Review of Invasion, U.S.A. (1952) by Art S — 08 Jun 2016

A curio or an artefact - but a chilling paranoid one that details how the enemy (assumed to be the Soviets) might attack the U.S. by way of Alaska. Perhaps unrealistically they drop 4 or 5 atomic bombs in the Pacific Northwest and then parachute their troops right into the radiation.

In fact, the shock and horror of the attack is minimized by the screenwriters in favour of a look at several people in a bar and how they cope with the incipient war. Compare this to Peter Watkins' 1965 pseudo-doc, The War Game, where Britain suffers an A-bomb dropped on London and you can see the difference between a quickie exploitation flick and the contemplation of real horror.

Almost 50% or more of Invasion U.S.A. is stock footage, which sometimes evokes the horror of war on its own (given its status as real footage) rather than serves the plot here. Given that most of the tragedy in the film is revealed through TV reporting (with the station occasionally going off air), the nearest resemblance is to Night of the Living Dead (or was it Dawn of the Dead?).

But those films are far superior, if somewhat less realistic (given the potential for President Trump). For the record, the Americans retaliate by dropping even more nuclear bombs on Russia in the film.

All we can hope is that no one has their finger on the button ever again.