bombersflyup On the Beach is a dull soap opera of a film.Peck gives a stock standard lead performance, offering nothing. Donna Anderson needed to be given more screen time as she was the standout. People on horseback carrying suitcases to work, is a first. The destruction derby Grand Prix was amusing, with car flips and explosions. As for the story, it fails to show any of the real horror of the situation with hostility and death or the passion of those wanting to experience life and instead gives us "The Days of Our Lives."

leethomas-11621 An apocalyptic movie without any special effects! Relies for its drama on how characters face the inevitable nuclear contamination, a silent invisible killer. Stars make everything work. Anthony Perkins especially good. Movie's final shots are very effective. (viewed 1/17)

tomsview "On the Beach" is beautifully restrained. The way the last survivors of Earth await the arrival of the radioactive fallout is nothing less than stoic. They are like those gentlemen on the Titanic who knew there wasn't room in the boats and continued with their card games or smoked a last cigar as the ship went down.I first saw this film in 1960, but it has held up well. Stanley Kramer ditched novelist Nevil Shute's scenario about how the war started involving Albania and Egypt etc. In the movie, no one really knows; someone, somewhere made a mistake - it's still relevant. The film avoids the obvious. Some filmmakers would have shown atomic explosions under the opening titles to bring the audience up to speed, but there is none of that. The film focuses on a small number of people and their reactions to their impending doom. Apart from anything else, it was fascinating to see Australia on the screen in a big Hollywood movie even if we all die at the end. American stars played the main characters although only Gregory Peck played an American. Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire and Anthony Perkins played Australians with varying degrees of success with the accent. Ava's character is an Australian version of her Lady Brett Ashley from "The Sun Also Rises", but pre-"Psycho" Tony Perkins along with Donna Anderson as a young married couple bring the tragedy home. Donna Anderson is so convincing that for a long time I thought she was Australian, but she is indeed American and features in "Fallout" a brilliant 2013 documentary about the making of the film.At the time, Waltzing Matilda was almost the unofficial anthem of Australia. Composer Ernest Gold latched onto it for his score for the film and virtually created a "Symphony on the Theme of Waltzing Matilda". He gave the tune shadings that go from light and jaunty to triumphant and finally mournful. The song may have been overdone in a scene with drunken fishermen, but Gold's score remains as emotive as ever.Every time I see the film, that ending as Fred steps on the gas in his garage and Ava watches Greg sail away followed by shots of deserted Melbourne streets never fails to put a lump in my throat.

AlanSKaufman My buddy did not want to watch with me my DVD of the 1959 film On the Beach, because it is a depressing end of the world drama, as absolutely no one survives a third world war, yes, humanity is extinguished.Yet in essence, upon death, the world ends for many people every day. Before you pass on you may provide for remaining friends or family, and you feel consoled by anticipating their remembrance of you. Except you simultaneously realize that eventually they will all die too, and memories will fade among their descendants.Look at world history - countless civilizations have been eliminated although monuments and numerous artifacts are extant. The movie merely speeds up this process because all remaining life soon perishes, so no one is left to take notice of these losses.Succeeding motion pictures have depicted world wide cataclysms where select individuals endure. On the Beach distinguishes itself by sparing us violent death scenes, while recognizing our mutual fate is to finally give up the ghost. Rather than loot or savage others, most people faced their own demise privately by reflecting on the meaning of one's life. This is not defeatist: when dying from an incurable disease such as radioactive poisoning, you must prepare for departure.I found myself contemplating how lead actors Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner have in real life died, so fiction became fact since their personal world actually did expire. This is the root of the sorrow I felt, and why On the Beach is paradoxically an authentic characterization, despite we the living temporarily overcoming its premise of annihilation. Sorrow is also a cause for belief in a Supreme Being who we desperately wish to save us. In the film, worshipers and non-worshipers alike fall, paralleling what occurs in reality. But if you maintain faith in an afterlife, take comfort as your being on earth concludes.On the Beach provides an invaluable commentary on our tenuous existence in this sometimes wonderful but always deadly world that sooner or later will end for all of us.