In today’s episode, which is our second, my co-hosts and I - Dennis Claxton and RC Charles Roberts - talk about two films from what’s known as the atomic age genre of science fiction - Panic in Year Zero and The Incredible Shrinking Man. Atomic age, in this context, refers to that period following the use of atomic weapons against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 by the US, when fear, hope and wonder about atomic energy and weapons were right on the surface of the culture, influencing film and the form of science fiction and disaster cinema movie goers saw from the 1950s through the 1960s. Panic in the Year Zero, released in 1962 and starring Ray Milland, tells the story of a Los Angeles family who, while on a weekend camping trip, witness the destruction of their city by an atomic weapon and find themselves in a world that’s unraveling.

The Incredible Shrinking Man, starring Grant Williams, and based on a book (The Shrinking Man by is a very different film; a man is exposed to a radioactive cloud while on a boating trip with his wife that causes him to begin shrinking, losing height and mass at the rate of about an inch a week. The film, in its way, explores themes of masculinity and even human existence. This was a great conversation but you may at times notice a bit of coughing and sneezing on the audi track. Both Charles and Dennis were a bit under the weather when we recorded and I became so engaged in the flow of our chat I forgot at times to mute. Even so, I hope you enjoy listening to this as much as we enjoyed recording it.

Notes

Panic in Year Zero

Wiki Article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_in_Year_Zero!

Film: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x21x586

The Incredible Shrinking Man Wiki Article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Shrinking_Man

Film: https://archive.org/details/tism-1957

Decent Cannibals by RC Roberts

 https://ferocia.substack.com/p/decent-cannibals-on-the-situation

Double Bind

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_bind

Jean Paul Sartre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre

Sartre’s Concept of Bad Faith

https://youtu.be/UUXXmHkI-Ug

Jack Arnold on the Making of The Incredible Shrinking Man

https://youtu.be/6z4J89KF1AA

History of American International Pictures

https://youtu.be/okCZhEEqmD4

How Nuclear Weapons Changes How We Think

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NtwIcqNlUFQ