On the Beach

In a world already rife with doom and gloom, this award-winning ‘Doom & Gloom’ movie from 1959 will do little to lift anyone’s spirits… Nonetheless, with its depiction of human anxiety and despair following a nuclear blast, it remains a powerful and stark reminder that weapons of mass destruction were and continue to be part of an increasingly eerie reality.

Based on Nevil Shute’s 1957 novel of the same name, ON THE BEACH is set in 1964 (then the future), and WWIII has destroyed the entire Northern Hemisphere after a nuclear blast due to a cobalt bomb, which has killed all life (except cockroaches perhaps). Now, air currents are gradually carrying the fallout direction of the Southern Hemisphere. Only Australia (or Melbourne rather) still seems to be intact - but for how long? Against this bleaker than bleak scenario, faint radio signals from San Diego, California, seem to offer an unexpected glimmer of hope but once again, for how long? Submarine commander Dwight Towers (Gregory Peck) and his crew set out for Melbourne in their nuclear submarine, the ‘USS Sawfish’, to determine whether life really still does exist in Australia - a country that so far has been spared the consequences of the radioactive fallout.

That said, it seems to be only a matter of time before its citizens will also fall victim to the rapidly spreading deadly cloud. As they face a terrible fate, those condemned to an inevitable death react in different ways. Some plunge into an excessive frenzy of wild parties and decadence, while others view the suicide pills offered by the government as their only way out. One after another, we meet some of those individuals. There is Peter Holmes (Anthony Perkins), a young Australian (with an American accent…) whose nervous young wife Mary (Donna Anderson), who recently gave birth to the couple’s first child, fears the future, while Peter calmly reasons with her that suicide pills remain a final option - potentially taking their infant child with them. Meanwhile, nuclear physicist Julian Osborn (Fred Astaire - yes, the Fred Astaire if you can imagine such a thing) - feels guilt over the fact that he was involved in building the atomic bombs. With a reckless ‘the devil may care’ attitude, he competes at the Australian Grand Prix as other drivers, also with nothing left to lose, intentionally cause crashes that sees race cars bursting into flames. There’s romance in the air when Commander Towers, having arrived in Melbourne, meets Moira Davidson (Ava Gardner), a cynical and alcoholic party girl. Suffice to say it’s a romance doomed to fail and not just because Towers has a wife and children back in the US (who are likewise doomed). Faced with an impending apocalypse, the Holmes family and Towers and Moira pretend, if only for a little while, that things are still alright and spend jolly days on the beach, as most Aussies do.

If you expect action and chaotic scenes due to a possible breakdown of civilisation, then you won’t get it here. On The Beach places its emphasis on how humans react to a devastating situation they have no control over, though with a running time of 134 minutes, the film’s slow pace might not be to everyone’s taste. Equally not to everyone’s liking might be the constant use of the popular Australian folk ditty ‘Waltzing Matilda’ - played over and over in different variations. You’d be forgiven for thinking it’s the only song Australia ever produced! Admittedly, towards the end does the film confront us with some truly harrowing and thought-provoking scenarios, such as Osborn’s suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in his garage and the young Holmes family’s suicide via pills, which they swallow with tea while fondly remembering the day when they first met on the beach. There’s no happy ending for Moira and Commander Towers either, who chooses duty over his romantic feelings. The final image depicts a deserted Melbourne, looking like a ghost town and implying that the population there, too, has now perished. “There is still time… Brother” - reads a Salvation Army banner over the bowed head of a war memorial figure. Let’s hope there is still time!

ON THE BEACH has just been released on Blu-ray with the following Bonus Material:
Audio commentaries / Making-of featurettes / a tribute to director Stanley Kramer / a short film about Ava Gardner’s costumes / a 33-min film (‘Operation Hurricane’) about the first British atomic bomb test in the Monte Bello Islands in 1952 / original theatrical trailer / image gallery / collector’s booklet (first pressing only).