- We're waging a war of ideas. - You're building an atomic bomb.
We prefer to call it a gadget.
We made a deal when we came here. You would never lie to me.
-I'm protecting our family. -From what?
- They are reading our mail. - What?
All the children have head lice, and they are reading our mail.
Everything is a secret!
Now, the Army still hasn't decided which design they're gonna back yet.
Before they do, we need to prove how much time
our model is gonna save them.
- Twelve days? - Twelve weeks!
Your group's going to be dissolved, Frank.
I just handed you 8,000 lives.
The Army believes in the Thin Man.
- You familiar with the Espionage Act? - Espionage?
- Frank, I screwed up. - What the hell did you do?
One of your boys stole classified files. I'd like a name.
You think I'd horse trade a member of my own team?
We sacrifice the few to save the many.
Be... Be just a minute.
Ripped By mstoll
You taking a bubble bath in there?
Population 531,818.
Official state nickname, the Land of Enchantment.
We'll take a small check, sweetheart.
Let me ask you something.
What kind of grown man can't drive a car?
Are you Amish or something?
-I'm from Brooklyn. -Oh, yeah?
Do the Dodgers go the distance this year with Reiser overseas killing Japs?
You know, they ought to put you on the radio.
You're a regular Jack Benny.
I'll have a better conversation driving home by myself.
I'm riding back with you.
We're just making a delivery.
Them must be some oranges.
So, that crate of yours, must be money, huh?
Or diamonds?
Pull over.
You got a nervous bladder or something? We just stopped 30 minutes ago.
- I'll be back in a couple of hours. -You've gotta be kidding me.
Here.
Collateral.
Hey, we've been riding together for two days.
You're really not gonna tell me what you got in there?
You ever hear of Pandora's box?
Keep the meter running.
- Much obliged for the grease.
Ah, I wasn't always made of tin.
Once I was flesh and blood as you are.
How did it happen?
Ahem.
What?
And...
The Wicked Witch enchanted my ax so that it slipped and cut off my leg.
I went to the tinsmith and had a new one made.
Hey, where's Liao?
One by one, I lost my arms, my head, and my body.
But the tinsmith replaced each missing member.
I was happy, notwithstanding,
until I discovered that I no longer loved my Cynthia.
The tinsmith had forgotten to give me a heart.
Are you a man or a hardware store?
- Why do you stand so still? - I am rusting.
- Where? - In my joints.
- I prefer the original. -That was the original.
The picture came... Charlie!
Well, Phyllis Plotzer ain't no Judy Garland.
You know, Judy Garland ain't no Judy Garland.
Her real name is Frances Ethel Gumm.
You ought to work for J. Edgar Hoover.
Maybe then I'd know all your deep, dark secrets.
You remember that night you dragged me to that dance at your country club?
I remember I couldn't get the grass stains out of my Schiaparelli dress.
- Charlie. -Oh, yeah?
No grass in the desert.
Sid Liao must be in sorry shape to miss Meeks' Broadway debut.
He drank more than I did at the party.
Helen.
Good night.
I, um... I just got back from the tech area.
We're not getting any.
Last evening, in Dr. Oppenheimer's absence,
I took possession of a care package from the med lab at Chicago.
The package traveled 1,200 miles to be here.
Its contents had a somewhat longer journey.
It waited six billion years to be midwifed into existence.
And for my American colleagues,
it was named after the God of the dead,
not Mickey Mouse's dog.
It's the most valuable substance on the planet.
Behold, gentlemen.
One hundred and fifty micrograms
of Plutonium-239 right here in our humble laboratory.
One one-hundredth the mass of an eyelash.
This sample is at Dr. Akley's disposal.
Although, our colleagues at Chicago expect it returned,
so don't dispose of it.
Oh, the Phoenix rises from the ashes.
But not early enough to make an 8:00 a.m. meeting.
I wasn't invited.
Thin Man is our priority.
What's the point of keeping my group alive if you're just gonna starve us to death?
Ten micrograms, that's all I'm asking. It's nothing.
- The kingdom fell for want of a nail. -What the hell does that mean?
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe, the horse was lost.
- For want of a horse... -All right.
Then the horseman. Then the battle. It's a problem.
