A 1982 documentary presents the myriad ways that the U.S. government deceived and indoctrinated the public about nuclear weapons during the Cold War.

• I’ve been loving reading and exploring the history of both the Atomic Cafe and Cafe Troy. I run a local art guide and magazine called Get Down Town. We’re hosting a recurring event series about movements throughout Downtown LA history, cultural, social, political, and would love to do a panel event on women-run and feminist-fueling spaces.
• Anyway, The Atomic Cafe is not an eating destination, but it'll do in a pinch.

Atomic Cafe was an establishment in the Nevada desert. It was located on a remote highway near the turn-off to a military facility and served the soldiers who visted the cafe on occasion where Maxie was an employee. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Sign only) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull novel Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull junior. This 1982 cult classic juxtaposes Cold War history, propaganda, music and culture, seamlessly crafted from government-produced educational and training films, newsreels and advertisements. The Atomic Cafe is an absurdist blast from the past that would be downright laughable if it weren't so eerily relevant to our fake news present.

Released at the beginning of the Reagan era, in a time of heightened Cold War rhetoric, the 1982 film The Atomic Café is a documentary about the way the U.S. government framed the dangers of the nuclear age to its citizens, from the late 1940s to the early 60s. The picture was put together by three intrepid independent filmmakers—Kevin & Pierce Rafferty, and Jayne Loader—from years of research combing through declassified government film collections. It doesn’t need any voice-overs, explanations, or editorializing. Simply by presenting the newsreels, military films, educational and public service films, and other archival material from that era, the movie exposes the entire approach of the U.S. (not just the federal government, but the corporate world as well) to informing the citizenry of this country, as the willful, wholesale deception and criminal abuse of power that it was.

The filmmakers sprinkle the picture with amusing atomic-themed songs from the period, and the spectacle of such blatant propaganda coupled with widespread gullibility is often quite funny. But the laughter is tinged with horror as you realize that this all really happened in our country. There is, of course, Bert the Turtle telling the kids at school to “duck and cover” when they see the flash of the detonation. A minister discusses whether a family should allow another family into their bomb shelter (they shouldn’t). A military training film ridicules people who are concerned about nuclear fallout as alarmist crackpots. Most chillingly, we see army troops being prepared with comforting lies before they witness an explosion in Nevada at close range, with nothing protecting them but helmets and goggles, and then ordered to march towards the bomb site as part of an emergency training exercise. Only once does the film represent the true reality of things. A couple of scientists in an interview from the 1950s point out that a hydrogen bomb blast would flatten everything within a huge radius, and that people in bomb shelters would be cooked alive.

Behind every misleading and condescending clip in this brilliantly arranged film is the sense of an establishment so drunk on its arrogance that it was willing to accept the destruction of entire cities as part of the game. It’s no wonder that the next generation rebelled in the 1960s. When you’re repeatedly lied to on a matter of life and death, not only personally but for the entire world, it tends to make you distrustful of authority.

This is a brilliant movie because it uses the very materials that were employed to hoodwink us fifty or sixty years ago, to alert us to the inherent danger of imperial “superpower” ideology today. It’s one of those rare films that is both wildly entertaining and politically provocative.

The Atomic Café is available on DVD.

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The Atomic Cafe is a 1982 film directed by Jayne Loader, Kevin Rafferty, and Pierce Rafferty.

It is a documentary about nuclear war and the nuclear arms race, consisting entirely of stock film clips. The film starts with footage of the 1945 Trinity test and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, intercut with an old interview with Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the plane that dropped the Hiroshima bomb. From there the film shows newsreels, commercials, public service films, and military training films, dealing with the paranoia and propaganda of the early atomic age. Topics include the nuclear testing on Bikini Atoll, the Red Scare, the development of the hydrogen bomb, continued Army nuclear testing, and the popularity of fallout shelters in the 1950s. The notorious short film Duck and Cover, which purported to teach schoolchildren about how to 'duck and cover' to protect themselves in case of nuclear attack, is prominently featured.

