On the Beach (1959) – Stanley Kramer – BFI Blu Ray
One of the extras on this On the Beach blu ray is Kim Newman outlining apocalyptic cinema. Newman describes On the Beach as the first film to portray a dignified end of the world: people quietly going to their doom as a nuclear war sends radiation their way. Yet dignity could be misconstrued as passive acceptance of their fate. That worried me a bit in Stanley Kramer’s protracted film. Apart from the scientist played by Fred Astaire no one seems to get angry at what’s happening. And who caused the war is never revealed, leaving arguments muted and weirdly apolitical. It’s set in 1964 so The Cold War had to have been part of the problem.
The causes and details are to found in Nevil Shute’s novel, so why did Kramer omit them? The Hay’s code was still operating in 1959. Did that matter? The ‘menace’ of the commies was exposed in a lot in American movies and newsreels of the 50’s. But Kramer adopts a generalising tone in On the Beach to convey his big message about mankind’s stupidity and madness to create nuclear weapons. For me this weakens the film. It fails to ground it in the reality of a specific cultural climate and bolsters Kramer’s contentious liberal humanism: for Kramer getting the message across overrides political analysis: it’s mainly man’s wicked nature that destroyed us.
World War 111 has killed all humans in the Northern Hemisphere. The radioactive fallout is being carried to the Southern Hemisphere and is due to hit the last city on Earth, Melbourne, Australia. An American nuclear submarine commanded by Dwight Towers (Gregory Peck) arrives in Melbourne. Naval officer Peter Holmes (Anthony Perkins) is assigned to assist Towers to check on radiation levels (They hope they may be dropping) and investigate a strange Morse code signal coming from a refinery in San Diego, San Francisco.
On the Beach has its strengths and weaknesses. Kramer directs his starry cast to convey the immense strains in relationships that will be horribly ended. The pallor of death hangs over everyone that proves to be inhibiting and also liberating. Moira (Ava Gardner) drinks heavily and is lonely for the company of a good man. Dwight (Gregory Peck) refuses to fully believe that his wife and children were killed in the war – he even keeps buying them presents to take home with him. This prevents him from getting close to Moira. In a railway station scene Moira asks him why he cannot cry over the situation. He bottles his grief and can’t answer properly. This is a sensitive moment in which Ava Gardner excels projecting herself as a positive life force. It’s not that you want Gregory Peck to burst into tears but at least indicate that he might do so. Unfortunately the critics’ old accusations of Peck being a wooden actor are realised. His lack of emotional response made me feel he was miscast.
Equally early on in the story Anthony Perkins exhibits a strained seriousness with his colleagues and wife Mary (beautifully acted by Donna Anderson and on par as a very different life force with the stellar Ava Gardner) that feels too detached. However Perkins acting really gets into its stride in the film’s climax when he tenderly comforts his wife, knowing that they have to take a suicide pill (But never shown because of the Hays Code). Along with these inconsistent performances (though Fred Astaire does shine as Julian, a cynical scientist) is the fact that there are no Australian accents in the film! Apparently Anthony Perkins tried hard but just gave up. But back in the late fifties Hollywood producers assumed that American audiences just wouldn’t get the Aussie lingo.
On the Beach is solemn but not without some comic absurdities that made me smile. The Morse code signal they are investigating turns out to be caused not by a survivor but a telegraph key entangled in a window shade’s pull cord and a half full coke bottle pulled by a breeze. And a crew member, who’s deserted the submarine, when in San Francisco bay, is addressed by a surfacing submarine, with a PA system, transmitting the commander’s questions to the sailor who’s now fishing in a small boat!
As we approach the end of human life on the planet Stanley Kramer has to wind up three narrative strands. An almost woman’s weepie romance between Peck and Gardner; the young couple plight of Perkins and Anderson and the government’s doling out of the suicide option whilst on the street a crowd listen to a Salvation Army band and minister, behind which is a street banner reading: “There is still time…Brother.” This makes for melodrama, social realism and the message for peace (?) or redemption (?) veering wildly between Kramer’s under and over statement. And there are no protestors on the streets. Everyone is quietly exterminated.
On the Beach is a curious lost film that is hardly ever screened in the cinemas or on TV anymore. It’s an almost forgotten anti-nuclear film unlike the continuing interest in and popularity of Fail Safe or Dr. Strangelove. It will never be a cult film. But to be fair it’s of a very different temper to those two dystopias. On the Beach is earnest and often blunt in its execution yet also well intentioned, sincere and at least managing to avoid that damming description, worthy.
Thanks B.F.I. for bringing it back into circulation.
Alan Price©2026.
