The beginning or the end how Hollywood-and America-learned to stop worrying and love the bomb

"Soon after atomic bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, MGM set out to make a movie studio chief Louis B. Mayer called "the most important story" he would ever film: a big budget dramatization of the Manhattan Project and the invention and use of the revolutionary new weapon. Over at...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Mitchell, Greg, 1947- (Author)
Format: Books Print Book
Language:English
Published: New York : The New Press, 2020.
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001 on1154075982
003 OCoLC
005 20200707113400.0
008 200306s2020 nyu b 001 0 eng
010 |a  2020010651 
020 |a 9781620975732  |q (hardcover) 
020 |a 1620975734 
020 |z 9781620975749  |q (ebook) 
035 |a (OCoLC)1154075982 
040 |a DLC  |b eng  |e rda  |c DLC  |d OCLCO  |d OCLCF  |d PCB 
042 |a pcc 
043 |a n-us--- 
050 0 0 |a PN1997.B3586  |b M57 2020 
082 0 0 |a 791.43/72  |2 23 
100 1 |a Mitchell, Greg,  |d 1947-  |e author. 
245 1 4 |a The beginning or the end :  |b how Hollywood-and America-learned to stop worrying and love the bomb /  |c Greg Mitchell. 
264 1 |a New York :  |b The New Press,  |c 2020. 
300 |a xvii, 275 pages ;  |c 23 cm 
336 |a text  |b txt  |2 rdacontent 
337 |a unmediated  |b n  |2 rdamedia 
338 |a volume  |b nc  |2 rdacarrier 
504 |a Includes bibliographical references and index. 
520 |a "Soon after atomic bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, MGM set out to make a movie studio chief Louis B. Mayer called "the most important story" he would ever film: a big budget dramatization of the Manhattan Project and the invention and use of the revolutionary new weapon. Over at Paramount, Hal B. Wallis was ramping up his own film version. His screenwriter: the novelist Ayn Rand, who saw in physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer the model for a character she was sketching for Atlas Shrugged. Greg Mitchell's The Beginning or the End chronicles the first efforts of American media and culture to process the Atomic Age. A movie that began as a cautionary tale inspired by atomic scientists aiming to warn the world against a nuclear arms race would be drained of all impact due to revisions and retakes ordered by President Truman and the military-for reasons of propaganda, politics, and petty human vanity (this was Hollywood). Mitchell has found his way into the lofty rooms, from Washington to California, where it happened, unearthing hundreds of letters and dozens of scripts that show how wise intentions were compromised in favor of defending the use of the bomb and the imperatives of postwar politics. As in his acclaimed Cold War true-life thriller The Tunnels, he exposes how our implacable American myth-making mechanisms distort our history"--  |c Provided by publisher. 
630 0 0 |a Beginning or the end (Motion picture) 
650 0 |a Nuclear weapons in motion pictures. 
650 0 |a Motion pictures  |x Production and direction  |z United States  |x History  |y 20th century. 
650 0 |a Motion picture industry  |x Political aspects  |z United States  |x History  |y 20th century. 
650 0 |a Motion pictures in propaganda  |z United States  |x History  |y 20th century. 
994 |a C0  |b PCB 
949 |a schlow  |b SANON  |c 791.4372 MIT  |d i  |e 39635104118836  |f 683675  |g ddc  |j 06/09/2020 
999 |a 449473