Science Goes to War

In 1964, atomic war wipes out humanity in the northern hemisphere; one American submarine finds temporary safe haven in Australia, where life-as-usual covers growing despair. In denial about the loss of his wife and children in the holocaust, American Captain Towers meets careworn but gorgeous Moira Davidson, who begins to fall for him. The sub returns after reconnaissance a month (or less) before the end; will Towers and Moira find comfort with each other?

With this fact-based World War II drama and the equally memorable The Fourth Man (1983), Dutch director Paul Verhoeven gained an international following, eventually translating his reputation into Hollywood fame as the director of bloody science fiction spectacles and prurient sex thrillers. Rutger Hauer stars as Erik Lanshof, an aristocratic Dutch student, one of six carefree friends who don't care much for politics. When the Nazis invade Holland, however, the group is drawn inevitably into the conflict. While Alex (Derek de Lint) joins the German army, the suave Gus (Jeroen Krabbe) becomes a resistance leader, eventually escaping with Erik to England, where they become pawns in a much larger underground movement to restore their country's Queen Wilhelmina (Andrea Domburg) to her rightful throne. Based on an autobiographical novel by Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema, Soldaat van Oranje (1978) also features early work by another Dutch master who went on to success as a director of big budget Hollywood films, cinematographer Jan De Bont.

"This fascinating and illuminating study ably traces Civil Defense from Bert the Turtle's school drills in the 1950s to backyard family shelters in the early sixties. As Kenneth Rose insightfully shows, Americans, panicked over Cold War tensions and the threat of thermonuclear incineration, talked inordinately about fallout shelters, but few were ever built.

Near the end of World War II, the Allies must find out how much the Axis knows about building atomic bombs. The OSS recruits a physicist, Alvah Jesper, to reach his former colleague, Katerin Lodor, now in Switzerland, and bring her out for debriefing. He reaches her, but a German agent is quickly onto him, and Lodor dies. Jesper must now get into Italy, go underground with the help of Gina, a resistance leader, and convince Polda, a physicist there, to leave with him. Polda won't go until his daughter is rescued from German detention. As Jesper's pal Pinky works on rescuing Polda's daughter and as time for escape runs down, Jesper and Gina fall in love.