In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river…
TS Eliot, The Hollow Man (1925)
In 1959 the Doomsday Clock, established in 1947 by the
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to symbolize the threat of nuclear war, stood
at seven minutes to midnight. In 2026 it is just 85 seconds… the closest ever.
So, any attempt to review this film as a “period piece” is undermined by
proliferation and the persistent threat of global conflict involving weapons of
mass destruction.
I hadn't previously seen On the Beach, it sounds like an upbeat Cliff Richard musical with that title, but this is a Stanley Kramer film and
it could well be one of the most sobering ever made as the remnants of humanity
await the drift of the nuclear radiation down south to Australia. Yet, even in
the face of almost certain doom, there are new tales to tell and moments of
humanity, and warmth. It’s no longer that hard to place ourselves in the
mindset of 1959 when the Cold War was in full freeze and nuclear stockpiles
were already big enough for mutually assured destruction. Growing up through
the end of the Cold War we had every expectation that The Bomb would slowly be
defused… but there you go.
Directed by Kramer, sandwiched between The Defiant
Ones (1958) and Inherit the Wind (1960) this is another in his
string of films addressing topics Hollywood normally avoids. Adapted by John
Paxton from the novel of the same name by Australian writer Nevil Shute, it is
an unflinchingly clear view of what course human history could take just over a
decade after the World war which followed on from the War to End All Wars two
decades before. It wasn’t such an unreasoned expectation that conflicts were inevitable
even if the costs were to be so great and so universally unavoidable. We never
learn.
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| Gregory Peck |
It begins on a submarine, an illusion
of safety among the routine, under the auspices of Commander Dwight Lionel Towers played by Gregory
Peck, whose Mount Rushmore visage of wisdom and pained humanity opens in concerned
close up, scanning the seas for signs of life. They are heading south to Melbourne,
the last survivors of the US Navy which, like most of the planet has fallen
under a hail of nuclear weapons in a conflagration that is not explained but
which is still ongoing. The radiation of the war is mostly in the Northern hemisphere
but it is slowly being carried towards them… some months away.
The film gives us a scenario of slight hope with the submarine
being sent north to investigate the distribution of the radiation cloud, which according
to the theory, may be dispersing more quickly than at first thought leaving the
possibility of inhabitable land. At the same time, a series of morse code signals
are received from San Diego… is it possible that another group has managed to
survive?
In Melbourne though, life continues almost as normal with
the only real difference being the lack of gasoline and the city full of
cyclists, electric trams and horses. One of the local naval officers, Lieutenant
Peter Holmes (Anthony Perkins) is assigned to the Americans. He’s a family man
whose wife Mary (Donna Anderson) is in denial about their limited future and
who can blame her with a small child to protect.
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| Melbourne after the fall |
As Towers arrives he is met at the station by Moira
Davidson (Ava Gardner) who instantly catches his eye – as Ava Gardner is apt to
do… - although he is living as a man whose wife and children are somehow still
alive back in America. There’s also a British scientist, Julian Osborn (Fred
Astaire) who drinks too much mourning his involvement in the nuclear programme
and knowing exactly what is coming. Both Gardner and Astaire are magnificent
and give quite possibly some of their finest performances in the mid/late
careers, freed of the lightness of much of the material they had to work with
in this time. Both also have important roles to play in showing that there is
new life and new love even in the direst of circumstances as Julian rebuilds a
Ferrari racing car, winning a race that whilst it has a few too many crashes to
be anything other than “a ride through the mansions of glory in suicide
machines…”, does allow him one last hurrah. Peck is excellent of course as
convincing as ever as a man of duty and dignity who will follow his course no
matter what the personal cost.
He and Ava get to bring new romance to the final laps of
humanity as Moira and Towers get close as the reality of his situation finally
sets him free. But, for how long. The local authorities have dispensed suicide
pills to be used when the options are a slow death by radiation or nothing… Peter
and Mary have the hardest journey to take with their child, once the future now
requiring a desperate choice. Perkins is at his most sympathetic and young Donna
Anderson acquits herself well.
As the congregation outside the church starts to dimmish with
the coming of the summer winds, the banner reads that “there is still time Brother…”
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| Fred Astaire, Donna Anderson and Anthony Perkins watch a yacht race on the beach |
Scott Harrison, in one of two new commentaries, points
out the title is taken the verse at the top from TS Elliott’s poem The
Hollow Man. These beach is terminal* which presents a desolate landscape
and a state of moral destitution “it is not about hope or optimism but about when
we chose to give in to the inevitable and how we chose to live under a death
sentence. It may even – as the book – be about suicide. Most of all though, it
is a warning and one that stands to this day.
We still have this capacity to destroy whilst at the same
time are plunging the planet into a slow hot death with fossil fuels… this is
the science fiction of probabilities, a warning we have still to head and the
circumstances of which have only worsened over this new century. In this respect,
we are all Mary…
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| Anthony and Donna |
Special features:
Presented in High Definition
Audio commentary written by Dr
Philip Davey, author of When Hollywood Came to Melbourne
Newly commissioned audio
commentary by Scott Harrison
Making On the Beach
(1959, 9 mins): rare 8mm footage shot by amateur filmmaker Richard Goslin
Interview with Donna
Anderson (2015, 19 mins): the actor discusses her time working with the
cast and crew of On the Beach
Kim Newman on Apocalypse
Cinema (2022, 22 mins): the film critic deconstructs On the Beach and
discusses the socio-political environment in which the film emerged
Clothes to Die For: The
Costumes of Ava Gardner (2022, 16 mins): costume historian Elissa Rose
explores Ava Gardner’s impressive wardrobe in the film
A Tribute to Stanley Kramer
(2004, 14 mins): a celebration of Stanley Kramer’s life and career, featuring
interviews with screenwriter Abby Mann and Karen Sharpe, Kramer’s widow
Operation Hurricane
(1952, 33 mins): after the first Soviet atomic weapon was detonated in 1949,
the British accelerated the development of their own nuclear deterrent. This
haunting film documents the first atom bomb test on the Monte Bello Islands
Original theatrical trailer and galleries
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| Fred on form |
For the first pressing only there’s also an illustrated
booklet featuring new essays by Dr Christina Brennan and Barry Forshaw and a
biography of Stanley Kramer by Jennifer Frost. Also includes writing on
Operation Hurricane by the BFI’s Vic Pratt, notes on the special features and
film credits
In his commentary Scott Harrison reads out the most pertinent
and the most well-known closing section of Eliot’s poem, which aptly describes
the fate of these last few survivors. At the time one of the reviews has noted
that perhaps On the Beach could be the film that “saves the World” … well, it’s
getting its second chance now thanks to this excellent release.
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.
TS Eliot, The Hollow Man (1925)
You can order direct from the BFI Shop in person or online and from all good retailers of home cinema. Poignant, terrifying and sobering.
*JG Ballard’s Terminal Beach (1964), a short story based on a
man’s physical and mental deterioration on a nuclear testing site, may or may
not have been inspired by this film. There was something in the air and the
World came very close with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962… ever closer to midnight.
