The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood--and America--Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

by Greg Mitchell

The shocking and significant story of how the White House and Pentagon scuttled an epic Hollywood production.

Greg Mitchell is the best kind of historian, a true storyteller.
--Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Prometheus

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 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 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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Film, Media Tie In, Politics, World War II

279 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 7, 2020

About the author

Greg Mitchell (born 1947) is the author of more than a dozen books. His new book (2020) is "The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood--and America--Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (The New Press). His previous book, from Crown, has been optioned for a major movie. It is titled "The Tunnels" and explores daring escape tunnels under the Berlin Wall in 1962--and the JFK White House attempts to kill NBC and CBS coverage of them at the height of nuclear tensions.

Mitchell has blogged on the media and politics, for The Nation. and at his own blog, Pressing Issjes. He was the editor of Editor & Publisher (E&P), from 2002 to the end of 2009, and long ago was executive editor at the legendary Crawdaddy. His book "The Campaign of the Century" won the Goldsmith Book Prize and "Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady" was a New York Times Notable Book for 1998. He has also co-authored two books with Robert Jay Lifton, along with a "So Wrong For So Long" about the media and Iraq. His books have been optioned numerous times for movies (including "Joy in Mudville" by Tim Hanks). He has served as chief adviser to two award-winning documentaries and currently is co-producer of an upcoming film on Beethoven with his co-author on "Journeys With Beethoven."

Reviews

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The dessert table held a large cake bedecked with roses and the words “The Beginning or the End,” but good taste (and fear of a publicity backlash) prevented any sort of mushroom cloud ornament."

Excellent overview of the production of the 1947 film The Beginning Or The End, which ostensibly started as a warning about the dangers of nuclear weapons, but quickly devolved into being a propagandistic pro-bomb drama, full of distortions and lies about the bombing of Hiroshima (and Nagasaki is never even mentioned).

This book hits all my interests in one foul overlapping swoop - a ridiculous Hollywood story, combined with the dark history of the bomb, with a generous added helping of everyone's favourite objectivist nutcase, Ayn Rand.

I had never heard of the movie, so the first thing I did was find a copy and watch it (as always, archive.org is your friend!). The movie is, of course, terrible. The book does a great job in explaining step by step how the initial proposed anti-bomb message gets distorted by the Hollywood machine (hint: the producers early on got the US army involved).

The book tracks the involvement of the original Manhattan Project scientists, their struggle with the film project, and focuses especially on J. Robert Oppenheimer (or Oppie).

Greg Mitchell manages to balance the (regularly jawdropping) Hollywood silliness, with actual, sobering information on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Keep in mind that the American people had gotten very little news about the actual effects of the bombs, or any discussion whether the bombings were even strategically necessary (still a sore point of contention for a lot of Americans). Nine months after the bombings, the journalist John Hersey interviewed six survivors from Hiroshima and wrote a harrowing account of their experiences in a longform article for the magazine Life. Mitchell regularly references to the article, almost as a balancing weight to the nonsense of the movie. I decided to read the article (in book form), and I can highly recommend this to anyone reading this book. Not an easy read, by any means, but essential, I feel.

One of the most important aspects of the book is that it pinpoints how the bombings have nestled in the American psyche with the false narrative that they helped quickly end the Second World War, a fabrication that is being regurgitated to this day. Even though the movie was a commercial flop, it is a symptom of this falsifying of history.

As the best history books, it's a highly entertaining read while being highly effective in making its point.

(Kindly received an ARC from The New Press through Edelweiss)

[Roger Briggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truth and\or Consequences

After reading this book:

I dreamed the other night that FDR had lived to see the end of the war in the Pacific and that it ended without atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that resulted in the loss of 200,000 souls, men, women and children. Truman remained Vice President and served out his term.

I write this as our country is approaching a similar toll exceeding 160,000 deaths from COVID-19 approaching 200,000 and beyond.

Unfortunately my dream did not end with the 4th year of the Hillary Clinton presidency. But no, the current occupant of the White House was still there as the pandemic raged out of control coupled with his lies, belligerent behavior, and callous disregard for the families who’ve lost loved ones to this disease.

The end the war in the Pacific with atomic bombs and the ongoing pandemic with the novel coronavirus have left us a legacy pain and death causing families in each case to be forever changed.

