When I was a kid, I saw that a Frankie Avalon type film was going to be on TV called On the Beach
Needless to say, I was a bit shocked, doubly so when you see it falls into the category of films like Miracle Mile and The Rapture, where you’re wondering “Is this really happening??”
The barest attempt at accents would make Kevin Costner blush though. At least Anthony Perkins is consistent with whatever it is he’s doing. “Bright and curt” would be how I would describe it.
The science is wonky. But replace world-wide cloud of radiation with “Nuclear Winter” and it works.
Interestingly Donna Anderson, who plays Perkins wife, only had 14 credits over 25 years. This was her first film, and she did Inherit the Wind next. Not too shabby. She’s actually still alive.
A pretty dreary flick overall - the author of the novel, Nevil Shute, did not care for the adaptation - it is highlighted by the last running of the Australian Grand Prix featuring a plethora of cool cars, including: Jaguar XK150, Jaguar D-Type, Porsche 356, Mercedes-Benz (Gullwing) 300SL, AC Ace, Corvette, Swallow Dorett, among others. Some of these cars never worked again. This sequence added some much-welcome action to the story and had a different cinematographer (Daniel Fapp) than the rest of the film (Giuseppe Rotunno), perhaps because much of the race was actually shot in Riverside, CA (and in a studio where Fred Astaire pretended to drive in front of a rear projection screen) rather than Australia.
I recommend the book “Slide Rule”: writer’s autobiography. Interesting read
From Wikipedia: "Many of his books have been adapted for the screen, including
[Lonely Road] in 1936;
[Landfall: A Channel Story]in 1949;
[Pied Piper] in 1942 and again in 1959, and also as Crossing to Freedom, a CBS [made-for-television] movie, in 1990;
[On the Beach] in 1959 and again in 2000 as a two-part miniseries;
[No Highway] 1951.
[A Town Like Alice] was adapted into a film in 1956, serialised for [Australian television]and also broadcast on [BBC Radio 2] in 1997
[The Far Country] was filmed for television as six one-hour episodes in 1972, and as a two-part miniseriesin 1987.
The book is very similar to the movie. That last shot of the Swordfish going down below the sea, as Ava Gardner watches from a cliff, is chilling. I think it is a very good movie, though the endless ‘Waltzing Matilda’ grows a bit tiresome.
It’s a great movie (notwithstanding the junk science–I mean the concept and execution are great, but as a former nuclear engineer, I do have my quirks), but I’m curious about the historical influence. Would you be willing to expand on that?
And junk military tactics. You’re tell me, film, that in an all-out nukular confrontation with the Rooskies that San Diego, one of the largest military installations, wasn’t nuked down to bedrock? There’d be nothing left to explore, so no one would have to worry about radiation clouds looking for non-existent radios.
They could have just changed it to some small coastal town, and who would have cared?
This was the first significant film to seriously address the issue of nuclear war. Gregory Peck had.opposed the use of nuclear weapons even going back to the US use of nuclear weapons against Japan. This was not a popular view in 1959 that only began emerging at that time. IMO this movie has an important effect on social attitudes concerning nuclear weapons.
Forget the junk science and military tactics, you couldn’t expect anything else in a movie at the time, and the Defense Dept. did not cooperate with the making of the movie.
I first saw “On the Beach” on TV when I was about 10 years old, in 1962. I consider it the first really adult-themed motion picture I had seen up to that point, and being a child during the Cold War, it had an effect on me. It was also the time of “The Twilight Zone,” and Rod Serling touched on the subject of nuclear annihilation on several occasions. Us kids were steeped in the idea.
Despite the scientific improbability of the story, I still think “On the Beach” is a fine film, earnestly and realistically performed by an outstanding cast, including song-and-dance man Fred Astaire in his first dramatic role. The part in which Peck and his crew travel to infected waters to track down the source of the morse code broadcast is outstanding, even if you already know what it is. And the sailor who jumps ship in order to die at home is heartbreaking.
I’ve read the book several times and go back to it every few years, much as I do Richard Matheson’s “I Am Legend.” It’s the fatalist in me, I suppose.
One other thought about “On the Beach.” It was probably the absolute longest movie I’d ever seen on one VHS tape. Back in the old days some VHS VCRs had “counters” instead of run times. I seem to recall that 5500 was about the time for a two-hour movie. “On the Beach” clocked in at 7000.
An apocryphal quote attributed to Ava Gardner - “On the Beach is a story about the end of the world, and Melbourne sure is the right place to film it.”
“These people, kind of like on the Titanic, were civil and good to each other,” she says. “They didn’t go crazy because they were dying.”
Thats one of the first things I noticed. They KNOW they’re going to die in six months or so. And yet one of the first shots of the city is everyone dutifully going to work, fully dressed to do so. Everyone riding bikes or horses.