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Czech filmmaker Otakar Vavra, whose career weathered four decades and innumerable political upheavals, was the guiding force behind 1948's Krakatit. Based on a novel by Karel Capek (of RUR fame), the film is a cautionary fable about atomic energy. The "good guys" include Prokop (Karek Hoger) and Wilhelmina (Florence Marly); the villains are all suspiciously Germanic in speech and behavior. The plot proper gets under way when atomic scientist Prokop vows that his secrets will never fall into the Wrong Hands--of which there are quite a few. The climax finds an evil scientist arranging a radio-controlled nuclear holocaust. Krakatit was not released in the U.S. until three years after its completion.