Words and actions of our government matter. The truth matters. Elections matter. What would have happened had FDR lived? What would have happened if Hillary Clinton had been our President during this time of unparalleled economic stress and public health mismanagement?

We are now in position to change the story and rebuild for the future. Vote to restore the soul of America!

[J Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood--and America--Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb by Greg Mitchell is a fascinating read. Whether you like history or film history, or both, this book will satisfy.

In what was initially supposed to be a movie warning the citizenry about weaponizing atomic energy and starting an arms race we watch as it becomes a propaganda film that is far more fiction than nonfiction and serves to glorify what was a despicable act. As has come to light, the US government was in possession of Japanese telegrams and intelligence that showed that Japan was working on a surrender and was not planning further offenses. But making a political statement both domestically and to the Soviets was deemed more important than hundreds of thousands of lives, mostly women and children. Not much different from the current US government views on lives of others.

This book reads almost like a novel which leads a reader to potentially read it too fast. I would recommend slowing down and spreading it out over a couple of days so you can enjoy the details and also think about what the government intervention says about truth and democracy.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Peter M. B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was certainly a very interesting story, and joins two separate interests of mine: classic Hollywood and American history. The first half of the book concentrates on how the backstage story of how the movie "The Beginning or the End" was put together, and all the various compromises that had to go into the final product to satisfy the government, which MGM viewed as imperative, as well as how the interests of the scientists were gradually left by the wayside. The last half focuses more on the politics and history of the beginning of the atomic age and the aftermath of the decision to use the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Overall, it is mostly well-written, though there are many passages that could be tightened up significantly by a good editing job.

This left me wanting to find another book that takes the story of the beginning of the atomic age past early 1947, when this movie was released.

[TE · Rating 3 out of 5]

How the hell did we ever make it out of the twentieth century?

This curious book tells the dual story of the atomic bomb, in admittedly abbreviated fashion, juxtaposed with the account of a motion picture production recounting its deployment, and all the fateful vicissitudes involved in bringing a project of that size and scale to fruition. In short: when something of this magnitude emerged, (nearly) everyone and their dog wanted in on the action.

The title of this book, taken from the film, was inspired by a statement made by Truman himself: when meeting with film executives, he reportedly stated, "make your film, gentlemen, and tell the world that in handling the atomic bomb we are either at the beginning or the end," to which the movie executive replied, Sam Marx, "Mr. President, you have just chosen the title of our film."

Most readers will be at least somewhat acquainted with the controversy which ensued over the use of a weapon of this type, one with which, at least when entertainment denizens were bantering about the project, the public was little familiar. Of those who were, few grasped the full weight of the implications of its development. The scientists, however, were among those who did understand what had just occurred, and many, their role in ushering in a new reality for a world just emerging from one of the most devastating conflicts in history. One even reportedly stated, "this bomb fulfills the third prophesy of the Old Testament... I hope your motion picture can work to avert such suicide. You had better hurry."

Nor were the religious implications, also reflected in the music of the day (check out the series "Atomic Platters"), lost on those involved with its development, if not necessarily its deployment. The book recounts, for example, the episode involving a Senator from Connecticut. Brien McMahon had been informed that Archbishop Francis Spellman, who had learned of the Manhattan Project from Roosevelt himself, flew to Tinian Island to bless the bomber crews after the destruction of Hiroshima. He reportedly stated to McMahon that his church opposed the use of a weapon essentially designed to kill innocent civilians, but in a time of war, any weapon that could end the war should be employed to bring a quick end to it. Clearly, the development of such a weapon was going to cause some controversy.

But how to bring this new technology and the issues it raised to the uneducated masses... and sway public opinion about its use? The scientists seemingly embraced the motion picture project, at least at the outset, acknowledging that movies rather than books and newspapers were fast becoming the primary tool of mass communication. Motion pictures, however, were in turn shortly to be supplanted by "television," which entered popular usage in the 1950s. The military was less than enthusiastic about the project, concerned with national security to a greater degree than some other interests, but had to at least acquiesce when the project seemingly earned the approval of newly-installed President Truman.

Some of the book's more profound statements reflect a presciently accurate assessment of modern times, and how quickly mentalities changed. Barron reportedly stated: "it is our belief that only for solid entertainment does the world sit in theaters and listen. They go to school for education and to churches for sermons. We want them to come into theaters and be entertained." But sermons and "education," or, rather, re-education, tailored specifically to sway public opinion in wolf-in-sheep's-clothing garb disguised as entertainment, would shortly become the norm.

