Explosives: Tool for Progress (film #5 on AV Geeks). [Category: Industrial]

This 70s film asserts that we owe everything good in our modern society entirely––not to railroads, not to aluminum, not to crop spraying, not even to truck farmers––but to blowing things up, a sentiment every boy will agree with. Unfortunately, they don’t really get around to blowing things up real good until the end of the film. Until then, we get lots of scenes of construction projects in Manhattan, the Grand Coulee Dam, and the Panama Canal, with a scene of a very 70s housewife and her little girl baking a pie in a very 70s kitchen thrown in for good measure. Consequently, the film is not quite as much fun as it sounds––by the end of the film, all fans of explosions will be chanting “Blast ‘em! Blast ‘em! Blast ‘em!” over and over again. For real explosion fun, I say stick with the atomic bomb films of the 50s.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***.