The day after Trinity
On 16th July 1945, the world's first atomic bomb was detonated at Trinity Site in New Mexico. Three weeks later a similar bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Focusing on the life and personality of J. Robert Oppenheimer, this film traces the development of the atomic bomb, from the time Oppenheimer was appointed to head the Manhattan Project, to the first successful test, to the aftermath of the weapon's use in Japan, and then to his ultimate fall from grace during the McCarthy era as he began to speak out in opposition to further development of nuclear weapons and the even more powerful hydrogen bomb. Using declassified government footage and recollections of Oppenheimer's distinguished friends and associates at Los Alamos, amongst those interviewed are Haakon Chevalier, Nobel Prize-winner Hans Bethe and Frank Oppenheimer
Film, English, ©1980
Pyramid Films, Santa Monica, Calif., ©1980