5 Chilling Civil Defense Films 

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Ah the 50s, where every boy was a Timmy, Tommy, Johnny, Jimmy, Ronny, Billy or Bobby.

When I was a teenager in the 80’s I grew up just a few miles from a SAC base. My friend had a WWIII kit. It was a lawn chair, a pair of sunglasses, a fifth of Jack and a huge blunt. He was just going to wait for the flash

Imagine exploring a ruined school, post apocalypse, and you see the atomic silhouettes of hundreds of children ducking, covering their heads

Civil Defense in the past: TV commercials, drills at school, pamphlets, guest speakers, etc. Civil Defense now: "If he dies, he dies."

People laugh at the "duck and cover" technique and I think that it's unwarranted. Would you rather be cut to ribbons by flying glass, wood splinters and other debris? Would you rather be crushed under the weight of the building on top of you. In the case of the unstoppable power of an atomic bomb, what else can you do but get down low behind cover. Just being down low can help your odds significantly. Plus, being in cover can block before mentioned flying debris and a bit of nuclear radiation. In the case of atomic annihilation, anyone who didn’t “duck and cover” either would have gotten severely injured or vaporized before they even had the chance. If you do “duck and cover” than congrats, you weren’t in the “instant vaporization area”. Now, with your few injuries, you can escape the radiation and seek safety.

During the Cuban Missile "Crisis" my friends and I stood in our school playground and argued about if an incoming missile would look like a shooting star. Oh, those were the days. And everyone today is scared senseless over the world getting warmer 100 years from now.

Morbid fact, "duck and cover" wasn't supposed to save your life, it was to make sure that the dead were easier to identify, the theory being that if the head and face were protected they'd be less damaged by blast or heat meaning you could still take dental casts or have direct identification from the facial features, (especially if the Victim was carrying ID) it was also thought if they were killed in that position due to Oxygen Displacement or some such it would protect the face from Decomposition long enough, same reason they asked you to keep stuff like Birth Certificates and Medical insurance documents in your shelter, they knew you'd have Radiation Sickness and be dead long before any government agency would be there so they could go house to house Collect the corpses for Disposal and Take the documents so they could go "well these Bodies were found in X house on X street so it must be Mr and Mrs so and so according to these documents" all of this was told me by a guy who came by the museum I work at in England who worked in Civil Defence from 1950-1980s

19:50 "We'd better get to shelter". Walks to other side of the room. Yep, that should work

thats great news to know about the duck and cover exercise, but if you've got time theres another settlement that needs our help

I remember my dad showing these to me as a kid. I'm 20 years old, but he kept those old civil defense films and showed them to me and my brother. They were always chilling, but I think the one that terrified me from that era would have to be "A Day called X" (1957). But, the most terrifying film I've seen about nuclear armageddon has to be "Threads"(1984)

The duck and cover one is hilarious.

It's interesting to read the comments by those who didn't live through the cold war. It was quite a scary time to be alive knowing that at any moment everything might be erased and the few who survived would be living those video games you're all thinking about. Not a pleasant thought... but again it is interesting to see that the younger generations have never had anything like that to fear.

I remember being shown “Duck and Cover” on a 16mm projector in the school gym in the 1960s. Most of the kids laughed like it was a Saturday morning cartoon. Quite frankly it scared the crap out of me.

This is why I LOVE living 500 miles away from a major city

The doctor in The Medic: Flash of Darkness is none other than Richard Boone, who went on to star as Paladin in the long running Western TV "series, Have Gun Will Travel."

now I remember why I spent most of the 60s getting stoned

CD=Vault-Tec

"On The Beach" (1959) is laughed at today by some people. Yeah, like taking a selfie of your grinning mug before falling to your death. ''On The Beach" is not spectacular photography-wise . However the implications behind the terse b/w scenes are numbingly terrifying, once we realize what they are all about. It's the ultimate movie about mankind's dead end.

the last two should be like a tv show where it begins before the bombs drop and then next episode it drops and you see them all try to survive. but id love to see a doctor show that takes place after the bomb i honestly think that whould be an extremely interesting idea for a series

6:32 Use a newspaper to shield you from an atom bomb. Great vid.

Duck and cover? pffffffffttt I'm dead either way!

What if a nuke just smashes through your ceiling? Duck and cover!

*Sitting in rocking chair watching TV* "Suppose you heard the wail of the alerts...Would you know what to do?" "..." *...turns TV volume up*

omg I just can think about Fallout game

Using hay to shield from gamma rays 😂

one of the best that I remember was on the original Twilight zone where the family had an unground bunker the neighbors around him was wanting to get in and he would not let them They spent their money on swimming pools and vacations, it turn out it was a meator shower not an attack

a newspaper may protect you? wow...

when I was about six or seven forty years ago they taught me duck and cover. Cover your head and neck because you don't want to lose your head.

Oh, no! You've been exposed to radiation, and a mutated hand has grown out of your stomach! What's the best course of treatment?

I'm sitting here watching this in March 2020 because the quarantine from the coronavirus outbreak is putting me in an apocalyptic mood😧👍

The Puppet one...

Atomic Attack was Walter Matthau's screen debut.

do a video on the Mickey mouse gas masks

ah the old duck and cover maneuver if you do it right you might just not notice the sering pain

Loved the one with the puppets! Especially the cow.

That "Duck and Cover" classroom video where the little girl dives under her desk is Mia Farrow . Her father made those films

That last video is absolutely bone chilling

Wow! This way a trip down memory lane.

Cover yourself with clothing may prevent immediate skin burns, but it also provides more material to catch fire, so that you end up burning to death a few seconds later. Forget that, just run behind a building. Once bethind the building, the initial flash will be blocked by that, then get away from the building as the glow subsides and stay low to the ground to avoid being knocked over by the shockwave.

The concept of duck and cover was taught to firemen in Japan, after both bombs detonated not one fireman was killed that was not near ground zero.it is now understood this is because they covered themselves during the first few seconds. If you were at a reasonable distance you stood a good chance of survival. Of course you were dead if the bomb dropped close to you, but most people looked up to see what the flash was and were badly burned or killed.

This does bring a smile to my face... and a chill to my heart..

What was so disturbing? This was a serious threat, and it needed to be shown to every audience

Number 5 “your just about here” boom, you were just about here. Number 4 “duck and cover” and whilst your down there..... kiss your ass goodbye. school bus driver, ducks and covers, crash. Number 3 “Just got to get the 200 dairy herd in” Flash, “it’s ok, cows seem to have disappeared “ Number 2 “Air raid, no it can’t be” I know, I will just make a quick phone call to New York, and then stand screaming in the hallway. Enter child stage right, turns hysterical, but still manages to describe signs and symptoms of radiation sickness. Number 1 The Medic, a flash of darkness, how can you have a flash of darkness? Defies the laws of physics. I love watching these videos, and whilst I mock them now, back in the 50s & 60s they did provide some useful tips, but as we know now, surviving a nuclear detonation is more about your distance from ground zero rather than ducking and covering or how deep your shelter is, so all those wonderful civil defence videos show us today is a fascinating look back into our recent history. Thanks for sharing 👍

Wow the first film has some pretty good special effects for a low budget 50s era civil defense film. Cool!

Every Gen Xer knows after the blast, you spraypaint every Mustang or KZ1000 flat black and hoard every biker leather u can find.

IDK What was scarier, the puppets or the nukes o.O

If the bomb were dropped now everybody would run outside or to a window to catch footage of the pulse on their smartphone.

4:42 See guys, weve had safe spaces for years.

very nice. :-) When I had ABC-education at the military, I suggested to run into the epicenter at once and vaporate with style. Drillinstructor was not amused.. lol.

At 25,000 mph the "flash" apect is rather ridiculous for the first and 2nd mile. Starting in the 7th grade I refused to do the drills. I had my own plan in the cold storage frig of the school cafeteria.

i mean if i heard the siren i would just accept my fate i mean im gunna die at some point and with no internet :L

The techniques for duck and cover are also just as effective in the event of a volcanic eruption, and you find yourself about to be overwhelmed by hot flowing lava.

GOD Blessing civil defence and Nigeria too

It's ok they will be put in cryogenic storage by vault-tec

We were in grade school and these were deadly serious. The sirens still give me a moment of terror until I know the cause.

Nice use of the Fallout soundtrack in between films.

It's probably a blessing in disguise that these young kids had no idea that they would likely be vaporized in the event of a nuclear explosion. And I was born in '53, so that's me too.

Every, Saturday, @ 12:00 hrs. "one " short blast of Emergency Siren. Is that "BERT Turtle" Mitch McConell. ?

Why are things like these not broadcasted anymore? the threat is a real now as it was then

There is not a single episode of "The Twilight Zone" as frightening as that PSA shown half way through, made by Motorola.

