
Translator: Davood Salehan
Source: rasekhoon.net
Source: rasekhoon.net
United States was initially faced with a severe economic downturn between the years 1930 and 1949 and then in the Second World War, it witnessed an impressive economic recovery. In the early years of the 1940s, the majority of people earning was so little that they could only buy the most essential things for living. Prices reached their lowest level in the Stock. "Franklin D. Roosevelt" in the presidential election blamed former president of the "Herbert Hoover" for economic disaster and thus he won the election. The Roosevelt administration took steps to boost the economy of the country. "The government of national healing" was formed in 1933 and looked at activities of big companies such as "trusts" and "Aligopuly" that were both in hands of the Jews by tolerance and yet treated workers' unions in a much more patient way. Both policies had a serious impact on Hollywood. The economic recovery was uneven and caused another crisis in years 1937-1938. With government intervention in economic affairs the recession ended, and World War II broke out in Europe, but America was neutral till attack of Japan on "Pearl Harbor" on the seventh of December 1941.
Since November 1939, Arms companies were allowed to sell their products abroad. America entered the war in 1941, but there were 3 million unemployed in the country at the time. War led to economic development in the United States. Purchasing power and standard of living went up. There was a shortage of goods, but they increased most of their selling products by 50 percent. With an unparalleled increase in presence of people in the cinemas, the film industry also benefited from the boom times of war.
In the aftermath of World War II, film critics were seeking signs of social and artistic maturity in Hollywood. Some of them came to the conclusion that during 1946 and 1947 half-documentary and journalistic film production increased in Hollywood. Import of film from European countries, particularly the works of Italian neorealism was not very effective in this area. The use of amateur actors who worked as well as professionals and were produced in real locations not artificial places was very affected in America cinema which till that time had the studio system. In most fiction films, they used documented measures, such as location filming (the actual location of the story) and references to rich source of real issues.
At the same time, between 1945 and 1949, Hollywood started to produce a series of problematic successful movies in terms of commercial that dealt with delicate issues such as racial and social discrimination against blacks and Jews. It was not expected that this trend had reached to perfection and finally be able to influence the culture of American cinema.
Two years before the date, when the unions of Hollywood joined the University of California to hold Congress of writers to contribute to the war affairs, their calls were criticized by the press and by one of the committees of Congress as a communist conspiracy and "Charlie Chaplin" was blamed in Hollywood and across the country in a speech in New York in which he called for the opening of a second front in Europe.
Since 1944 till the end of the 1950s, more than half of all Hollywood products were not directly associated with war. By continuation of war, there was an increase in production of films that showed crime, sex and drinking. A wave of religious films was raised and was growing. In 1946, about ninety million cinema tickets were sold in America every week so that Hollywood spent its most successful years. In 1946, un-American activities committee was formed in Hollywood to investigate the influence of communists and provided a blacklist of suspected people and finally in 1948, TV was growing and expanding as a serious threat to the film industry,
Hollywood and the issue of nuclear energy
As it was mentioned, Hollywood in the years spent time on social themes and seek for commercial success. Science - fiction cinema was known as one of the famous species of the time that by spending a little cost would be a good place to explain the issue of nuclear energy. A subject that was raised in the age of the atom bomb was the negative aspects of the use of atomic energy. From the beginning Hollywood wanted to tell everyone not to start such experiments because ultimately they will lead to destruction of themselves and the Earth. The destruction through nuclear power and the atomic bomb was on the agenda of Hollywood productions and it was presented to the audience by suitable scientific - fiction themes.
The movie was presented in a way that viewers felt dangerous threat by scientists and the science through the film. Among the films produced since 1945 onwards, less films were made in the field of the peaceful aspects of nuclear power plants.
Science-fiction cinema acted according to theory of Hollywood's political thinkers who were predominantly Jewish people by long-term planning and considering political and social issues. The issue of danger of destruction due to the knowledge and technology was introduced in most of these films.
Subject of an atomic bomb has always been attractive and charming for Hollywood filmmakers, but of course such a controversial subject always is in conflict with the principles of happiness and well-appeal melodramatic subjects in Hollywood. During the next three decades since then and even in recent years, little movies were made about the risk of a nuclear bomb maybe because writers, directors and producers in Hollywood, personally, have not shown interest in concepts of the atomic bomb.
The movie "start or end" (1946 m.), directed by "Norman Taurog" is the first attempt by Hollywood in this case. Norman Taurog (1899-1981M.) is an American director who mostly worked for companies Metro golden, Meyer and Paramount. His famous movies are Adventures of Tom Sawyer and city of boys (both at 1938 m.) and Tom Edison the Young (1940 m.) and the comedy of "Brothers of Ostuj" (Three stupid) and the musicals "Elvis Presley", popular jazz singer in the '60s. The beginning or end movie was made under direct supervision of American government and the aim of its creators was depicting the story of making an atomic bomb and shooting it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in such a way to justify it.
The story is a fiction-base, though it was produced based on a true story. In addition to the main story, a love story also raised between a physicist and his young wife. The film was a remake of the story of the Manhattan Project. In the film Joseph Calleja casts the scientist and Italian physicist and other characters were famous film actors who played the role of scientists and politicians involved in the incident. The film gave little information to the spectator about the atomic bomb or the people who had made it. "Bryan Downloy" was present in the film in the symbolic role of all senior officers who had organized the Manhattan Project. One sequence of the film refers to unknown facilities and says:
"put atom-breaker (smasher machine) Sikotron in there."
But later the scene was censored for security reasons. "Tom Derek" plays the role of a young genius who is skeptical. He thinks of Atoms for Peace, but others do not care about him.
The film is generally a weak and somewhat ridiculous film. One of the funny scenes is fake documentary news which is displayed at the beginning of the film. The film shows that a group of nuclear scientists bury video of a time capsule and the first test of the bomb is done at Los Alamos, Mexico and finally on two Japanese cities. film " start or end" has a controversial debate about the use of nuclear weapons and does not pick a peculiar position and the film message derives from its title that means human beings needs to control nuclear energy for the betterment and progress of human or otherwise the complete destruction of the earth will occur. Of course, it means that containment and control of nuclear energy can only be handled by Americans, as in other movies of Hollywood, we have seen the powerful evil people always hold the gun atomic and tried to put world in danger and an American or English hero finally destroyed them after the stories and saved the world. James Bond is the best example of such movies in which he is two seven zero agent.
We can also see dressing atomic bomb in cinema series in that time. In these films, which are considered as the first cinema series of the atomic age, the anti-atoms devices are used, for example, in the film The Lost City of the Jungle (1946 m.) we see famous actor at the time, "Layobel Etoile" who has started World war III from the top of Himalayas Mountains. He does this threat by Metorium 245 element as the only element that can destroy atomic bombs.
In the film "in Red" (1946 m.), which is of the same kind of serials, Siclotrodaiks is discovered that the powerful radiation from it can make a short circuit that is capable to disable nuclear weapons and eventually the bad guys in movies "widow in black" (1947 m.) and "atomic man against Superman" (1950 m.) which are both series, they use nuclear power to achieve their goals.
Production of the series films started in the Hollywood since 1912 and continued to 1956. These were often films full of adventure, thrill and action scenes that were made for young audiences. The movies exaggeratedly show heroism as a powerful and legendary character who was also a defender of goodness and justice and fought multiple evil enemies in dangerous adventures. They actually represented a picture of the political goals of Hollywood in the form of a purely fun and shallow format to spectators and by deception and in dream of audience, they created an imaginary world away from reality and its adverse political and social effects will stick in the mind for years.
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