Filmed over a two-year period, the 60-minute documentary deals with the early years of the “Cold War” and one of the U.S. Air Force formations that stood on the ramparts of the free world in time of great peril.
For a literal and metaphorical blast from the past, “Minutes to Midnight: The Cold War Chronicles” presents a compilation of documentary and Hollywood-produced informational videos that afford a window into the public policy mindset immediately following World War II. The featurettes range from 1950 to 1964 release dates and address both the prospect for, and the aftermath of, atomic war.
Given the array of political events since then – the fall of the Berlin wall and the break-up of the old Soviet Union, Vietnam reunited in the wake of a lunatic and protracted civil war, China’s ongoing experiments with capitalism – it’s all too easy to lose track of the mindset that pervaded the American psyche in the Cold War era. As a case in point, the earnest enthusiasm saturating many of the films takes us, with the benefit of retrospect, into the realm of the absurd – almost certain to provoke unintended laughs. At the same time, other aspects come off as far more chilling.
For a quick sampling of the content, “Cold War Remembered” provides an extended look at the first operational jet bomber capable of midair refueling, the B-45 Tornado, which constituted a key part of nuclear deterrent by the U.S. “A Day Called X” follows actual citizens and community leaders in Portland as they simulate response preparedness for a missile attack.
Produced in 1961, “The Challenge of Ideas” serves up a selective, brief history of China’s evolution from emperors and kings, to Mao’s communism, to its current authoritarian capitalist model. The documentary implies that Mao had his sights set on world domination by communist ideology – a familiar boogeyman since the inception of the Cold War. One of today’s newer versions consists of the myth of the global Islamic Caliphate.
Several of the films clearly seek to alert the great-unwashed masses about protocols following an attack – a step-by-step survival guide, if you will. This despite what we now understand about nuclear winter, which would make the asteroid strike that killed off dinosaurs and large mammals 65 million years ago look like a walk in the park. Indeed, one might legitimately wonder if survival after widespread hydrogen bomb detonations would be worth the trouble at all.
Ominous music, invariably intended to inform viewers regarding the menacing nature of the communist threat, blares throughout. Oddly, while the melodramatic aspects scream with hyperbole and menace, the steel-eyed bureaucrats speak to the horrific scenarios with a detached, icy nonchalance.
Perhaps most obviously missing, now as then, is any self-examination about the nature of governmental systems that blithely accept such appalling outcomes. In the course of the narratives, the prospect for nuclear war seems very probable, perhaps even inevitable.
“Minutes to Midnight” offers an often tedious, albeit insightful perspective on the implication of the intransigent ideologies strongly influencing history after World War II. The irrational cold war fervor that consumed Americans for decades led to dubious achievements – as but one example, the Hollywood blacklist, which unfairly targeted industry professionals guilty only of holding unpopular political beliefs.
The runtime of each film ranges from as few as nine minutes to one hour, comprising just over five hours of material. If nothing else, this collection of short features and documentaries vividly demonstrates that propaganda machines do not exist exclusively within communist regimes. Whether the product of Tinseltown, Madison Avenue, or the contemporary American media empire, selling the public on the idea of permanent war – cold or hot – continues even today.
Now available on DVD from Mill Creek Entertainment
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