Duck & Cover! Which one of these films stuck out the most to you? Be sure to check out PART 2 HERE: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-s2SKgGV8qok.html

Man, we gotta bring back scary civil defense films like these.

I bet we still have many nuke cores built by our grandads just sitting in underground bases waiting to be used..

The young daughter Barbara was a hell of a child actress

Ok that puppet one is terrifying...

Unlike now, at least there was a plan for public response.

Duck and Cover can make the difference between receiving 1000R dose from the prompt gamma exposure to cutting it in half and receiving 500R instead.

My town USED to have a HUGE atomic fallout shelter. It was supposed to fit our entire town plus the town next to ours. They unfortunately tore it down when they tore the mall down but it was MASSIVE!!! TBH they should have left it alone

4:10 I like how every one's taking there fucking time.

Was I the only one more worried about the potato salad when the picnic scene pulled the blanket?

My uncle was in the army he was took part in sitting up those villages he had some old film from that era and would get the old projector out and showed them to us. he said he saw 2 go off

12:30 trying to explain science to a panicked middle-aged woman lol

So grateful that these ridiculous films gave way to others like Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove, and even War Games. The idea that you can “survive” a direct nuclear attack was as laughable then as it is today. Survival as what? Some kind of irradiated human? No thank you. A .22 to the temple is so much more humane. But I suppose that given the times and the unthinkable nature of being Nuked, it was the best they could do, considering that telling every American that I’d/when the bomb came they’d die instantly is a buzz kill.

The epitome is Peter Watkins' 1965 ''The War Game''

4:38- hey buddy, hands off!

Watch a movie call Threads, then ask yourself if you want to live after a Blast.

I lived through that era, and I don't believe #3, Rural Civil Defense, looks like it's from 1965. 1955, perhaps.

Created in the 1950's and still as relevant in 2022.

"Mrs Mitchell, get the radioactive cows in the barn! This is New York." 👱 "Oh hell no!" (SLAM)

Anyone else find it oddly hilarious that the monkey in Duck and Cover annihilates himself like a homicide bomber?

I'm gonna see that rural atomic dummy in my nightmares now, thanks. His ghastly rictus and tragi-comic attempts to descend stairs....I don't want to live!

Alot of cheese, but some things are probably still a good idea today. That's back when the government cared about the public. I doubt we would get any warning today. What the videos don't say is if you duck and cover, and survive the initial blast, that most people will die from radiation poisoning.

I remember as a young child, my two aunts had an elaborate bomb shelter built into a hill right behind their home. It was FULLY stocked. I remember how scared I was. Thought I was going to die. I watched those damn duck and cover films, as if that would help!! That was the only private bomb shelter in the fair size city, now I'm elderly and no longer afraid. What good would fear do?? Thanks

4:44 that siren is a fedelcode model 2, bright and shiny!

Where did you find the thumbnail?

It's April 2022 and we're almost here where these old adds are talking about

I had to duck and cover today when i was sitting on the toilet. Only thing i had to cover myself with was toilet paper, but it worked!

I know that actress, Mary Aster, she was on the movie with Humphrey Bogart, The Maltese falcon!

Yeah that school bus will be airborne like a piece of paper in a blast.

Bert has a shell as strong one but we bloody don't

Number 2 is actually sort of optimistic --- just a single bomb, with some infrastructure remaining? Perhaps they did not want to scare people too much.

You there’s no doc that cane after the turtle film in our school. Every day we’d come into class and put the brass tag around our necks. After the film we’d go the the back of the room and get the matching numbered kid-sized body bag then take it to our desk. I’d like to see what would happen if that happened in any college class today. 🤪

Ive always wondered what was in the drink called the Atomic Cocktail at the Flamingo Casino.........as shown in the indie doc The Atomic Cafe.......

UNIVAC CGI effects are pretty impressive. Took 6 months to render that atomic explosion.

The last one is available online for free as a download. Sorry, my phone won't connect link. It was a one off "what if" episode, originally aired in 1955. Extremely dark subject for the time. I just wish they could have made a series around it. Sort of a post nuke Walking Dead.

7:46 The fuck kind of sound is that?! I've never heard a single Federal Signal or Alerting Communicators of America siren that made that sound *ever*.

Fun Fact: _"Duck and Cover"_ resulted in a mass culling of wild turtles throughout the United States, as people hunted them to steal their shells.

How much does that hay help if you surrounded the barn with it?

A young Richard Boone.