On the Beach (1959) – Stanley Kramer – BFI Blu Ray
One of the extras on this On the Beach blu ray is Kim Newman outlining apocalyptic cinema. Newman describes On the Beach as the first film to portray a dignified end of the world: people quietly going to their doom as a nuclear war sends radiation their way. Yet dignity could be misconstrued as passive acceptance of their fate. That worried me a bit in Stanley Kramer’s protracted film. Apart from the scientist played by Fred Astaire no one seems to get angry at what’s happening. And who caused the war is never revealed, leaving arguments muted and weirdly apolitical. It’s set in 1964 so The Cold War had to have been part of the problem.
The causes and details are to found in Nevil Shute’s novel, so why did Kramer omit them? The Hay’s code was still operating in 1959. Did that matter? The ‘menace’ of the commies was exposed in a lot in American movies and newsreels of the 50’s. But Kramer adopts a generalising tone in On the Beach to convey his big message about mankind’s stupidity and madness to create nuclear weapons. For me this weakens the film. It fails to ground it in the reality of a specific cultural climate and bolsters Kramer’s contentious liberal humanism: for Kramer getting the message across overrides political analysis: it’s mainly man’s wicked nature that destroyed us.
World War 111 has killed all humans in the Northern Hemisphere. The radioactive fallout is being carried to the Southern Hemisphere and is due to hit the last city on Earth, Melbourne, Australia. An American nuclear submarine commanded by Dwight Towers (Gregory Peck) arrives in Melbourne. Naval officer Peter Holmes (Anthony Perkins) is assigned to assist Towers to check on radiation levels (They hope they may be dropping) and investigate a strange Morse code signal coming from a refinery in San Diego, San Francisco.
On the Beach has its strengths and weaknesses. Kramer directs his starry cast to convey the immense strains in relationships that will be horribly ended. The pallor of death hangs over everyone that proves to be inhibiting and also liberating. Moira (Ava Gardner) drinks heavily and is lonely for the company of a good man. Dwight (Gregory Peck) refuses to fully believe that his wife and children were killed in the war – he even keeps buying them presents to take home with him. This prevents him from getting close to Moira. In a railway station scene Moira asks him why he cannot cry over the situation. He bottles his grief and can’t answer properly. This is a sensitive moment in which Ava Gardner excels projecting herself as a positive life force. It’s not that you want Gregory Peck to burst into tears but at least indicate that he might do so. Unfortunately the critics’ old accusations of Peck being a wooden actor are realised. His lack of emotional response made me feel he was miscast.
Equally early on in the story Anthony Perkins exhibits a strained seriousness with his colleagues and wife Mary (beautifully acted by Donna Anderson and on par as a very different life force with the stellar Ava Gardner) that feels too detached. However Perkins acting really gets into its stride in the film’s climax when he tenderly comforts his wife, knowing that they have to take a suicide pill (But never shown because of the Hays Code). Along with these inconsistent performances (though Fred Astaire does shine as Julian, a cynical scientist) is the fact that there are no Australian accents in the film! Apparently Anthony Perkins tried hard but just gave up. But back in the late fifties Hollywood producers assumed that American audiences just wouldn’t get the Aussie lingo.
On the Beach is solemn but not without some comic absurdities that made me smile. The Morse code signal they are investigating turns out to be caused not by a survivor but a telegraph key entangled in a window shade’s pull cord and a half full coke bottle pulled by a breeze. And a crew member, who’s deserted the submarine, when in San Francisco bay, is addressed by a surfacing submarine, with a PA system, transmitting the commander’s questions to the sailor who’s now fishing in a small boat!
As we approach the end of human life on the planet Stanley Kramer has to wind up three narrative strands. An almost woman’s weepie romance between Peck and Gardner; the young couple plight of Perkins and Anderson and the government’s doling out of the suicide option whilst on the street a crowd listen to a Salvation Army band and minister, behind which is a street banner reading: “There is still time…Brother.” This makes for melodrama, social realism and the message for peace (?) or redemption (?) veering wildly between Kramer’s under and over statement. And there are no protestors on the streets. Everyone is quietly exterminated.
On the Beach is a curious lost film that is hardly ever screened in the cinemas or on TV anymore. It’s an almost forgotten anti-nuclear film unlike the continuing interest in and popularity of Fail Safe or Dr. Strangelove. It will never be a cult film. But to be fair it’s of a very different temper to those two dystopias. On the Beach is earnest and often blunt in its execution yet also well intentioned, sincere and at least managing to avoid that damming description, worthy.
Thanks B.F.I. for bringing it back into circulation.
Alan Price©2026.
By Alan Price • added recently on London Grip, film • Tags: Alan Price, film