Films could become quite political indeed, and leaders capitalized on their potential in short order. Barron's mentality would very shortly fade into history when both movie executives and politicians realized the full potential of the "entertainment" industry to communicate messages to the masses disguised as something else. The 1940s were still a time of great naivety in this regard, but that didn't last long. Or did it?

To that end: the stories of how some movies get made (or not) are worthy of movies themselves. Projects of this magnitude, scale, and, in some cases, importance, just seem to take on a life of their own, especially when powerful entities converge to showcase their aims and not infrequently, political aspirations, writ large on the silver screen. This is the story of an ambitious project which ultimately pitted competing interests against each other, which was simply a continuation of what had occurred with the bomb's development itself.

That said, it finally ended up as something that could be best described as promise unfulfilled. One of the major impediments was the efforts of filmmakers to get as many authentic characters involved as possible: Groves, Oppenheimer and some of the other scientists as technical advisers, and even the wife of Tibbets, the airman who piloted the Enola Gay to deliver its payload over the densely populated city of Hiroshima... but how many cooks does it actually take to spoil the broth? The answer? This many.

And then there were the Tinseltown types: this ambitious project, which started out with great promise, just kind of fizzled, ultimately becoming something that just really didn't work. It was a purely Hollywood production: the best example is a statement by one of the players, that in order to be successful, even a movie about dropping an atomic bomb and the incineration of hundreds of thousands of human beings wasn't spared from trope, specifically that "everybody knows you have to have sex in there somewhere," so the writers had to concoct some love story element to a story about ... dropping the atomic bomb and the possibility of the destruction of civilization ... ? Yep, it's in there: one even quipped on the difficulty in trying "to figure out a formula for mixing uranium and plutonium with stardust and moonlight." Oy vey.

The book itself is something of an odd mixture of elements. It attempts to weave the stories of the development of the bomb, the major characters involved, and the odd bedfellows involved in the motion picture project, ranging from some of the bomb designers to Hollywood icons to Ayn Rand. It's informative, but rather disjointed, and somewhat dry at times. The jumping from topic to topic, even within the same chapter, often disrupts the flow. A chronological organization might have been more effective - it would allow readers to know who the players were, what role they had in the development of the bomb and its deployment, and ultimately, their involvement on the movie project.

With the advent of a technology which could end civilization, if not just yet wipe out all life on earth, the world had become a much smaller place, seemingly overnight. Delphic, indeed. Whether we like to admit it or not, we live in The World The Bomb Made, to a much greater degree than most are presently aware.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book.

I don't read a lot of nonfiction because it can often be a little too dry, but this book did a lot of things I like in the nonfiction I do read. It uses a lot of quotes from people to tell its story which I usually like because it makes it read a little more like a traditional narrative. It also stays fairly focused on its main topic. When nonfiction gets too distracted by other things happening around the main story I feel it can get a little too long and it starts to bore me. In this book, whenever it brought up something outside of the making of the movie, it still related back to the movie and I understood why it was being brought up.

The one thing it did that I could see bothering some people, and it usually bothers me in nonfiction I read, is that it's not an unbiased source. The author clearly has opinions on nuclear warfare and the atomic bombing of Japan, which you'll see if you read some of the negative reviews here, but it didn't bother me in this book. I think that's because the author was pretty upfront about what his opinions were, so I don't feel like he was trying to trick or mislead people into thinking he was unbiased.

Also, even though the author clearly had an opinion going in, I don't feel like he was unfair to anyone here. Everything he says seems to me to be backed up by facts and the things the people involved said directly.

[Scott Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Audiobook) (3.5 stars) Many times in Hollywood, you hear the backstory for various movies, where the people who made/worked on them didn't quite realize that the movie they were working on would become one of the greatest ever made (think Star Wars, Casablanca). These are movies that go on to great glory and renounce. Then you have the movies that have huge expectations, but then manage to become bombs. In some cases, those bombs are remembered, even for their failure (Cleopatra, Heaven's Gate). Then, you have The Beginning or the End. A bomb... that was about the "bomb", which had huge hype, but then fizzled out at the box office, and then all but disappeared from view.

