Movies - Duck and Cover

Home > Listing Index > Movies > Duck and Cover (film)

	Movies - Duck and Cover

Duck and Cover was a short educational film produced in 1951 by the United States federal government's Civil Defense branch shortly after the Soviet Union began nuclear testing. Written by Raymond J. Mauer and directed by Anthony Rizzo of Archer Productions and made with the help of schoolchildren from New York City and Astoria, New York, it was shown in schools as the cornerstone of the government's "duck and cover" public awareness campaign. The movie states that nuclear war could happen at any time without warning, and for U.S. citizens to keep this constantly in mind and be ever ready.

Summary

The film starts with an animated sequence, showing an anthropomorphic turtle walking down the road. A chorus sings the Duck and Cover theme:

There was a turtle by the name of Bert
and Bert the turtle was very alert;
when danger threatened him he never got hurt
he knew just what to do...
He ducked!
And covered!
Ducked!
And covered!

While this goes on, Bert is attacked by a monkey holding a string from which hangs a lighted firecracker. Bert ducks into his shell in the nick of time, as the firecracker goes off and blows up both the monkey and the tree he is sitting in. Bert, however, is shown perfectly safe, because he has ducked and covered.

The film, which is about 10 minutes long, then switches to live footage, as a narrator explains what children should do "when you see the flash" of an atomic bomb. The movie goes on to suggest that by ducking down low in the event of a nuclear explosion, the children would be safer than they would be standing, and explains some basic survival tactics for nuclear war.

The US government contracted with Archer to produce Duck and Cover , and the film is now in the public domain.

Purpose

After nuclear weapons were developed, (the first having been developed during the Manhattan Project during World War II) it was realized what kind of danger they posed. The United States held a nuclear monopoly from the end of the World War II until 1949, when the Soviets detonated their first nuclear device.

This signaled the beginning of the nuclear stage of the Cold War, and as a result, strategies for survival were thought out. Fallout shelters, both private and public, were built, but the government still viewed it as necessary to explain to citizens both the danger of the atomic (and later, hydrogen) bombs, and to give them some sort of training so that they would be prepared to act in the event of a nuclear strike.

The solution was the duck and cover campaign, of which Duck and Cover was an integral part. Shelters were built, drills were held in towns and schools, and the film was shown to schoolchildren. According to the United States Library of Congress (which declared the film "historically significant" and inducted it into the National Film Registry in 2004), it "was seen by millions of schoolchildren in the 1950s."

Controversy

There is controversy regarding the actual usefulness of the film. Since it has no counterpart in any other country (although Protect and Survive
is somewhat similar), it is sometimes regarded as being a Red scare political tool, to make children frightened of the Soviet Union and communism. Also questioned is the film's scientific accuracy; whether or not the tactics shown in the film (such as ducking into a doorway, putting a newspaper over your head* and even just throwing yourself facedown on the ground) would actually work.

Part of the problem in communicating to the public how to deal with atomic weapons was that most civilians had never dealt with anything on the scale of magnitude as an atomic explosion before. Thus, the movie says, "you will see a bright flash, brighter than the sun, brighter than anything you have ever seen", and that the flash is much, much worse than a sunburn.

Also, some critics claim that the scene starting at 1:32 and ending at 1:39 is racist as the control voice says, "We all know that the atomic bomb is very dangerous since it may be used against us we must get ready for it, just as we are ready for many other dangers that are around us all the time" while the camera is centered on a black student in the class. As the film was made in 1951 the critics' claim is possible as the civil rights movement was merely just beginning and the pre-civil rights racialist era and culture was still very much alive.

*Consider this example: although a newspaper would, at least in theory, block alpha radiation, it would do nothing at all for the beta and gamma radiation, not to mention the shockwave, that would accompany an atomic detonation.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Duck and Cover (film) ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Duck and Cover (film); it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay