Paramount. Director Jerry Hopper; Producer Joseph Sistrom; Writer Sydney Boehm; Camera Charles B. Lang Jr Editor Archie Marshek; Music Leith Stevens Art Hal Pereira, Al Roelofs
Gene Barry
Lydia Clarke
Michael Moore
Nancy Gates
Lee Aaker
Houseley Stevenson Jr
Taut suspense and an interesting setting are features that make The Atomic City an effective spy thriller. Story is laid in Las Alamos, NM where atomic science is being advanced. The Las Alamos filming, plus scenes in Los Angeles and in New Mexico's ancient Indian cliff-dwellings, lend authenticity, further enhanced by a cast of unfamiliar faces and the hard-hitting direction of Jerry Hopper, who makes a topnotch megger debut.
Story is concerned with the kidnapping by foreign agents of the son of Gene Barry, a nuclear physicist at Las Alamos. Price for the boy's return is the formula for manufacturing atom bombs.
Hopper's direction gets a tight grip on the plot and injects a continually building suspense as the FBI and the father grasp for clues that might lead them to the boy and the kidnappers.
(B&W) Extract of a review from 1952. Running time: 84 MIN.
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