Mitchell looks to describe the backstory about the creation of this movie, which meant to describe, with a bit of dramatic license, the making of the atomic bombs that facilitated the ending of the Second World War. The author blends the accounts of the key figures from the Manhattan Project that became involved with the creation and filming of the movie. Then, you have some of the bigger movers and shakers, from actors to studio heads to writers like Ayn Rand, who had their parts to play in this movie.

Yet, what makes this book more than just the backstory of a so-so movie was that as the movie was being written and developed, the US was also in the process of writing and developing the narrative about the atomic bomb, the creation and the justification of the use of the weapon. As figures such as Groves, Oppenheimer and Truman took turns with inputs to the script, they also looked to shape how history would remember their actions related to the bomb.

It does not take the reader long to figure out that Mitchell is very much on the side of the evils of atomic weapons, and feels, like many of the scientists involved, that it was a colossal mistake to employ such weapons. Not sure I total agree with that line of thought related to World War II, but he highlights some of the shortcuts and deliberate oversights key personnel took when it came to getting all the data about the weapons as well as the consequences.

Overall, an interesting read that offers a bit more than just the history of a movie. Surprising that I never heard of this film, but so it goes. As a film history, it is so/so...no reason to really seek this movie out. However, in the context of the struggles in how we should define the use of the atomic bombs, then this work has a bigger role to play. Audio or e/hard-copy would rate about the same.

[Willy Logan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty good book about how the national discussion about nuclear weapons solidified in the years immediately after World War II. In 1946, a March of Time docudrama called "Atomic Power" (which starred Oppenheimer, Einstein, and other scientists, engineers, and government officials playing themselves!) expressed misgivings about the atom bombs and called for international control of nuclear weapons. But the next year, the MGM feature film The Beginning or the End had a decidedly pro-bomb perspective, claiming that the bombing of Hiroshima was necessary to end the war and saved many lives. (Nagasaki is completely ignored.) This book explains how the shift took place, largely due to concerted propagandizing by the US government. The belief that the atomic bombs were necessary to end the war, while questioned by academics, is still widely accepted by the American public, as far as I can tell.

The book frames its narrative around the production of The Beginning or the End, although the story it tells is much bigger than that one forgettable film. The big-picture story in this book is great; the story about the film could be better. For my part, I would have liked more detail about principal production of the film (the actual filming), as the book discusses almost exclusively pre-production (with story development and casting receiving the most attention).

I seem to be the only reviewer who watched The Beginning or the End before ever even hearing about this book. Overall, the movie is a turkey, as the author alleges. But the climactic scene portraying the bombing of Hiroshima is actually quite good, if not entirely accurate. The scene seems to belong to a better movie, one made by more competent filmmakers than the rest of the movie. I wonder how it got into this picture.

[Ed Bernard · Rating 4 out of 5]

An odd book that ultimately tells the outlines of the story of the development of the atomic bomb by telling the story of the making of a movie about the making of the atomic bomb. And just to get this joke out of the way, the resulting movie was kind of an atomic bomb itself. And while I wasn’t hooked immediately (too much inside-baseball about the movie industry at the beginning), once I understood what I was hearing, I found it much more rewarding. The best parts of the book are about the varying reactions to the bomb by the scientists, politicians and military men, all of which is covered in far greater detail by, say, Richard Rhodes’ book, which is why this conceit actually was a smart choice (since Rhodes’ book is definitive, a different viewpoint is important). It also showed how the movie-making process itself both invigorated and also kind of destroyed the initial desire to make an “important” film. The decision to use less than first rate talent throughout (from director to screenwriters to actors) seems curious and ultimately foolish, though better talents were approached and turned down any involvement. The producers originally wanted either a film that discredited the use of nuclear armaments to save humanity, or one that … well, not exactly glorified their use, but certainly made it feel necessary and justified — and basically got neither, which is, I guess, what happens when the vision for a major project like this one isn’t clear or led by an auteur. Sounds like a bad movie, but it was an excellent book.

Grade: A-

[Jeff Francis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Los Alamos. The Manhattan Project. The Trinity Test. Fat Man and Little Boy. The Enola Gay. Hiroshima. Nagasaki… to varying extents we all know the history of these things. However, with his lengthily titled “The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood—and America—Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” Greg Mitchell shows us there was a very odd post-script to this history, and it involves Hollywood.

