The House in the Middle
The House in the Middle is the title of two American documentary film shorts, respectively from 1953 and 1954, which showed the effects of a nuclear bomb test on a set of three small houses. The black-and-white 1953 film was created by the Federal Civil Defense Administration to attempt to show that a clean, freshly painted house is more likely to survive a nuclear attack than its poorly maintained counterparts. A color version was released the next year by the, a "bureau" invented by the National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Association trade group.
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.
Footage for the film was recorded during the Upshot-Knothole Encore test at the Nevada Test Site on May 8, 1953.