Respectfully, Dr. Barath, I need plutonium, not Hungarian folk wisdom.
American, your Benjamin Franklin.
He has another.
Necessity never made a good bargain.
Dr. Oppenheimer dismantled your implosion group, Frank,
but evidently, you reached some sort of arrangement with the Army.
- Alek... -The Army is a powerful ally.
It controls the money, the guns, and the only road out of here.
What the Army does not control is 150 micrograms of a substance
they had never heard of until we told them it existed.
That belongs to Robert Oppenheimer.
No!
No,no,no,no.
It's 10:00 a.m., Crosley. You ever heard of cirrhosis?
My ancestors were Scottish kings. I have the liver of a Clydesdale.
Amongst other vital organs.
Well, maybe you'll break a leg. We can shoot you.
It doesn't make any sense. First, they fire us. Then they rehire us.
All except Liao, who's probably halfway
to the University of Peking by now, lucky bugger.
No, he wouldn't leave without saying goodbye.
Look, Liao or no Liao,
we spent three months playing pin the tail on the neutron.
The project finally gets its hands on...
- How much? -A hundred and fifty micrograms.
Enough to prove that we're in the right hemisphere, and we get zero?
Sid?
Thank you. Thanks.
- No, that's not what I'm saying. -I didn't realize today was a holiday.
The coordinates of the secret facility we're being transferred to now?
American war dead as of this morning.
Look, we can crunch numbers until pigs join the Luftwaffe.
- If we don't have any plutonium... -You'll get it.
From whom, Montgomery Ward?
Akley's gonna hand it over.
He just doesn't know it yet.
- I think you killed it. -Oh.
My grandmother tatted these curtains.
They survived all the way from Russia.
Well, that's no match for your average Monday on the Hill.
Is this average?
I put a pot of coffee on, the next thing I know, the house is on fire.
Let me help with that.
Thank you.
Dick Tracy just sat there watching, huh?
The black coupe. He's G-2.
Oh, don't worry. They'll lose interest in a couple of weeks.
Unless you slash their tires like I did.
Someone should have warned you about the stoves. They're lethal.
We ought to ship them to Berlin.
Does it get any easier?
My father always said that everything easy was hard first.
We never got to the second part with him.
You're gonna be fine.
I'm not so sure about your curtains.
Liza.
Oh. Abigail. Abby Isaacs.
Um...
If we can't use the stove, how are we supposed to eat?
What the hell are you doing?
Putting my tax dollars to work.
Your mom will be back in an hour.
Oh!
Where is he? Laundering shirts?
The Chinaman. Missing in action.
Sid's under the weather.
It's not good.
The Army still holding him?
They sent over some suit from Washington.
Probably Justice Department.
They're gonna charge him with treason.
Sid Liao is not a traitor. Just a stupid kid who made a mistake.
Well, around here, that's a distinction without a difference.
I know that look.
Forty eight hours ago, our group was on the chopping block.
Now we're back in this office,
and Sid Liao isn't.
Now, I'm not looking for an explanation.
I'm just telling you how it is. You can't solve Sid's problem.
They can't go around picking off scientists.
Frank, this thing is poison.
You got to think about the rest of the group.
Sorry to keep you waiting.
Who are you?
Who I am is inconsequential.
The question is who are you?
I wanna talk to an attorney.
Have you eaten?
Okay, there are laws. This isn't Moscow. This is New Mexico.
It's my constitutional right as a citizen...
Actually, it isn't New Mexico.
Within the confines of these fences,
you are no longer in the United States
or the purview of its Constitution.
Technically, you are nowhere talking to no one.
Now, how about a sandwich?
Look, there's been a mix-up. I took some papers. I admit that.
But they pose no threat to security.
They involve X-rays, high-speed photography.
It was my own research. I thought I could license the findings.
- It was stupid. -To whom?
You were planning to sell military secrets.
I'm not a spy.
Jesus, I was gonna call Eastman Kodak.
You physicists, you have a natural talent for splitting hairs.
The world I live in is much more black and white.
Poor thing. Stranded in the desert.
Remind me which one of you wunderkinds came up with the theory of the cat.
- Erwin Schrödinger. -Schrödinger, yes.
I read about him in Popular Science.