The Atomic Cafe Summary

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The Atomic Cafe 1982

• After the End: Discussed Trope. One fellow with a bomb shelter quite calmly observes that after nuclear holocaust, some 80%-90% of the population will be dead, so there will be more food left for the rest.
• Art Shift: There are several animated clips, most famously the bizarre Bert the Turtle animation from Duck and Cover. The end titles show an animation of missile silos disguised as houses, with the fake houses flopping open when the ICBMs are fired off.
• Black Comedy: Some of the film is not funny at all, like the scenes from the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the clearly upset man who struggles to describe the hard death of Ethel Rosenberg in the electric chair. But other segments, like the boy in the radiation suit riding a bike, or the film clip that tells people not to worry about losing their hair to radiation because it will grow right back, play as absurd black comedy.

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• Call-Back: The closing montage has a series of nuclear bomb detonations, interposed with clips already seen earlier in the film, like the shot of picnickers ducking-and-covering with their picnic blankets, or the boy in a full-body radiation suit riding a bicycle.
• Crazy Survivalist: A long portion of the film deals with the popularity of fallout shelters in the 1950s and the idea that you could save yourself from nuclear holocaust by building a reinforced concrete basement. A child in class makes a poster of stuff you should take with you in the shelter. An even weirder clip has a man recommend storing tranquilizers in your bomb shelter, so you don't freak out with Cabin Fever. An advertising clip proudly demonstrates new construction suburban homes with bomb shelters built in.
• Gorn: Film clips of horribly injured victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
• Interplay of Sex and Violence: One clip shows a good-looking, fashionably dressed woman, making come-hither poses, right in front of a missile.
• The Ken Burns Effect: Mostly averted as the film consists of live-action footage rather than still photos, but there is a zoom in on a picture of charred corpses in Hiroshima.
• Nuke 'em: Starts with the actual nuking of two cities in Japan. Another section of the film is a clip of a U.S. Congressman who forcefully advocates for the use of nuclear weapons in The Korean War against both the North Koreans and the Chinese.
• Product Placement: One of the more surreal clips has a creepily earnest announcer guy warning about the dangers of communism, then extolling the capitalist virtues of two specific California shopping malls that apparently funded the newsreel.
• Red Scare: Many stock footage clips demonstrate the paranoia about and fear of the Soviet Union that built public support for the nuclear arms race. One completely crazy newsreel documents a small Midwestern town that decided to simulate a communist takeover, complete with the mayor getting arrested and a pro-Stalin parade down the main street. (This same clip was also used in the anti-Vietnam War documentary Hearts and Minds.)
• Soap Box Sadie: The clip of the passionate young Straw Feminist / Straw Pacifist ranting about how the U.S. should disarm and make friends with Stalin. She's even standing on a box.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Disturbing footage of nuclear bomb blasts and people in radiation suits is coupled with weird 1950s pop songs like 'I Guess It's My Atomic Love For You'.
• Spinning Paper: Several transitions announce big historical moments by having a newspaper zoom into frame. The one announcing the Soviet detonation of their first atomic bomb in 1949 actually spins.
• Stock Footage: The whole movie. Government propaganda, newsreels, commercials, military training films.
• Straw Character: One Army training film shows a stereotypical Straw Feminist in huge glasses on a soapbox claiming that Communist countries want peace and are all-around great countries. She is also a classic Straw Pacifist.
• Tempting Fate: A film clip has someone looking at a newspaper and saying 'Well I guess there's nothing to worry about; we're the ones that have the bomb.' This is immediately followed by contemporary news coverage of the successful Soviet nuclear bomb test in 1949.
• Tested on Humans: One segment shows footage of pigs being exposed to atomic blasts so their injuries can be studied. That's followed by a different clip in which U.S. Army soldiers are stationed out in the desert, with no protection, so they can be measured for radiation exposure after a nuclear detonation.
• Visual Title Drop: A diner called 'Atomic Cafe' is briefly shown.
• We Interrupt This Program: A instructional film about taking shelter before a nuclear strike opens with two actors performing a hammy radio drama. After the director in the control booth gets the bulletin about nuclear war, he intrudes into the studio and says 'We interrupt our normal program', then makes the announcement.

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