But as these eruptions from the unconscious became formulaic “bug-eyed monster” movies, a few filmmakers began to deal openly with the effects of nuclear war. The most influential of the 1950s, and the one that dealt most directly with mass death by radioactive fallout as the ultimate outcome of nuclear war, was Stanley Kramer’s On the Beach, starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner and Fred Astaire. Set in Australia after the U.S. and the Soviet Union have destroyed each other, the characters learn they are doomed from the fallout heading their way. There are no explosions, no monsters, no gruesome deaths. Yet Nobel Laureate and anti-Bomb activist Linus Pauling said, “It may be that some years from now can look back and say that ‘On the Beach’ is the movie that saved the world.”

Throughout the Cold War and the nuclear arms race, there were films and TV movies that tried to bring the horror into public consciousness. The War Game by Peter Watkins, a docudrama about the effects of a nuclear war in one English village, was made for BBC-TV in 1965 but the BBC refused to show it until 1985. It was seen in art houses in the U.S. and elsewhere as a feature in the 60s and 70s. Also on British TV in the 1980s was Threads, which carried the effects of radiation past one generation. While a survivor society struggles in a burnt-out and irradiated world, a 12 year old giving birth screams at the sight of her deformed stillborn baby. It was a harrowing ending to a truly horrifying film.

There were two prominent TV films in the U.S in the 80s, which also showed survivors of nuclear war struggling valiantly and hopelessly. The better known was The Day After directed by Nicholas Meyer, starring Jason Robards and JoBeth Williams. Set in Lawrence, Kansas, it centers on a doctor (Robards) who deals with an impossible emergency over days and weeks as he and everyone else gradually succumbs to radiation poisoning. The TV movie ends with the warning that as fatalistic as the story seemed, a full-scale nuclear war would have far worse effects.

The Day After had an effect on American consciousness in the 1980s similar to On the Beach in the late 1950s. But another TV film brought the effects home. Testament by Lynne Littman, starring Jane Alexander, followed events in an isolated northern California town. Without graphic images, it simply shows a family and a town living to the end of the world, as radiation poisons everyone and everything.

Radiation from hundreds of thermonuclear bombs is enough to destroy civilization. But radiation from a single Bomb of relatively low yield killed hundreds of thousands in Japan. It could happen in Iran and perhaps the surrounding region, with some dying in days, some in weeks, and some in years or even decades. Yet no one is talking about this. It is time to start.

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This essay in one version or another is on the recommended list at Booman Tribune and on the front page of E Pluribus Media. Promoted to Booman Trib front page on 5/11.