The French title is "le dernier rivage"(the last shore)The intellectuals dismiss this movie in France and I've always thought they were wrong.Ava Gardner had never been better with the eventual exception of Huston's "night of the iguana".My favorite part is the central one:one of the soldiers tries to find the cause for the strange Morse signals.He crosses bleak dead San Francisco harbor (the camera takes prodigious high angle shots of him,making us share his loneliness and his hope against hope)Hope that was to be short-lived!What a symbol,this equivalent of a bottle thrown into the sea!So few special effects,ans so much emotion.Stanley Kramer's peak.

"On the Beach" is an exceptional and grim film--one I strongly recommend. However, before I get to the good (and there's a lot of good),I can't help but bring up the film's biggest shortcoming--the casting of Americans in roles that by all rights SHOULD have gone to Australian actors. Of the Americans pretending to be Aussies, at least Anthony Perkins attempts an accent. It's bad and he forgets it a lot, but at least he tried. But what about the rest? Ava Gardner and Fred Astaire?! Now I loved both of them in the film--they were great and convincing Americans...but they were not cast as Americans! Why did they feel a need to do this? It took an otherwise realistic film and deadened the impact.

The film is a grim apocalyptic film about worldwide nuclear contamination as a result of an all-out nuclear war. You assume it was the US and USSR, but the film never says--not a bad decision, as it could have also involved other countries, but as they later said in the film, does it really matter who started it?! After all, the entire planet is paying the price. However, it is not in a manner many would assume--it is NOT a planet blown to pieces, but a cloud of radioactivity that very slowly spreads that wiped out the human race. By the beginning of the film, an American sub is in Australia--one of the last parts of the world still alive--as the Northern hemisphere is apparently dead. And, sadly, it appears as if it's only a matter of time until the cloud spreads everywhere and no one is left.

In light of this impending death, Gregory Peck (who is in command of the sub) takes it on an expedition to find out if there are signs of life. While the cities are intact, the people all are apparently dead. So the rest of the film is an extremely well written and well acted waiting game...waiting for the seemingly inevitable end.

Some may see this as a "left-wing" film, however, nuclear annihilation was a serious worry back in 1959 and so the film does not seem unduly alarmist--just a call to everyone about how serious and deadly nuclear war could be. And I assume no one--not even the craziest of the crazies--would want that! Unrelentingly grim yet compelling--a wonderful but sad film. Too bad the casting was so bad.

Released in 1959, the apocalypse of On the Beach allegedly took place in 1964. We missed it, but it sure doesn't mean it still can't happen. Maybe now more than ever. But probably not in the way it happens here.

That's one of the awful things about On the Beach, they don't know what happened. Scientists among the survivors in Australia speculate, but they don't really know. Interesting however that their speculations led to the future film scenarios in Failsafe and Doctor Strangelove. But as Ava Gardner said, she didn't do anything so why is she and all the rest still left south of the equator doomed.

Nuclear war has occurred and the result was total annihilation of life in the Northern Hemisphere. The nuclear powered submarine U.S.S. Sawfish was submerged and sailed south until land with people was found in Australia. Still people like Gregory Peck can't get it into their heads that everything they knew and loved is gone.

Still though he finds time for a romantic interlude with Ava Gardner as the Australians and those who made it to their shore size up the situation and it ain't good and no options for hope.

Nevil Shute's apocalyptic novel was filmed in Australia and it leaves a good ring of authenticity. Anthony Perkins gives an earnest portrayal of the young officer in the Royal Australian Navy though he does slip in and out of the Aussie accent.

Besides the message of On the Beach the main publicity about the film concerned Fred Astaire in his first straight dramatic part. He got rave reviews from astonished critics and deservedly so, playing a nuclear scientist who know amuses himself by indulging in a secret fantasy to become an auto racer.

This film was hated, still hated by right wing critics everywhere because of its total pessimism. The religious right particularly doesn't like this film because the apocalypse arrives and there's no divine intervention, even just to save God's Elect whomever they might be. It's just the end of life and the promise that future visitors to the planet might piece together the story of what happened as does the crew of the Starship Enterprise finding a devastated world or two on their mission to seek out life. Yes, it could happen to us.

I think that what Stanley Kramer was trying to tell us is that whatever created this universe left it in the hands of those who inhabit it to do what they could with it or any corner thereof. It's our responsibility to find a way to live together and respect each other and our differences or annihilate ourselves. It's not easy, but it's that simple.

Maybe we'll learn that lesson and On the Beach is a good teacher.