In 1964, the nuclear submarine USS Sawfish arrives in Australia after the worldwide nuclear holocaust. Commander Dwight Lionel Towers (Gregory Peck) confirms that the world has been destroyed and the nuclear dust is coming to Australia. The widower Cmdr. Towers, who grieves the death of his wife and children, is befriended by Royal Australian Navy Lieutenant Peter Holmes (Anthony Perkins), who is a family man with wife and the newborn baby Jennifer. He has a lover affair with the local Moira Davidson (Ava Gardner), a still beautiful alcoholic woman with a past, and she falls in love with him.
Cmdr. Towers and his crew invite the drunkard scientist Julian Osborne (Fred Astaire) to join them in their reconnaissance voyage to the further North and to the United States, and they return hopeless and aware that Australia and the rest of the mankind has very few days until the doomsday.
"On the Beach" is a powerful anti-war film released in the Cold War period. It is dated in the present days but I believe how scary this realistic film might have been in the climax of the Cold War in the 60's. The idea of people taking "sleeping pills" supplied by the government is one of the scariest things I have ever seen in a movie. When Lt. Peter Holmes explains to his housewife and mother, a typical woman of the 50's and 60's, what she should do with the baby and herself, her reaction probably reflects a great part of the female universe in this period. My vote is seven.
Title (Brazil): "A Hora Final" ("The Final Hour")
Cmdr. Towers and his crew invite the drunkard scientist Julian Osborne (Fred Astaire) to join them in their reconnaissance voyage to the further North and to the United States, and they return hopeless and aware that Australia and the rest of the mankind has very few days until the doomsday.
"On the Beach" is a powerful anti-war film released in the Cold War period. It is dated in the present days but I believe how scary this realistic film might have been in the climax of the Cold War in the 60's. The idea of people taking "sleeping pills" supplied by the government is one of the scariest things I have ever seen in a movie. When Lt. Peter Holmes explains to his housewife and mother, a typical woman of the 50's and 60's, what she should do with the baby and herself, her reaction probably reflects a great part of the female universe in this period. My vote is seven.
Title (Brazil): "A Hora Final" ("The Final Hour")