annihilation through matinee creature features centred around giant irradiated mon- sters or warmongering other- worldly invaders, but at the end of the decade Stanley Kramer made a film for adults that tack- les those apocalyptic anxieties head-on. Based on Nevil Shute’s 1957 novel of the same name, On the Beach (1959) begins as the world is ending. Set in the then-near-future of 1964, after World War III results in massive nuclear destruction, the story follows a group of characters based in Melbourne, Australia, where, even though the city avoided getting bombed directly, it’s only a matter of time before the winds blow clouds of deadly nuclear fallout its way. Gregory Peck stars as General Towers, commander of an American sub-
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marine that sets a course for the decimated US after strange Morse Code messages are received. Ava Gardner is his alcoholic love interest Moira, who stays behind in Australia. Anthony Perkins plays naval officer Peter Holmes, who joins the voyage, leaving behind a young daughter and a wife who’s in denial about the coming End Times. In one scene, she goes into hysterics after he tries to show her how – when the time comes – she can euth- anize the baby and kill herself with government-issued suicide pills. In addition, Fred Astaire plays scientist Julian Osborne, who decides to spend his remaining time living out his fantasies, including organizing a dangerous car race. After discovering that the Morse Code signal was caused by a bottle being bounced off the telegraph ma- chine by shutters moving in the breeze, the naval expedi- tion returns to Australia, where radiation sickness is beginning to take hold, and the various characters must decide how they want to spend their final hours. While On the Beach kept the novel’s brazenly nihilistic
ending, the film deviates from the source material most notably in the rela- tionship between Towers and Moira. While the characters develop roman- tic feelings for each other in the novel, they never consummate the relationship, which is heavily suggested in the film. Both Shute and Peck were upset with this choice. Shute wanted to depict humanity as behaving nobly at the end of the world, and believed
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orror films of the 1950s are known for dealing with the Cold War threat of invasion and nuclear
strongly that Towers should have remained true to his deceased wife. The film, however, portrays a more emotional, compli- cated and ultimately real- istic tale. Another key change from page to screen is in the placing of blame. Unlike the book, the movie doesn’t attribute the nuclear holocaust to any particular nation, instead emphasizing that the prob- lem is truly global. There are no monsters or aliens to defeat here.
Melbourne is still a functioning city with parties and restaurants, and the characters go on living their lives (in some cases for the first time) as the clock runs out – an idea in line with the political climate at the time. The real horror of On the Beach is that there is no third act miracle. This was shocking to film audiences in 1959, who ate up the movie as a cautionary tale, and made it a box-office hit. (It earned Academy Award nominations for Best Score and Best Editing, as well.) On the Beach proved that moviegoers were ready
for heavier stories that were more engaging than es- capist, which helped usher in the modern, less fan- tastical genre films of the late ’60s and ’70s. George Romero, Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper and John Carpen- ter would all come to realize during those ensuing decades – with films such as Night of the Living Dead, The Last House on the Left, The Texas Chain- saw Massacre and Halloween – that humans were the most terrifying creatures of all. On the Beach may have dealt with a global crisis, but it was crucial in looking inward to scare, rather than outward at for- eign, fantastical threats. It would, of course, also pave the way for the cycle of unnervingly realistic movies about nuclear war that were made in the ’80s – as the Cold War flared up when the United States and
the Soviet Union intensified the nuclear arms race (and traded dooms- day phrases, including “mutually assured mass destruction”) – such as Threads, The Day After, Miracle Mile, Testament and When the Wind Blows. All of these films that scared a generation can be traced directly back to On the Beach. ALEXANDRA WEST