On the Beach
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Movie Reviews of On the Beach
Movie Review: A FILM MASTERPIECE
Summary: 5 Stars
.....Stanley Kramer was no stranger to controversy and he certainly took the bull by the horns when he tackled Nevil Shute's post-apocalyptic drama and brought it to the screen in 1959. The United States and Russia were locked in a nuclear standoff and no one wanted to consider the consequences of what the results would be if the unthinkable happened.
.....The setting of the story was 1964, just a few scant years in the future, and opens with submarine Cmdr Dwight Towers steaming into an Australian port where the surviving members of the human race await their grim inevitable fate. Scientists have predicted that based on weather patterns that it will take four months for the radioactive cloud of dust to reach Australia and that the lethal levels would mean the extinction of all inhabitants, the end of mankind.
.....The story centers on five survivors and how they cope with the last four months of their lives. Forty three year old Gregory Peck gives his usual strong performance as the submarine commander who cannot accept the fact that his wife and two children are dead and he still speaks of a future with them in it.
.....Ava Gardner was 37 when this movie was made and she gives the performance of her lifetime as the dissolute social butterfly who has wasted her life in shallow relationships and booze and desperately wants someone to love.
.....Tony Perkins who plays Lt Peter Holmes, a newly wed with a young wife and daughter gives a fine performance in a tough role. This was one year before he starred in Psycho, the movie that branded him forever as "Norman Bates".
.....Fred Astaire brings just the right amount of cynical sophistication to his role as one of the scientists who helped develop the bomb. He deserved, but did not get, the best supporting actor award for his performance. That dubious distinction went to Burl Ives for his role in Big Country.
.....Twenty year old Donna Anderson plays the part of Mary, Tony Perkin's young wife who cannot accept her inevitable fate and irrationally hopes for a miracle. This was her screen debut and she made only one other movie, another Kramer directed controversial film, "Inherit the Wind".
.....The critics who panned this film for being too slow and talky, Rottentomatoes only gave it 72%, did not understand what the movie was all about. It was about humans and how they relate to each other and Kramer does a masterful job of bringing those poignant frailities to the screen.
.....Best movie in 1959 went to Gigi, best director was Vincent Minelli for Gigi and best actress was Susan Hayward for "I want to Live". Kramer's movie was a Classic Masterpiece that is just as relevant today as it was when it was released in 1959. I believe the reason this movie was passed over by the acadamey was because the theme was too bleak and grim. People did not want to face their fears and the stark reality that was just over the horizon. They wanted lollypops and sugar plums. They wanted entertainment and amusement and went to the movies to escape. On the Beach was the reality they were trying to escape from. In my estimation, On the Beach was the best movie of 1959, Stanley Kramer was the best Director, Ava Gardner was the best actress and Fred Astaire was the best supporting actor.
.....In 2000, Hollywood profaned this movie with a remake starring Rachel Ward and Armand Assante. This abomination did not even try to stay true to the original story.
.....If you like to collect great movies, I recommend the 1959 version of On the Beach. You might have to watch it several times to really appreciate the genius of Stanley Kramer. Kramer's movie was a Classic Masterpiece.
Movie Review: Even more impressive given the time of its release.
Summary: 5 Stars
On the Beach (Stanley Kramer, 1959)
I saw this movie weeks ago, and honestly, I'm still trying to get my head around the idea that Anthony Perkins wasn't playing someone who was doomed while everyone else around him thrived (as per Psycho or The Trial, naturally). However, it's not too much of a stretch; Perkins' character, Peter Holmes, is most certainly doomed. But here, so is everyone else.
In case you've never read the book (and let me tell you here that you should do so at your earliest convenience, as it's a smashing read), the premise: the world has gone through a nuclear war, and most of it is devastated. In fact, the only place on Earth humans still reside is Australia. They've been living there for a while in relative comfort, but now there's word of a cloud of radiation sweeping down from Russia, and so the Australians know they're living on borrowed time. While most of them are leading lives of the expected hedonism--after all, when there's no future to prepare for, why not live every day as if it's your last?--the navy are still conducting missions to gauge the speed and direction of the cloud. Amidst all this, an American nuclear sub, commanded by Lionel Towers (Gregory Peck), comes to town with what could be amazing news. They've picked up a distress signal from San Francisco, California. The Americans, with a handful of Australian volunteers (including Peter Holmes), head for the northern coast of America to find out if there's anyone still alive in the northern hemisphere.
The movie remains somewhat faithful to the book, though it's a pretty loose adaptation (as usual in the fifties, Hollywood felt the need to inject romantic subplots into everything). Taken as its own creature, though, On the Beach, the film version, is a stunning piece of work, not only because of the movie itself, but because Hollywood in the fifties was not exactly known for its doomsaying. If you made a movie in Hollywood in the fifties, even if it was a monster movie (think, for example, of The Day the Earth Stood Still, Them!, or The Thing from Another World), you had to tack on a happy, or at least optimistic, ending. Not for On the Beach, whose final scene is one of Hollywood's most heart-wrenching, even though you've known all along it was coming.
Needless to say, when you have a director of Stanley Kramer's ability heading up a cast that contains not only Peck and the usually-underrated Perkins, but Ava Gardner as Peck's love interest and Fred Astaire in the movie that proved he could do drama just as well as musical comedy, you've got the potential to create a timeless classic. And even this early in his career, Kramer was no stranger to creating classics; the film he made before this was The Defiant Ones. (His next was Inherit the Wind.) As expected, this is great stuff, gripping and relentless. The shadow of extinction hangs over every scene. Even the love scenes. (Especially the love scenes, actually.) Kramer pulled off a masterpiece here. If you've never seen it, get it on your Netflix list pronto. **** ½
Movie Review: A great movie, but like a nightmare.
