ON THE BEACH: Post-Nuclear WWIII, Apocalyptic Sci Fi Film Set In Australia

[appalachiablue]

Last edited Mon Jan 6, 2020, 11:57 PM - Edit history (1)

Promo, 4 mins.- On the Beach is a 1959 American post-apocalyptic science fiction drama film from United Artists, produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, that stars Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, and Anthony Perkins. This black-and-white film is based on Nevil Shute's 1957 novel of the same name depicting the aftermath of a nuclear war. Unlike in the novel, no one is assigned blame for starting the war; the film hints that global annihilation may have arisen from an accident or misjudgment. In early 1964 (five years in the future), in the months following World War III, the conflict has devastated the Northern Hemisphere, killing all humans after polluting the atmosphere with nuclear fallout.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_(1959_film).

- [Nevil] Shute was a Briton. But no novel could be more explicitly Australian than On the Beach, set in his new home town of Melbourne. Nor could any novel make such provocative creative use of our distance from the rest of the world: as the last habitable continent, Australia is suddenly the most important place on Earth, at the very moment of its greatest impotence and ignorance, awaiting dooming winds from an incomprehensible war in the northern hemisphere.
Shute published arguably Australia's most important novel - important in the sense of confronting a mass international audience with the defining issue of the age. On the Beach, the story of humankind's thermonuclear extinction, sold more than 4 million copies. Shute was the first genuinely popular mainstream novelist to envision apocalypse, and one of only a handful to see the horrific mission through by leaving no survivors - just a silent irradiated planet, adrift in space.

Australians were shocked to see themselves so cast. Helen Caldicott, then a 19-year-old medical student, was radicalised into a lifetime of anti-nuclear activism: "Shute's story haunted me ... Nowhere was safe. I felt so alone, so unprotected by the adults, who seemed to be unaware of the danger." But it was in the US that the book had its greatest impact, rousing readers from an uneasy stupor and becoming one of the Cold War's most powerful cultural artefacts...
https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2007/june/1268876839/gideon-haigh/shute-messenger

Scene about 'background radiation levels' with Fred Astaire, others.

'Waltzing Matilda,' the film's theme song. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltzing_Matilda

[greatauntoftriplets]

1. That was an excellent movie.

It's been years since I've seen it, but the acting was spectacular.

[appalachiablue]

2. Stunned that I never heard of this film until this week..

Better late than never, for real.

[greatauntoftriplets]

3. It's wonderfully acted.

I was probably about 10 when I first saw it, and found it to be horrible affecting. Not surprising for someone who grew up having air raid drills at school. The book also is excellent.

[appalachiablue]

7. When I read about it, it reminded me of 'Ship of Fools' also

by Stanley Kramer. Another film about 'doom,' human relations and worldwide conflict.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Fools_(film)

[greatauntoftriplets]

9. I've never seen that.

I'll look into it. Thanks.

[msongs]

4. watch on youtube...

[appalachiablue]

8. Thanks for posting.

[unc70]

5. On of the most haunting movies ever for me

Somewhat dated, but I can never listen to Waltzing Matilda the same way.

[Srkdqltr]

6. How wierd.

I saw the movie and read the book. Yesterday I looked up the story to refresh my memory. WOW.

[yonder]

10. The title came up in another DU thread today

causing me to think about rereading/rewatching it. It's an excellent book and certainly apropos to our time. The poignant resignation to their ultimate fate is what I remember most.

[appalachiablue]

11. Yup, it was also mentioned in threads yesterday, hence this post.

Need to make time to watch the entire film, YouTube.

[Nitram]

12. Classic anti-nuclear war movie. "Fail Safe" was another.

[appalachiablue]

14. FAIL SAFE: Cold War Era Thriller, The US Heads to Nuclear War with The Soviet Union.

Promo, 3 mins. 'Fail Safe,' (1964), directed by Sidney Lumet, featuring Henry Fonda as the US president. One of 3 films about possible nuclear annihilation made after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962- Fail Safe, Dr. Strangelove and Seven Days In May. - This unnerving procedural thriller painstakingly details an all-too-plausible nightmare scenario in which a mechanical failure jams the US military’s chain of command and sends the country hurtling toward nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
Working from a contemporary best seller, screenwriter Walter Bernstein and director Sidney Lumet wrench harrowing suspense from the doomsday fears of the Cold War era, making the most of a modest budget and limited sets to create an atmosphere of clammy claustrophobia and astronomically high stakes. Starring Henry Fonda as a coolheaded U.S. president and Walter Matthau as a trigger-happy political theorist, Fail Safe is a long-underappreciated alarm bell of a film, sounding an urgent warning about the deadly logic of mutually assured destruction. https://www.criterion.com/films/28825-fail-safe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fail_Safe_(1964_film)

(X-post from Video & MM, https://www.democraticunderground.com/1017563908)

[appalachiablue]

15. "Dr. Strangelove" (1964) Stanley Kubrick director, Peter Sellers, George C. Scott.

Promo, 4 mins. - Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, more commonly known simply as Dr. Strangelove, is a 1964 political satire black comedy film that satirizes the Cold War fears of a nuclear conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. The film was directed, produced, and co-written by Stanley Kubrick, stars Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden and Slim Pickens. Production took place in the United Kingdom. The film is loosely based on Peter George's thriller novel Red Alert (1958).

The story concerns an unhinged United States Air Force general who orders a first strike nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. It follows the President of the United States, his advisors, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a Royal Air Force (RAF) officer as they try to recall the bombers to prevent a nuclear apocalypse. It separately follows the crew of one B-52 bomber as they try to deliver their payload... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove

[Nitram]

17. Strangelove is my personal favorite.

[FailureToCommunicate]

13. I was ten when I saw it. Haunted me for years. But, it just added to the

dread of the Cold War, hide-under-our-desks drills insanity we were all doing in school...

It became hard to think of planning for future goals, what with a Nike missile site a mile from our back yard, and Russia putting missiles into Cuba...

[ewagner]

16. I was only slightly older...

but the movie had the same effect on me...initially I had recurring nightmares.

My father was U.S. Navy aviation...Heavy Attack...carried nukes aboard aircraft carriers...I knew it...that's why I didn't sleep.

[FailureToCommunicate]

18. My father was land based. The idea from that movie, that there would be all these

ballistic missle carrying subs, that either could mistakenly launch when they got an erroneous message when they surfaced, OR that after a massive exchange, could just go on sailing for some time longer after anyone on land were blown to bits, only to surface to find an incinerated world. Living perhaps a few weeks longer, knowing their loved on were likely all dead...

Horrifying.

[ewagner]

20. Horrifying indeed! n/t

[woodsprite]

19. My parents saw it. Said that everyone exited in silence

There were people handing out bottles of iodine tablets as they left the theater and doomsayers in sandwich board signs calling for people to repent. She said she, my dad, and grandparents didn’t talk until they got home. She said it really scared them.