Introduction

The audience is transported to a desert wasteland, or plunged to the ocean depths in a nuclear submarine. The all-too-familiar themes form the range of film narratives that were created by the Hollywood studios and presented to the American moviegoing audience between 1946 and 1964. From Hollywood's first experiments with the new and potentially controversial topic of atomic development to the evolution of a science fiction genre exploiting the fear of radiation and its transmutational effects, a set of representations associated with all that atomic energy entailed gradually developed. Hollywood's exploitation of the atomic bomb took place during a period characterized by many convergent elements. Changing political pressure on the Hollywood studios was accompanied by drastic economic structural transformations within the industry. Cinematic films have a complex, multifaceted nature as commercial products, art forms, and ideological constructs.