The House in the Middle

1954 American film

Intertitle of the 1954 version of The House in the Middle, selected for preservation in the National Film Registry

The House in the Middle is the title of two American documentary film shorts (13 minutes), respectively from 1953 and 1954, which showed the effects of a nuclear bomb test on a set of three small houses.

## 1953 version

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Intertitle of the original 1953 version

The black-and-white 1953 film was created by the Federal Civil Defense Administration to attempt to show that a clean, freshly painted house (the middle house) is more likely to survive a nuclear attack than its poorly maintained counterparts (the right and left houses).

## 1954 version

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The House in the Middle (1954)

A color version was released the next year by the National Clean Up – Paint Up – Fix Up Bureau,[1][2][3][4] a "bureau" invented by the National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Association trade group (now known as the American Coatings Association).[5][6]

## Production

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Footage for the film was recorded during the Upshot-Knothole Encore test at the Nevada Test Site on May 8, 1953.[7]

## Legacy

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In 2001, the Library of Congress deemed the 1954 film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.[8][9]

It was featured on Rick Prelinger's 2004 collage film Panorama Ephemera.[10]

## See also

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* Fallout Protection
* The Bomb
* Duck and Cover
* The Atomic Cafe

## References

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1. ^ "About ACA". American Coatings Association.
2. ^ Zimring, Carl A.; Editor, William L. Rathje, Consulting (Feb 27, 2012). Encyclopedia of Consumption and Waste: Encyc Consumption and Waste. SAGE Publications. ISBN 9781506338279 - via Google Books. `{{cite book}}`: `|last2=` has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
3. ^ "American Paint and Oil Dealer ..." American Paint Journal Company, Incorporated. Aug 7, 1917 - via Google Books.
4. ^ "Preservation News 1 March 1965 — Preservation News". prn.library.cornell.edu.
5. ^ Mike Mashon (March 10, 2015). "The Cold War Meets Commerce: The House(s) in the Middle". Now See Hear!. Library of Congress. Retrieved August 6, 2015.
6. ^ "Past to Present". American Coatings Association. Retrieved August 6, 2015.
7. ^ Eden, Lynn. "Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge & Nuclear Weapons Devastation". Retrieved 9 June 2017.
8. ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2020-04-30.
9. ^ "Librarian of Congress Names 25 More Films to National Film Registry". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2020-04-30.
10. ^ Panorama Ephemera (2004) - Rick Prelinger on YouTube

## External links

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to The House in the Middle.

* The House in the Middle at IMDb
* The House in the Middle at the TCM Movie Database
* The House in the Middle essay by Kelly Chisholm on the National Film Registry web site [1]
* The House in the Middle essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 ISBN 0826429777, pages 483–484. America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry
* Internet Archive copy of the 1954 film
* Library of Congress copy of the 1953 film
* Bibliographic record for House in the middle [second version] at the Library of Congress, including a digital viewing copy