This week on Cold War Cinema, we discuss the 1953 Soviet science-fiction drama, Silvery Dust, directed by Abram Room and Pavel Armand, a film once again set in the United States. The film concerns an American scientist who has developed a powerful new weapon of mass destruction designed to wipe out populations within a large area while leaving no harmful radioactive residues or traces. In the film, the scientist colludes with a Nazi colleague and various private interests, who all conspire with the government to use innocent Black men as test subjects, without their knowledge or consent.

Join hosts Jason Christian, Anthony Ballas, and Paul T. Klein as we consider:

• The historical legacy of Operation Paperclip, a secret government program in which the US brought some 1,600 scientists, engineers, and technicians from former Nazi Germany to the US for government employment after the end of World War II.

• The numerous government experiments conducted on minorities without their knowledge or consent, such as the Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee (1932-1972)

• The contradiction, in the film, of critiquing racism in America while using white Russian actors in “black face.”

• Comparisons between American and Soviet propanda styles in the 1950s.

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We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode:

Paul recommends the book, Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom by Wendy Kline

Tony recommends the book, The Selected Works of Ho Chi Hinh by Ho Chi Minh

Jason recommends the book, Deterring Democracy by Noam Chomsky.

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