Zero Hours

My Bride, my Son and I will be seeing Oppenheimer on Friday.  Review to follow.  I suspect it will be a good film, although I think it is getting over-hyped.  The story of the creation of the atomic bomb has been retold in a miniseries, a television movie and two feature films.

The miniseries was done by the BBC in 1980:  Oppenheimer. 

Sam Waterston starred, and he had a strong physical resemblance to a young J. Robert Oppenheimer.  At seven episodes this is the most granular look at the man who went from an ivory tower Professor of physics almost overnight into the ramrod of the project to develop the atomic bomb. The episodes are available on YouTube.

The television movie was Day One (1989) with the late Brian Dennehy stealing the show as General Leslie Groves.  David Strathairn does his usual competent job as Oppenheimer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm2jwI8fpWs

My personal favorite, thus far, is the first feature film:  Fat Man and Little Boy (1989).  Dwight Schultz, one of few open conservatives in Hollywood, was great as Oppenheimer, but the late Paul Newman is the standout as General Leslie Groves, the man in charge of the Manhattan Project.  An Army engineer, Groves had constructed the Pentagon, finishing it before the due date and under budget.  A bulldozer of man, Newman captures him perfectly and the innate shrewdness that allowed Groves to work with nuclear physicists, men as unlike him as it was possible to be.

Why the ongoing fascination with this story?  Let me count the ways:

1.  Drama-The race against time to build a bomb before the Axis did is inherently compelling.  Neither Nazi Germany nor Japan were really in the race, but the scientists did not know this until the fall of Nazi Germany.
2.  Morality–The moral debate will go on forever, and that debate is featured front and center in each of the films.
3. Sui Generis-The Manhattan Project was a unique event where technology was forced to advance a few decades.  Unfortunately its example is frequently cited by people who believe anything is possible if enough government money is thrown at a problem.
4. Character Study-Groves and Oppenheimer are a study in contrasts and seeing these men work together as a team is interesting.
5. America-Hearkens back to a time when America shook off the Great Depression and seemed able to accomplish anything.