It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

I found "The Atomic CIty" somewhat disappointing after two viewings. It starts from an interesting platform; young son of big-shot post-war nuke scientist bottled-up in New Mexican middle-of-nowhere research base is kidnapped and held for intelligence ransom. But after 30 minutes it descends straight down to a very mediocre, run-of-the-mill kidnapped kid story complete with all cliché trimmings (hysterical mother, overwrought macho dad). The film drifts between styles. The lead-in sets up a documentary-style narrative. But then the early family scenes present a more dramatic style. Scenes where the cops are tracking down the kidnappers slide back into documentary. It's a goofy stew with uneven pacing.To make matters worse none of the characters are well developed and by the end you'll probably find that you just don't care what happens very much any more.

Check out the first 20 minutes even though the suspense hasn't yet kicked in. We get a pretty good look at super-secret Los Alamos just a few years after the big bomb test that helped end WWII. Except for the tight security, it looks unthreatening enough. Note how it's a TV repairman, an obvious regular guy, who takes us through security. Once through, it's like any-town-USA, nice homes, quiet streets, kids going to school, and a family TV on the blink. Later on we see little Tommy and little Peggy frolicking along streets lined with impressive looking facilities separated by locked gates. The movie appears to be saying, "Okay, we're tough, only because we have to be. But, basically, we're still just folks."Now, I expect that was a comforting message to Cold War audiences still not used to government's "dooms-day" research. It's a clear effort at popular reassurance. The one darker note is when Tommy's mother (Clarke) worries about her son's mental state. He doesn't say, "When I grow up"; instead, it's, "If I grow up". That note of doubt not only reflects a Los Alamos reality, but also a national one that in 1952 had just seen footage of the apocalyptic H-bomb. Note too, how professionally FBI agents are portrayed, a standard feature of McCarthy era fare. When brute force is needed, it's not they, but private citizen Gene Barry who thrashes out the information—an early version, I suppose, of modern era "rendition".Once the kidnapping occurs, the suspense doesn't let up. The intrigue is nicely handled with colorful LA locations that keep us guessing. The climactic scenes around the cliff dwellings may not be plausible as a hiding place, but the view of northern New Mexico is great. Then too, the ancient stone apartments amount to one of the more exotic backdrops of the decade. Note also the extensive use of the police helicopter just coming into use as a law enforcement tool. Among an otherwise subdued cast, Nancy Gates remains a sparkling presence as teacher Ellen Haskell. Never Hollywood glamorous, she was still a fine unsung actress and winning personality. I also expect this was one of director Hopper's more successful movie efforts, and though people have since gotten used to the nuclear threat, the movie remains a revealing and riveting document of its time.

A gang of Soviet hoods kidnap the young son of a nuclear physicist with the intention of blackmailing the father into handing over the nuclear farm. They do not succeed.There is some nice location shooting at a reasonably well-preserved Indian community. Aside from that, the film's virtues are negligible. The direction by Jerry Hopper is clumsy and overstated, the performances routine, the musical score out of the suspense-movie library.It isn't that the movie is insulting or offensive in any way. It's just that there's not much of substance there. Even the title, "Atomic City," is misleading. The city is Los Alamos, which was not much of a city, and it happens to be where the scientist, Gene Barry, and his indistinctive family live. The nuclear secrets are hardly touched upon, serving mostly as the engine behind the thriller plot. The MacGuffin could just as easily have been money or the world's largest diamond, except that the Soviet Union was the generic enemy during this period -- Korea being in full bloom at the time.Gene Barry seems fatigued throughout. Millburn Stone as the FBI's chief mahoff is clipped and definitive. Bert Fried as one of the goons rolls around being bad. He does have a good scene, in which he sits in a dark Indian kiva with the kidnapped boy and chats with him, not unkindly. The various FBI agents and all of the women are only blurry characters.One can see the influence, though, of the docudramas of the late 1940s and early 1950s. These were generally narrated by the stentorian Reed Hadley. Here, there is no narration but the movie does illustrate the care taken by the FBI in keeping its secrets carefully hidden. There is also a curious scene in which a Soviet agent is being interrogated. He knows where the boy is hidden but refuses to tell. Gene Barry wants to beat the guy up until he squeals but the FBI prevent him, telling him that physical punishment of a prisoner is forbidden by the rules. It sounds rather quaint in today's interrogation climate.I was kind of looking forward to seeing this. The plot synopsis was attractive. But, alas, there isn't anything that lifts this generic film out of its cradle of mediocrity.

Just watched this movie and it's not bad; there are a few tense moments and not a lot of long dialog strings. Comes off as fairly intelligent; fastpaced almost like 'documentary style'. This movie will evoke some nostalgia and a bit of cold war paranoia with cars,street scenes,and life in the 50's. The acting is fairly solid and at 85 minutes run time it goes by at a good pace. An atomic era film buff shouldn't miss this one.