Summary: 5 Stars
First, the not so important point. Yes, perhaps this movie is "dated" - in the sense that the Cold War is "over" and that the general consensus seems to be that nuclear war is far less likely today than ever before. Maybe that is true, but nuclear war is not this movie's main focus.As another reviewer has written, this movie is about how individuals deal differently with an impending and inevitable death. The nuclear element is important in this regard, because clearly the main characters would not react the same way to, say, a terminal illness in which only they would die. It is the reaction to the world as we know it coming to an end which gives this movie it's haunting, timeless intrigue. To frame the content of this movie in any political context is in my opinion a huge mistake which simply distracts from the enjoyment of the film.
But "enjoyment" is really the wrong word here. This movie, perhaps more than any other in my collection (and I have well over 200), may be the most painful and depressing to watch. And it's impact only increased once I got married and had children. The characters are suffering not because of their deaths as much as for those who they love. This emotion is transferred to the viewer with the delicacy of a nine-pound hammer (even if you have seen the movie multiple times).
Ava Gardner and Anthony Perkins may seem to steal the show from the stoic Gregory Peck, but I think this is really a misinterpretation. It is clear that denial is Peck's main weapon against the awful crisis, but he acts his part almost too well - what seems almost like "indifference" to his wife and children's deaths (he is able to smile, occasionally laugh and eventually have an "affair" with Gardner) is simply a defense mechanism which he cannot or dare not control. His is the saddest role, to me. Fred Astaire also turns in a stellar performance as well. Actually, the whole cast is excellent.
This movie may not have the same impact with the "under 40" crowd. I suppose the movie could have been played out similarly had the earth been, say, struck by a meteor - it's dust cloud slowly reigning death over the rest of the planet, but it would not have nearly the eerie, gut-wrenching quality it does as with the nuclear scenario, which has been indelibly imprinted on probably every baby-boomers brain in modern society.
I have many times pulled this movie out to watch it only to change my mind and put it back for another day - it's emotional impact on me has been that strong. That being said, it's a 5-star movie with great acting that should not be missed and that everyone should see at least once.
Movie Review: You'll Never Catch Me Alive, Said He
Summary: 5 Stars
This film deserves a lot of credit for forcing you to contemplate the slow, creeping, inevitable extinction of everything. I saw it when I was 8 years old, and it SEARED my imagination. For the two previous halloweens, my father had persuaded me to dress up like a Polaris Missile(When you care enough to send the very best). He had worked on the propulsion team for the Polaris at the Skunkworks, and set up the first nuclear weapons depot for the Atlantic Submarine fleet. You could say I could relate. They taught us to duck and cover, in grade school. People need to reflect on the many and various pathways, biological, chemical, nuclear, environmental, that could bring about a collapse of the human population on a grand scale. The tragedy of the Fukushima reactors should remind us of the ever present potential for radioactive devastation, not to mention the millions of radioactive boars running amok in the Black Forest!
There are several moments in this film that are, to this day, so poignant as to be unbearable--the lonely American Submariner, wandering the empty streets of San Francisco, where I had wandered only weeks before seeing the film in theatres--Listening to the beautiful tenor voice singing out Waltzing Matilda in the midst of an Australian thunderstorm--the young naval officer trying to persuade his wife to take the cyanide pills he was offering, while he was away, begging her to think of the baby left alone if she should succumb to radiation death and leave a starving defenseless infant--all of these images had a powerful, provocative impact on the human mind.
Even though the two great Superpowers have backed down the doomsday clock, somewhat, the potential for death and destruction by the hands of humankind remain high--one only has to look at the devolutionary forces sweeping America and the mad delusions of self styled prophets to wonder if the pellets of poison that are flooding our waters are already precipitating a mass derangement. In many ways, Nuclear Winter is a more comforting scenario than the relentless nonsense of jack booted know nothing jingo extremists who appear to be melting down in utter psychosis before our very eyes...this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper...
Movie Review: A Place in Time When People Seemed to Care More
Summary: 5 Stars
I remember my parents taking me to this film--at a drive-in, no less. This was the era of "The Blob" and other teen-crazie epics. ON THE BEACH is a serious, thought-provoking film--and it found a deep--if silent--response not only in mature people, but with teens as well.
It reached a deep level of the heart with a generation of folks who seemed to care more about went on in the world around them.
On the casting level, it was brilliant. The teaming of Eva Gardner & Gregory Peck may seem odd at first glance, but the chemistry was undeniable. The earthy beauty of Eva matched with the intellectual integrity of Gregory.
Wow.
Fred Astaire, remembered for his rather fatuous but technically brilliant dance routines, turns in a flawless delivery as Eva's one time lover and now cynical, lonely race car enthusiast.
The scenario is the end of the world, a world doomed by a nuclear war that no one assumes responsibility for. Nobody is quite sure how it all began, but they do know how it will end. Australia is the only land mass left where humans (or any other animals) are still alive--and its days are numbered.
There are so many poignant scenes: Masses of people, families, obediently lining up for their State-issued cyanide capsules.
The Salvation Army singing for redemption...and one by one even their numbers begin to diminish.
The young mother clutching at denial, while her loving husband (Anthony Perkins in a great performance) is forced to make the final decisions on his own.
Toward the conclusion of the film, Gregory Peck is forced to leave his new (and last) love alone in Australia when his crew votes to return "home" (USA) to die.
The final image is poignant in its simplicity:
Eva Gardner walking alone on the cliff as Peck's submarine sails off. At least she has rediscovered her dignity in her final relationship.
There is a more recent remake of this film that I haven't seen. It may be very good, but after viewing the original version again, I don't have any impulse to see it. I want to leave this memory & experience intact.