This film is part of Free
Great Day
The shock of the new: in Cumberland the nascent Elizabethan era is jolted into an atomic age
Overview
Expanding industry and post-war mod cons like the vacuum cleaner, fridge, electric kettle and oven put a strain on British energy production. Here we see a solution: harness the power of the atom with nuclear furnaces to supply the national grid. The construction of Calder Hall in Cumbria provides an opportunity to show how a power station operates while animation explains how nuclear fission occurs.
Ace Film Productions maintained a close relationship with the nuclear industry, producing sponsored films into the 1980s. Here they make their own use of modern technology, filming on the novel Eastmancolour film stock. Queen Elizabeth arrives by steam train but leaves as an atomic monarch; in her speech she stresses how peaceful civilian nuclear power offers a common good for the community. Despite this, the plant's main objective, the production of weapons-grade plutonium, remains unmentioned. The Calder Hall site is now part of the Sellafield complex.
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