Radio Bikini (Documentary)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: B-     Documentary: B

 

 

In an early episode of the short-lived Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Kolchak (Darren McGavin) lands up having a playboy swinger (Dick Gautier) as a roommate at random on the last cruise of a luxury liner.  Being a Horror TV series, there is a monster on board (the episode is “The Werewolf”), but there is an off-hand joke.  The swinger’s girlfriend is wearing some almost-nothing swimwear, which inspires him to ask her if she knows why they call what she is wearing a bikini.  Even Kolchak knows in advance the punchline; because that is were they dropped the atom bomb.  Kolchak is not laughing.

 

It was not funny then and it takes on a dark, new meaning after watching producer/director Robert Stone’s Radio Bikini (1987), a very impressive record of the crazy nightmare the United States Government decided to indulge in by conducting excessive nuclear tests at the Bikini Atoll.  When all was said and done, the Crossroads operation displaced an entire native population who had no idea what they were being told to leave and sacrifice, or how it would ruin their homeland forever.  Then there was the sick sacrifice of animals, sheered of their hair, only to be “protected” by suntan lotion.  And there was the way loyal, hard-working Naval men were purposely exposed to live, breathe, eat, and drink at ground zero as guinea pigs, betrayed by their government.  This program is 14 years old and too few people still do not know (or are too ignorant to want to know with their blind-faith-as-long-as-nothing-happens-to-me coward mentality) about this atrocity.

 

The full screen image is from an older print and transfer of the work, but it is more than watchable.  John Rayner co-shot all the footage with Stone and Stone edited it most effectively.  DuArt does great film processing and I can see how this is one of their labs’ works.  This will do fine until a native High Definition version is needed.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono approximates the kind of optical monophonic sound that was available at the time.  Extras include a few frames of Docurama DVD titles, with some trailers available for viewing, as well as a text biography and interview on Stone (also monophonic on TV).  This is a good program that lasts a healthy 45 minutes long.  The filmmaker’s introduction notes on the back of the DVD case is not in the box or the DVD itself.

 

As for that bikini joke, though it is not directly stated as such, it is in the trailer and all over the full length film version of Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 masterwork Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.  It is a comedy classic because Kubrick knew he could not do a film seriously about the insanity of the use of nuclear arms.  It takes the actual footage to show the real outrages and that is why Radio Bikini holds up so many years later, making it a must-see for all.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo