Documentary recording the construction and testing of Britain's first atomic bomb.
Crown Copyright
Ronald Stark
Stuart Legg
Bill Freeman/Jocelyn Jackson
Teddy Catford
Anvil Films
John Addison
COMMENTBy the time this film was made for the Ministry of Supply about the construction and testing of Britain's first atomic device, the techniques of Grierson's narrative documentary-making had developed into a slick 'house-style' - a style that, three-years later, the 'Free Cinema' movement would rebel against.
But it is difficult to imagine a better way to explain the experimental complexity of such a technical story than by doing it like this. 'Operation Hurricane' is a film about detail. The commentary is all hard facts - 'one millionth of a second', 'a hundred-thousand frames', 'ten-thousandths of an inch'. The photography and editing is a celebration of the close-up continuity cutaway. The exterior scenes make full use of the crisply composed deep two-shot and hard sunlight and shadow. To accent the action the music by John Addison is a perfect combination of 'sci-fi' and symphony. So the drama of the building of the bomb and the experiments set out to test its power are told as matter-of-fact.
In the 1960s, this style of documentary-making would become the house-style of science television programmes like 'Horizon' and 'Tomorrow's World': caressing camerawork that brings inanimate machinery to life; skilful directing that turns shy pipe-smoking scientists and engineers into 'a brood of boffins' rim-lit by radar tubes in their quest for a better world. There is more than a whiff of Dan Dare and Professor Quatermass about Operation Hurricane. A genuine period-piece from Britain's 'New Elizabethan' age.
Film supplied by Film Images (London) www.film-images.com
