Atomic Power (film)

Atomic Power
Advertisement in Life, August 12, 1946
Directed by	Jack Glenn
Produced by	Richard de Rochemont
Starring	Dean Acheson Vannevar Bush Arthur Compton James Conant Albert Einstein Enrico Fermi Leslie Groves Ernest Lawrence David Lilienthal Lise Meitner J. Robert Oppenheimer George Pegram I. I. Rabi Leó Szilárd Merle Tuve Harold Urey
Narrated by	Westbrook Van Voorhis
Production company	The March of Time
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	August 9, 1946 (1946-08-09) [1]
Running time	18 minutes[2]
Country	United States
Language	English

Atomic Power is an American short documentary film produced by The March of Time and released to theaters August 9, 1946, one year after the end of World War II. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Raymond Fielding, chronicler of The March of Time, cites Atomic Power as the only one of the series' postwar films to emerge as a classic. "It tells of the making of the atomic bomb, and is a quite remarkable example of film making in the March of Time tradition," Fielding wrote.^[3]

Nearly every person involved in the invention of the atomic bomb performs as an actor in the film, recreating the events and conversations that led up to the Trinity test, which is also reenacted and intercut with government footage of the blast. Jack Glenn directed.^{[3]: 291–296}

Reception

The National Board of Review called Atomic Power "a vivid short … a good condensation of masses of material into simple, clear exposition".^[4] Atomic Power was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.^[5]

See also

• List of films about nuclear issues
• List of books about nuclear issues

References

1. "Synopsis" (PDF). The March of Time Newsreels. HBO Archives. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 6, 2015. Retrieved December 4, 2015.
2. Film Screenings, Museum of Modern Art, December 30, 2009; retrieved April 15, 2012
3. Fielding, Raymond, The March of Time, 1935–1951. New York: Oxford University Press 1978 hardcover ISBN 0-19-502212-2
4. "March of Time #13 (12th Series) 'Atomic Power'". New Movies, the National Board of Review Magazine. 21 (10). Internet Archive: 42. October 1946. Retrieved October 10, 2015.
5. "The 19th Academy Awards (1947) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Archived from the original on July 6, 2011. Retrieved August 19, 2011.

External links

• Atomic Power at IMDb
• "Watch Atomic Power Documentary (from the Periscope Film LLC archive)" on YouTube