A bit of scientific education opens this entertaining thriller up with a lesson on the pro's and con's of the use of atomic power. That leads us to the introduction of atomic scientist Gene Barry who lives a happy life with his wife Lydia Clarke and son Lee Aaker who is utilized in a kidnapping scheme from foreign agents to force him to hand over secrets that can be used for evil. The spies hold Aaker in an old mountain settlement, and the fed's express their concern over losing important secrets as being in conflict with risking the life of the scared but courageous Aaker. Told in step by step detail from showing what Barry does to the spies interest in his studies to the sudden disappearance of Aaker (at a cute puppet show where a fake ostrich pulls out the winning raffle ticket for a bike, announcing Aaker's name), to the location shoot at the man-carved mountain residence where Aaker is hidden. The use of real locations as the set is intriguing, as the dangers are numerous, from the sinister intentions of the kidnappers to the risk of falling off of the mountainside, and this will keep you riveted to your seat. It reminded me of the Barbara Stanwyck thriller "Jeopardy" which used natural settings as a key to danger as well, and featured Aaker as Stanwyck's son, as much in "Jeopardy" there as he was here.

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.

The young son of nuclear physicist Dr. Frank Addison (Gene Barry) is kidnapped by enemy agents. They offer up his life and well-being in trade for the H-bomb secret knowledge Dr. Addison possesses of America's atomic program.This cold war paranoia thriller is in some ways ahead of its time as many such themed films would get made in the years to come. While it has its moments, maintaining an high level of suspense with regards to the continued safety of Dr. Addison's son Tommy (well played by Lee Aaker) and creating an exciting climax at the end, this disappoints in that it never delves into the negative possibilities associated with the H-bomb secrets falling into enemy hands, an exploration of which I feel would have given this the bite it lacks. Also the villains remain much too colorless and forgettable aside from a chilling sequence where they try and lure the child Tommy out of a cave hideaway. All in all though, it's better than I expected thanks in no small part to a good cast and tight-paced direction.

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.