Hollywood radiation suits. These are screen caps from "The Deadly Mantis". The 200 ft praying mantis these guys are fighting was not born of atomic testing, just a prehistoric delinquent frozen

in a glacier. They're always so cranky when they get thawed out!

At the movies finale the pesky insectoid is cornered in the Lincoln Tunnel and killed with big hand grenades filled with Raid. [No kidding.] In which case these guys are well protected because these are not radiation suits. These are 1950s chemical protection suits, used by hapless rocketeers who got to fuel primitive missiles with fun stuff like nitric acid, benzene and anything else that was super-corrosive and explosive.

As far as I can find there never has been a garment that will protect it's wearer from hard radiation- nasty gamma rays handed out by pulsing glowing reactors and such.

An effective anti-radiation suit would need to be lined with lead and lots of it. Think of that half a bullet proof vest the dentist plops over you when he's going to shoot you full of x-rays. Now imagine a whole set of pajamas of the stuff. Can't even move in the thing, let alone fight monsters with a flame thrower!

But these, hope there's no leaks or I'll dissolve, freeze and burn-up, suits look just great and made appearences in many of the sci-fi movies of the era.

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Nasty stuff that radiation. Can't see it, taste it, smell it or rely on B grade science fiction movies to tell you what to do about it. Oh well. Hand me another can of that Raid will ya?

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sorry about the poor picture quality- 1957 was a good year for movie monsters!