A cat is locked in a steel chamber with a bottle of cyanide.
It's either been poisoned, or it hasn't.
But until you look inside the chamber,
the cat is both dead and alive simultaneously.
How do you explain that?
- It's complicated. -ls it?
The question seems simple enough to me. ls he alive, or is he dead?
Maybe it depends on what the cat does next.
"You are the best and bravest son a mother could hope for.
"I think of your valor on that beachhead, and my heart fills to bursting.
"When you're down in the trenches, and the bullets are flying..."
Lying to your own mother?
What am I supposed to say? Today I held the door for some egghead?
I haven't fired a gun since we left Fort Dix.
War is hell.
We had an arrangement. You said you would protect Sid Liao.
I said I'd put in a good word with the powers that be, and I did.
- I want to see him now. -That's not possible.
Your group is intact. You got what you asked for.
Now you've got a guilty conscience?
Outside parties have taken an interest in your man.
The Department of Justice?
It's no longer my concern.
Is that a piece of costume jewelry on your chest?
Excuse me?
You're the high-ranking military officer on this base, 0-6.
If you weren't here, you'd be in a tent in the Pacific
with 4,000 lives at your command.
We all have to make sacrifices.
On this hill, you are the powers that be,
so stop acting like a guest in your own goddamn house.
So that's our girl.
The isotope that launched 1,000 ships.
Hope the Brits have good umbrellas.
It's gonna be raining Nazis in Piccadilly Circus.
Hi, Charlie. Settling in all right?
You know, some of the boys have been telling me
you've been talking a blue streak about civilian casualties.
You know, you got anything on your mind, my door is always open.
Well, sir, respectfully,
we got some of the best minds in America here, maybe the world.
If we redirected our efforts towards particle beams,
or sonar, anti-submarine technology, we could potentially...
- Charlie. -Yeah?
- I want you to be happy here. -Thank you.
But I need you to be helpful.
You are a gear in a complex machine with 1,000 moving parts.
- I understand that. -We cherish life. It's in our nature.
Unfortunately, our enemies do not.
Doubt is a luxury we cannot afford.
Sorry, how are sanitary napkins gonna fix my stove?
Okay, stay here.
Keep an eye out for MPs.
Hey, Nana.
Muchas gracias.
Okay, let's go.
Now, this is Lophophora williamsii.
The natives say it glistens, so they call it peyote.
It's a drug.
I...
- I don't even smoke. - It's not for you.
It's for Tiny, the fry cook at the mess hall.
Abby, you need a hot plate.
If you order it from the commissary, you'll get it after V-day.
Tiny can give you one today.
Just don't eat the change.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit, shit.
- Shit! -You all right?
Uh, yeah.
Shit.
You know, Einstein said the definition of insanity is...
...doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result, yeah.
It wasn't Einstein, though.
It was Alcoholics Anonymous.
Anyway, you want insane?
You should talk to me when I lose my job,
and I have to move back to Perryville to live with my mother.
Perryville?
Mmm-hmm.
I'm from Missouri.
- Really? -Yeah.
Well, you, me, and the Pony Express.
He's not, um, coming back, is he?
Lancefield? No, never works past 7:00. Protestant work ethic.
I was supposed to pick up the plutonium sample.
Now I have to explain to my group that we lost a good night's work
because I was trying to get a call through to my boyfriend.
Let's be honest,
my ex-boyfriend.
They already think I'm a circus act around here, you know?
A girl with a PhD, that's like a monkey with a harmonica.
There was a girl in my graduate class.
She could solve Lagrange equations in her head.
Really?
- And where is she now? -I don't know. Married.
Right.
You're not as loathsome as the rest of Akley's drones.
- Oh, thank you. -No, I mean,
I read your paper.
No offense,
but, um, I thought you'd be an arrogant horse's ass.
I'll give Missouri your best.
Hey.
I got keys to the lab. I can let you in.
Really?
First, we precipitate plutonium fluoride.
And then we fire up the cyclotron and count the neutrons per fission.
Meeks, what are you talking about?
You know even less about chemistry than you do about acting.
It has no known effects on human physiology.
It was just discovered. We don't know anything about it yet.
We know plenty. It's a transuranic radioactive chemical element
with a high boiling point and a half-life of 240,000 years.
