This is Not a Test (1962) | Attack of the Drive-In!
"People survived Hiroshima. We can survive this."
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If this is on the level, there'll be things flying around that are a lot more important than a plane to Mexico City.
RATING: 3 Atom Bomb Babies Out of 5
Atom Bomb, Baby
A movie that couldn’t manage a theatrical release, but became a mainstay of late-night TV movies at the height of nuclear anxieties.
Drive-in denizens and fans of Cold War chicanery — I give you "This is Not a Test."
Today we'll suffer through a film together that's peak atomic-age paranoia packaged as roadside theater. It’s the b-movie equivalent of the World’s Largest Ball of Atomic Twine.
A movie that demands audiences ask: how many strangers can you trap on a barricaded highway before society completely unravels?
I know I’ve lost many hours of sleep wondering about that. You too? No? Just me? Ok. Cool, cool.
The year was 1962 — smack dab in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when Bays were full of Pigs, and Americans were frantically building martini-serving underground bunkers and stockpiling more Spam than you can shake a giant gila monster at.
The film was "This is Not a Test.” Here, humanity is taking its last joyride before... well, like you might have guessed, total nuclear devastation, and instead of the old duck-and-cover — we find man-made horrors wrapped in B-movie packaging.
Though B-movie might be giving it a touch too much credit.
New Nukes, Who Dis?
You'll be glad we don't have that pair of lungs when you're gaspin' for breath.
Here, we can watch as — civilization crumbles before the bomb even hits.
Deputy Sheriff Dan Colter receives orders via radio to barricade a stretch of rural California highway and detain all passing motorists. Why? Oh, just a little thing called IMMINENT NUCLEAR ATTACK.
Colter's mastery of nuclear apocalypse management is on full display as he transforms from traffic cop to dystopian dictator faster than you can say "mutually assured destruction."
Seriously, this is a film, in classic Cold War tradition, made with the Pentagon’s full paranoia (if nowhere near the budget), a handful of character actors, and a dream of surviving radioactive fallout.
Our unlucky travelers make it to the impromptu checkpoint, creating a motley crew of soon-to-be survivors — including a businessman with his secretary (wink, wink), newlyweds, a truck driver hauling pigs, and a mysterious man with a switchblade. Deputy Colter leads our merry band of atomic age misfits through a series of tense confrontations — where they find their humanity and sanity are working against them. That's the good news. The bad news is that this roadblock is about to become —
Wait for it.
The last stand of Western civilization.
Cold War, Hot Mess
Sam Barnes: Do you realize the radius, the area of destruction, from the explosion of one hydrogen bomb? It's too late to run!
Deputy Sheriff Dan Colter: People survived Hiroshima. We can survive this. We can't do it with you yelling your head off.
Naturally, our favorite uniformed authority figure decides the best course of action is to maintain order at all costs, only to discover that impending doom makes people rather uncooperative.
The moral of this story seems to be “don’t get stuck in traffic while the Reds launch a nuke.”
Meanwhile, a businessman falls for his secretary (I was shocked too), kicking off a series of ethical dilemmas that launch them — like a pair of star-crossed atomic ICBMs — straight into questioning their life choices and, hopefully, a fallout shelter — if they make it that far.
Absurd on so many levels it makes mutually-assured destruction seem rational, but holds up well for the doomsday preppers in the house.
We gasp, we sigh, we jump when the radio crackles to life, and wonder if the entire civil defense system was just elaborate fear-mongering.
What's not to love?
Sure, it’s cheesy. The plot is more paper-thin than your high school’s one-act play selection, the acting is…serviceable at best. The cinematography is also just-ok (though makes good use of night shots, especially for the time).
The stark black-and-white cinematography captures the desolate highway and increasingly desperate faces beautifully, making the 73-minute runtime a veritable Crock Pot of tension, if not a masterclass in…well, anything else.
The film features perhaps its most effective device in what we don't see: the nuclear attack remains entirely off-screen, letting our imagination fill in the apocalyptic blanks.
This narrative restraint feels less like artistic choice and more like budget problems, but the film works around it quite well.
Not one for those who enjoy optimistic escapism and faith in humanity — but what end-of-the-world scenario is?
"This is Not a Test" is absolutely worth a watch today, especially with your emergency radio nearby and your critical faculties set to "duck and cover." Preferably with a fallout survey meter in hand.
Wanna check it out for yourself? You’re in luck!
You can catch the whole movie on YouTube, courtesy of Drive-In Radio. Hit the button below to head right over there. See you at the Drive-In!
Nuclear Holocaust Survival Lessons From "This is Not a Test"
• When detaining civilians during nuclear alert, maybe bring more than one deputy.
• Imminent annihilation is surprisingly effective at revealing character flaws.
• Pig farmers might be the most practical post-apocalyptic survivors.
• If you're going to barricade a highway, maybe — just maybe — have an actual plan beyond that.
• When facing nuclear armageddon, your marital problems suddenly don’t seem all that bad.
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