On The Beach

On The Beach is a film that no doubt made more sense in the late 50s Cold War era than it does today. Set slightly in the future in 1964 and in Melbourne, Australia, it concerns a small group of survivors of a nuclear war who are waiting for the inevitable drift of radiation to kill them. Anthony Perkins, who plays an Australian Navy lieutenant, becomes obsessed with suicide, Fred Astaire drinks and plays with cars and Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner have an affair.

With such an unremittingly gloomy scenario the black and white film, based on a novel by Neville Shute, is more a lugubriously and rather laboriously conventional chamber drama than in anyway a convincing end-of-the-world film and as a result one tends to dwell on its shortcomings such as the woefully mis-cast Fred Astaire's hairpiece, Ava Gardner's cellulite and Anthony Perkin's bad acting than in any way feel connected to the doomed people.

Kramer clearly was principally interested in the psychological effects of the apocalyptic scenario on his characters and had but a perfunctory knowledge of Australia and no interest in realism, his concession to local colour being groups of drunk males singing Waltzing Matilda interminably (in one scene when Anthony Perkins kisses his wife, an off-camera voice calls out something like "Give it to her, mate"). There is however some nice contemporary footage of Melbourne and Frankston and John Meillon gets the best scene in the film as an American sailor who jumps ship.

FYI: A 2013 documentary, Fallout, examines the film's making and Shute's life-story.

 

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