Movie Details
| Title: | On The Beach | |
| Director: | Stanley Kramer | |
| Year: | 1959 | |
| Genre: | Apocalypse | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 11.10.05 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (2)
- Inherit the Wind
- It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 11.10.05 | DVR | This Screening is part of event: DVRfest 2005 On The Beach is a story of a submarine captain and several others living in Melbourne, Australia waiting for the radioactive fallout from WWIII to reach them. I don't know if it's the first post-apocalyptic movie ever made but it's definitely the earliest that I've seen and also the best cast. Gregory Peck, Antohny Perkins, Fred Astaire (not dancing), and Ava Gardner are all in this, as is the stunningly beautiful Donna Anderson (who aside from this and Inherit the Wind never really did much acting of note)... all playing up this really A-list picture that just happens to be about the death of the human race. It's understandable, 1959 being the heart of nuclear fear, that the film is populated with preachy little monologues about humanity pushing the button and how we're all stupid to create such weapons we must never use... but just think about the idea of it... sitting down there in Australia, the last ones left, just waiting for the cloud. A glimmer of hope appears - maybe the rainfall and weather of nuclear winter has slowed or even stopped the drift of radioactive death. Let's send a submarine on a mission to test the waters and see how it looks. There's also a great mystery in this movie in the form of random morse code blips coming from San Diego. It's unintelligible but how does San Diego have power? Who's making these random blips? Will humanity carry on and survive or is all lost? It's a very gripping movie with wonderful performances and gorgeous black and white photography. Aside from some non-existent regional accents from the Hollywood stars, it's actually quite realistic in tone. I hadn't seen this in a long time and was glad to find that it's still as great as I remember. Now it's late and I should probably go to bed. There's only one movie left though! And I know it's just not going to be the same if i go to bed and watch it tomorrow during the day. |