You mean 24,000.
- What? -Plutonium.
- No, Kryptonite. -Kryptonite.
Fritz, Meeks, Charlie Isaacs.
Let me ask you something.
Uh, suppose you had to estimate the force of gravity on Krypton.
Krypton, the fictitious planet?
- Yeah. -Yeah, just a ballpark figure.
Okay. Um...
They say Superman can leap a tall building in a single bound.
Yes, and you figure, what, the Chicago Board of Trade Building is 500 feet tall?
And let's say an adult male in peak physical condition
can jump five feet.
Stands to reason Krypton's gravity is 100 times that of Earth's.
Nine hundred and seventy eight meters per seconds squared!
- Thank you, Charlie. - No, impossible.
You know what's impossible?
Either of you two ever having sex with a woman.
What the hell is going on in here?
I'm talking to you, Isaacs.
Would you like to explain yourself?
What I would like is my share of the plutonium.
Your share. What, do you think we're running a commune here?
Perhaps I was insufficiently clear yesterday.
You refused to help me get the resources I need to do my job.
So I helped myself.
If there's so much as a microgram missing...
Dr. Akley is a competent manager. He may even deliver a working bomb.
- I appreciate the vote of confidence. -That won't matter,
because by the time he does, New York will already be an ashtray.
You studied with Heisenberg at Leipzig.
Do you think we even have a prayer of beating him with Thin Man?
The implosion model is more efficient. It will save us time.
We are building a better mousetrap.
Let me ask you a question. Did you study axial chemistry at Leipzig?
No? What about the Clark Effect?
It's because they've never been proven.
These are Frank Winter's contributions to science, pipe dreams.
Implosion is a fascinating theory,
but you cannot drop a theory out of a Lockheed B-29 Superfortress.
Boeing.
If Frank could prove that implosion was more than a fairy tale,
even at the most rudimentary level, I'd give him all the plutonium he wants.
He could have the keys to my Buick. He could sleep with my wife.
Fine.
- Fine what? -I'll prove it.
How?
Get up.
I want you to get the group together.
Hey, Winter.
I'm talking to you, asshole!
Barath gave us 24 hours.
They'll give us the plutonium if we can prove that our design will work.
- We can't prove it'll work without plutonium. -Yes, we can.
Well, we can walk them through the math,
but it doesn't actually prove anything.
Before the Wright Brothers built their first plane,
they flew kites off the dunes of Kitty Hawk. This is a kite.
I assume we're gonna blow that up and not fly it.
No, no, not up, in.
Mechanically, it is no different than the implosion bomb.
It's just that we're gonna turn this into this.
Oh, we're gonna turn it into a cigar.
We're going to implode a pipe into a solid mass same size as that cigar.
Wait, by tomorrow? That's absurd. What's the rush?
Our friend from Washington,
he's not Department of Justice.
What is he, OSS? FBI? G-2?
It's the ones that don't have a name you have to look out for.
We got a real problem here.
I thought it was Liao's problem.
There are dark corners in this war, Frank.
Men like him, they don't have an office or a title.
He is just a line item on a budget.
He makes problems disappear.
He makes people disappear.
I don't feel good.
You want to hear it again, put a nickel in the jukebox.
- You ever hear the expression
"man is as sick as his secrets"?
Look, I've already told you.
Three weeks ago, I took the papers back to the dorm room.
I stuck them down the front of my pants.
It was easy. They don't search you when you're leaving the tech area.
I hid the papers under my mattress.
I was going to sell the patents. I'm not a spy.
I've got a 5-year-old kid. She's got myeloma.
I wish I could take it back, but I can't.
You want me to put it in writing?
Why don't we start from the beginning?
Jesus Christ. It was three weeks ago...
That's not the beginning. That's the end.
What? You want to know where I was conceived?
I assume it was in Bloomington, Indiana. That's where your parents met, right?
Your mother was born Mary Agnes Costello. She died in 1938 in her bedroom, a stroke.
Your father taught mathematics at Shanghai University.
Now he's washing dishes at the Foxhead Steakhouse.
He was raised in Soochow.
- But you've never been there, have you? -No.
They have the most marvelous gardens. Something to see before you die.
Why are we here?
