Created by the Federal Civil Defense Administration in 1955 and then revised in 1964, “Operation Cue” is one of the most famous films to emerge from the atomic era. Perhaps this is because of the film’s disturbing subject and odd pairing of domestic life — here shown in a “typical American house” stocked with typical foods and appliances and mannequins dressed like Mom, Dad, Sister and Brother — with an atomic explosion.

The blast shown was the Civil Defense Apple-2 shot on 5 May 1955. It was intended to test various building construction types in a nuclear blast. An assortment of buildings, including residential houses and electrical substations, were constructed at the site nicknamed “Survival Town”. The buildings were populated with mannequins, and stocked with different types of canned and packaged foods. Not all of the buildings were destroyed in the blast, and some of them still stand at Area 1, Nevada Test Site.

By 1964, with the arrival of the Hydrogen bomb, it was clear that the 1955 film understated the severity of the effects of the bomb. A hydrogen bomb would be 250 times more powerful than the bomb observed — and hardly survivable except from a great distance from Ground Zero. Thus the film was revised and a new disclaimer added at the start.

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com