved using it to get his point across. This movie is over the top gory with scores of people getting mowed down with machine guns on the street to children having sticks rammed through their head causing them to puke all over the place. Apparently, the communists will stick sharpened sticks through the heads of children who believe in Jesus Christ so they will become deaf. To be clear: That's a sharp stick through one ear and then out the other. Apparently, they didn't cover the human brain in the McGuffy Reader.
In this crazy post-communist world, the Communists also manage to invade America on horseback. Which is pretty impressive given there are oceans between the United States and Asia. Even more impressive is that they would manage, according to Pirkle, to kill every member of the United States government. I think the only way this would work is that the Secret Service would be laughing too hard at the notion to properly do their job.
Still, when Estus died in 2005, the world was not under the role of equestrian communists even though we still teach sex ed and like our violent moving pictures. I'd like to think that Estus is spending eternity in one of those God-Skyscrapers with all the McGuffy he can stand to read. Sleep well you rascally lunatic.
This Week Next Week on Topical Reference....
We're going to watch some movies where racists get what is coming to them. YAY!