Whatever you want to know, just ask me.
You probably know from talking to your daughter's oncologist,
some cancers you can treat with a course of radiation.
Others you have to cut out at the source.
You want to talk about my kid?
I want to talk about your colleagues in the tech area.
You were recruited by Frank Winter. Let's talk about him.
In 1936, he took a leave of absence from the University of Chicago.
Do you know where he spent that year?
- Why don't you ask Frank? -Because I'm asking you.
Three weeks ago, I took the papers out of the tech area
and hid them in my dorm room.
I was going to sell the patents. I am not a spy.
If you want to charge me, have at it.
I'll come back when you're feeling better.
Try to get some rest.
Yeah, boys, look at it. I got Joseph Goebbels, boys.
Sergeant, sir. Did you get my request?
I put in for transfer, sir.
For deployment overseas, the Pacific theater,
Europe, wherever I'm needed, sir.
Gate C, 2200 hours. You have the graveyard shift, private.
Sir, due respect, I want to see some action.
So watch the RKO newsreel.
At great expense, your president gathered...
It's all filled out. Sign the bottom line. Prove you're still in charge here.
- What is this? -lt's what Sid Liao deserves,
a fighting chance.
Who was the man?
I could not recognize his voice, so I connected the call.
- A woman moaning. -Again?
- See you tomorrow. -Bye. Good night.
Bonsoir.
Are you ready to go?
That tickles.
No, no, no, no. We have to go. Yes.
Charlie, please.
You need to calm down.
I told her we'd be there at 7:30.
- Reschedule. - No.
After the day I had, all I want to do is get into bed
- with my wife.
I'll do that thing you like.
Two nights in a row? You'll sprain your back.
- Besides, you have to eat. - I'm not hungry.
- Who's that? - The sitter.
Look, just tell your new friend or whoever she is...
You met her the other night at the barbecue.
Hello. Come in.
Charlie, this is Callie Winter.
You're, um, Frank Winter's daughter?
- Ostensibly. - Let me introduce you to Joey.
Callie was sweet enough to offer her services
while we have dinner with her parents.
You know what? I am developing a bit of an appetite.
Oh, they have Tommy Dorsey.
Oh, you might have to take me for a spin.
We were just about to call a search party.
- Hello. -Frank, this is Abby Isaacs
-and her husband Charlie. -Hello.
- We've crossed paths at the office. - Have we?
They're staying for dinner.
Who needs a drink?
I have all his albums back at home.
He does have a lovely voice.
Mmm.
Are you a jazz fan?
I prefer silence.
Mmm.
Frank is very sensitive to noise.
- Is that right? - Oh.
Sorry to hear that.
Hmm.
Would anybody like dessert?
- I'll help you. -Oh.
- May I take this? -Thank you.
So what's your problem anyway?
Just bulldoze anyone in your path to get what you want?
I figured it out.
Why you were the one guy that rejected my paper.
I doubt that.
You're afraid I'm the meteor that'll make you go extinct.
What is it with little boys and dinosaurs?
Charlie's usually more fun.
Physicists need to sniff each other out, mark their territory.
You'd think there'd be enough universe to go around.
I don't know what's gotten into him since we got here.
Half the time he's brooding, and the other half...
Honestly, it's like our honeymoon.
He can't keep his hands to himself.
They're all like that at first.
They find it easier than talking.
Eventually, they stop doing either.
You know, um, when I was a kid...
You mind?
My father used to drag me with him when he played Mississippi Stud.
And sometime after dawn,
the guy would scoop me up off the sofa in the back of some delicatessen,
and he'd tell me that what mattered was that he had balls.
See, because whatever kind of beating he took at the table,
he still thought he was a maverick.
Even after we'd lost the house,
in his mind he was always a genius card shark
just waiting for that one lucky river card.
But the most pathetic part isn't
that my father doubled down on the wrong bets over and over again.
It's that he was never man enough
to admit to himself that he was a sinking ship.
I don't feel bad for you.
I feel bad for those suckers in your group that you're taking down with you.
Come tomorrow, they'll be a punch line. Just like you.
Get home safe.
Abby!
It was one dinner.
They've gone. Are you happy?
- They're not our friends. -We don't have friends.
You have work. What do I have?