As MGM set out to make what it envisioned as one of the most important movies that would ever exist, competing forcers vied to control the narrative of the project, making “The Beginning or the End” a cipher for how the aforementioned events would/should be viewed. To say it’s a fascinating story is an understatement. It also includes juicy anecdotes that verge on the absurd: Truman chastising/comforting Oppenheimer in the White House; Ayn Rand interviewing the famous scientist for her take the screenplay (and her secret belief that Oppenheimer might just represent her objectivist-superman ideal).

The entertainment can’t be denied, and the cast of characters is staggering. If there’s anywhere that TBotE falters, it’s Mitchell’s attempts to merge the zany and the serious. Although I don’t begrudge him the platform to state his beliefs (it’s his book, after all), a coda in which he goes social-conscience about nuclear power seems weirdly atonal.

Still, though, TBotE is a surprisingly innovative, compact, and enjoyable read.

[Michael Samerdyke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting book. It read very well and was interesting, even if I didn't agree with everything.

I guess my big problem with the book is that the author ignores some of the events in Japan before the surrender, such as an attempted coup to prevent the Emperor's surrender decree from being read on the radio. That would complicate the picture presented in this book.

Still, there are more pluses than minuses in "The Beginning or the End." We see American culture fumbling to make sense of the Atomic Bomb and its use, such as MGM's halting effort to make a movie, the John Hersey "Hiroshima" book, the Stimson article defending the use of the Bomb, and the rise of the blacklist.

In a way, I wonder if the movie "The Beginning or the End" really matters that much in this debate about how American culture thinks about the use of the Atomic Bomb. The book points out that several actors who did not get roles in "The Beginning or the End" ended up getting roles in "It's a Wonderful Life," a movie that has been seen by a hell of a lot more people over the years.

Still, Greg Mitchell's book does a good job of presenting things to the reader.

[Adrian]

In the wake of WWII MGM started the process that would result in the movie 'The Beginning or the End' about the development of the atom bomb and the dropping of it on Hiroshima. The studio needed/wanted the input of the White House, US military and scientists involved. This book follows the interactions between these groups that led to the film. Interest reached highest levels meaning Oppenheimer, Truman and General Leslie Groves were involved. Groves was given a veto over all movie-making decisions which most didn't know about. Mitchell relays all of the communication from the high-minded to the petty with an often savage wit. The author also delves into how much truth there was in arguments for dropping the bomb. This is probably as interesting as the movie stuff. Truman comes across as less than saintly. This is the second book in a short while that tears a strip off the former president. I recall reading M. Miller's book of interviews with Truman called 'Plain Speaking' some thirty years ago. Very laudatory of Truman it was too. I'm beginning to think it was a put up job.

[Marisa Carpico · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe like a 3.75, but rounding up.

Strong, informative, engaging. Flew by, honestly. I admittedly assumed it would cover more time than just the films made in the immediate aftermath of the drop, but this covers the subjects comprehensively. Surprised to realize here the way so many images and ideas of what testing and development was like sort of became fact despite being completely inaccurate. Particularly surprising to hear the thing about the lotion, which felt like such a weird, distinct moment in Oppenheimer, didn't happen.

I especially loved the way this talked about the Donna Reed of it all and the casting/re-casting drama. There's not necessarily overt criticism of how much MGM allowed the government to intervene, but Mitchell sort of lets the events speak for themselves on that one.

Really hard to realize how much work this must have taken and how well Mitchell puts this particular story in the context of larger Hollywood (Red Scare) and world (Cold War) history because it's presented in such a digestible, enjoyable way.

[David Sterritt]

Greg Mitchell’s elaborately titled “The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood – and America – Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” uses the production history of Norman Taurog’s 1947 “The Beginning or the End” to show how the best intentions of very smart people – in this case, nuclear scientists anxious to warn the post-Hiroshima world of the horrors augured by the wartime use of atomic weapons – can be diluted, undermined, and outright reversed by Hollywood bosses eager to placate government authorities with agendas largely unconnected to the public good. Reading about the making and unmaking of the movie is a good deal more entertaining than watching the movie itself, which emerged as a dumbed-down bore. Supporting players in Mitchell’s saga range from J. Robert Oppenheimer and J. Edgar Hoover to Donna Reed and Ayn Rand, plus a motley array of feds and film-industry figures. It’s a brisk, informative, and progressive read.

