The Price of Liberty
F.C.D.A.WNYC Films
1952
The opening years of the 1950's were
a prolific time for American civil defense programs. 1951 saw the first
federally sponsored government department devoted entirely to developing and
relaying protection techniques to an uninformed public. Utilizing the
popularity of film as an aid and incentive to audiences, the Federal Civil
Defense Administration commissioned nine productions concerning various aspects
of civil defense. Though the films would be independently created by
private companies, they would be the first to hold the backing of the
government for their content. While The Price of Liberty was not among
this select group, its producers still took advantage of a federally
established authority in Washington, attaching the F.C.D.A name and logo in the
opening credits. While this suggests an orientation to a national defense
program, The Price of Liberty stays firmly focused on the effects of an enemy
attack on New York City. Pieced together from footage of a civil defense
exercise conducted November 14, 1951, action shots of firefighters, nurses, and
radiation workers are edited to present a cohesive narrative which tracks an
enemy plane as it delivers an atom bomb into the heart of Manhattan.
A curious element of the film, well
displayed in the attack clip offered above, is the poetic beat which narrator
Kenneth Banghart provides. Banghart, who would later make broadcasting
fame as the creator of the CBS Up to the Minute program, uses a
continual and often forceful repetition of words. Not only does this
build suspense of an incoming enemy plane, but it also calls attention to his
words, which ultimately resonate as a call for volunteers. This subtle
tactic keeps The Price of Liberty from falling into the trap of earlier films
such as You Can Beat the A Bomb, which stress reliance massive civil defense
infrastructures already known to not be in place. The Price of Liberty,
using actual footage of an exercise, presents a more realistic portrait of
civil defense in the early years of the Cold War, municipal facilities like the
fire and police departments supported by volunteer auxiliaries. The
film's final shot offers the famous Thomas Jefferson quote "Eternal
vigilance is the price of liberty". While the continual visual
reference of a rotating radar dish is a representation of one branch of this
eternal vigilance, the other is made up of the volunteer forces heralded as
"friends and neighbors" in the film. Throughout, the film functions
as a display of this participation, however, in the last few minutes, Banghart
openly confides a lack of personnel needed to effectively continue normal city
operations after an enemy attack. This frank admission strengthens the
film's true purpose as a intriguingly poetic call for volunteers.