You have Callie. I don't want those people in our house.
Maybe you should just write me a list of who I can and can't talk to.
I understand.
There's some kind of crisis at work.
You have no idea.
But this is our life.
There'll always be a crisis.
Callie.
Callie, sweetheart.
Thank you very much, Callie.
You look like a goddess.
Thank you.
Good night.
I have no clue how those two lunatics produced such a well-behaved child.
Honestly, that was not my fault.
The man's burned bridges at half the schools in the Ivy League.
They should arrest him for arson.
You ought to hear the things they say about him in the tech area.
I mean, it's outrageous, but spot-on.
I don't want to talk.
Check the stand.
Check the diameters.
- What is the PSI yield stress? - Uh, 300,000.
How come I have to carry the TNT?
- You don't have any children. - Neither do you.
No, but there's a chance I will.
There is enough powder there to turn an iron pipe into a hockey puck,
I don't want it anywhere near my plumbing.
Great. It's a tailgate party.
Here, give it to me.
What, now you get stage fright? Come on.
Three-inch diameter, quarter-inch wall, half-inch charge.
- Three quarter-inch charge. - What? Right. Right.
Three quarter-inch charge.
Frank Winter?
From the Colonel.
Can this not wait an hour?
No, train's leaving the station.
Here.
We want uniform pressure.
Four detonation points evenly spaced around the circumference.
But Barath is gonna be here in 45 minutes!
I will be back in 40.
- Check the connections. - All right.
- Check the alignment.
Sid.
Frank?
Oh, Jesus Christ.
Five minutes. I need you to focus.
What the hell is going on?
There's a transport bus leaving the Hill in one hour.
- You're gonna be on it. - A transport to where?
Texas and then the Pacific theater.
You mean as a soldier?
I convinced the Colonel to sign your draft papers.
- What? - Trust me, this is the best you're gonna do.
It's a fighting chance.
I'm not gonna last one day.
They're gonna push you through basic training.
And when your boots hit the ground, look for the company headquarters tent,
and you find a man with this rank.
Now listen to me. You tell him that you are a scientist.
You know more about sound waves than Westinghouse.
Transmissions, frequencies.
You can build a wireless from a steno pencil and copper thread.
Maybe even show him some trigonometry.
Most of these doughboys can't put two and two together.
I don't...
They're gonna make you a radio operator.
You'll ride out the war in a HQ tent a mile from the front lines.
You'll come home dreaming of a night's sleep
on a cardboard mattress and a hot meal,
but you will come home.
You arranged all this for me?
I have to get back.
You keep your head down, and you'll be fine.
Was it Crosley who sold me out?
Whole group is on your side, Sid.
I thought the group was disbanded.
We've been reinstated.
How?
Army changed its mind.
You saved your baby, Frank.
I told them you would.
Told them Frank always finds a way.
- Sid... - You said it yourself.
I can put two and two together.
Fifty-three-yard radius. Is that right?
I think so. I don't know.
- Where the hell is he? - Gentlemen.
Lost time is never found again, and you are wasting mine.
The plutonium will remain with Dr. Akley's group.
No, wait.
Let's do it.
- What? - That asshole in the suit,
get him back here. I'm ready to talk.
Stop!
MAN; Whoa!
What's going on, gentlemen?
It's not your fault.
We should have brought foot-longs, make it a weenie roast.
Barbecued Franks? You coming?
At least you got the kid out.
Without plutonium, we're useless.
Live to fight another day.
Could have been any one of 100 things,
rusty cylinder, moisture on the blasting caps.
Maybe they couldn't read your lousy handwriting.
What do you think it was?
I got distracted.
He's got my sidearm.
Get me a telephone.
Get me both gates. Both gates, please.
Okay, let's go.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, buddy.
- This ain't the Indy 500. - Sorry.
Got to see your pass.
Sir, could you please just open the gate?
Look, no tickee, no washee.
Sir, if you could please just open the gate.
Look, just show me your pass, and I'll open the gate.
Sir, I don't have my pass on me right now. I left it in my dorm room, okay?
- Please, sir? - All right, just...
Could you please just open the gate, please?
- Sit tight a minute. - Sir, please. Sir.
What did I do?
Ripped By mstoll