[Benita · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a look at historical myth making. The book is about a movie made with the title "Beginning or the End" in 1946 and 1947. The movie started out to be a truthful look at the making of the atomic bomb and the results of that bomb. The scientist who proposed the movie wanted it to be a grand warning statement about the ethics of using that bomb. Instead, the movie turned into a propaganda device that hoodwinked people of all ilk's into believing a false history. This book is the story of the making of the movie and who influenced the final picture, who made the decisions to falsify history, and who wanted history to view them as historic. It is basically a book about propaganda and the failure to tell the truth about the bomb and why it was even used. It is a fascinating look at how mythical history starts and gets embedded into the minds of the vast majority of people.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A compelling outlay of the decision-making that led to the production of a film whose lofty aspirations were ultimately hobbled by compromise and governmental/military interference. Although I still suspect there are some discussions that they author still doesn't remain privy to all these years later, there's an impressive amount of well-researched detail incorporated throughout.

I actually hadn't heard much about this film before, I think largely because it was almost immediately a footnote given the contemporaneous reporting from people like John Hersey about the realities on the ground in Hiroshima. Also: the mind reels at what initially-hired screenwriter Ayn Rand might have produced had she been left to her own devices (and the author implies that this project led in part to her subsequent novel Atlas Shrugged).

[S C · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring and repetitive. Short but still way too long. This should have been a magazine article. I don't get why the guy even included the movie angle. Just write your anti-American, leftist hit piece and be done with it. And, of course, it has to go after Trump at some point -- cause we clearly needed to worry about him using nuclear weapons with the, count'em, zero wars he got us into. But, shocker, it also has high praise for Obama -- who was as friendly with the military-industrial complex as any president before him. Don't let reality get in the way of your propaganda, though. Puke.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. This is the first thing I've read by the author.

Not sure where to begin with this one. The information about the actual move and the events leading up to it's release are far less interesting than I would have thought. There was a fair amount of time spent talking about things that didn't directly effect the movie (there are a few places where It's A Wonderful Life is brought up). It seemed like somethings were added to the book to try and make it interesting.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice, quick read that gives a great survey of the building and use of the atomic bomb, with an unsurprising look at Hollywood BS and the fact that in the America of "the good old days," the people in government still acted and lied out of self-interest as opposed to the interests of the country or anyone else for that matter. And what's a few thousand dead women and children because an A bomb went off target anyway? But yeah, this book lets you see how Hollywood and Washington sausage is made.

[Rowland Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Engaging Look At Hollywood’s Attempts To Record The History Of The Development Of The Atomic Bomb

Well written account of Hollywood’s struggles to translate the story of the birth of nuclear warfare. Mitchell has a great grasp of the background stories that led to Hollywood’s portrayal of the US use of the atom bomb against Japanese and how the propaganda around this influenced popular opinion about atomic history.

[Tad Richards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Greg Mitchell has a unique ability to find unexpected paths into the important issues of our time, and of recent history. He combines a storyteller's gift with a historian's insights. This journey through Hollywood and Hiroshima with Donna Reed, J. Robert Oppenheimer and a cast of dozens is not to be missed.

[Garrett Jansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book shows just how absurd the desire the government was driven to shape culture in support of something so wantonly violent. The absolute bureaucratic nightmare with trying to be somewhat truthful while maintaining a veneer of lies, helping make the entire thing palatable to the public. Deranged and the stuff that we don't really hear about in school.

[LillyBooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fascinating and disturbing, although sadly not surprisingly so, account of how the military and the government interfered in making the first movie about the atomic bomb after World War II, completely changing the message. It's well-written in a straight forward, if not stellar, way, and it moved at a good pace.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

A somewhat strange book that describes the making of a movie about the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is interesting in multiple ways, one of which is who was for making the movie and who was against. A worthwhile read.

[Pat McDermott · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

A short tale of the first movie to depict the Manhattan Project and the use of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (hint: Nagasaki is not mentioned). An interesting contrast to big-budget Academy Award-winning Oppenheimer.

[Paul Easley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Revisionist tripe!

[Jamie Sherwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part fascinating, but at times felt a little repetitive. Worth reading once though.

[Toni · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was very interested in this book, but it didn't live up to my expectations.

[Edward Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fascinating, surreal story of Hollywood's ill-fated attempt to produce the first epic motion picture about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[Al Lock · Rating 4 out of 5]

How was the decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki taken? This book takes a look at that decision and its aftermath through the story of the making of a movie. Worth reading.