JLRVancouver Ray Milland directs and stars in this gritty, cold war tale of a family trying to survive in the mountains after a nuclear war. Milland emphasises an 'everyone for themselves' survival ethic as his character struggles to keep his family alive at the expense of anyone who stands in his way. The movie was a low-budget project, so don't expect to see vistas of destroyed cities (you see one distant mushroom cloud) or any massive military presence (you see one jeep), but despite the cost-cutting "Panic in the Year Zero" is an effective early entry into the post-apocalyptic genre. Although mostly bloodless (a person shot at close range with a shotgun just hugs himself and topples falls over), the film is quite adult, with several cold-blood killings (on and off screen) and rapes (all off screen). The jazz music score, which is dated and excessive at times, detracts from the bleak tone of the movie, and the ending, while likely 'realistic', may not be a good match for some modern viewers' worldviews. Worth watching, even if only as only a celluloid relic of the cold-war.

atlasmb Directed by and starring Ray Milland, "Panic in Year Zero!" is the story of a family of four whose planned camping vacation is interrupted by the onset of nuclear war. The husband (Milland) decides they should be proactive and head for the hills, away from the predictable hazards that will accompany the breakdown of civilization. As they struggle to survive, they make difficult choices that may change them.Shot in black and white, which helps add gravity to the story, the film features a jazz soundtrack by Les Baxter--accomplished and celebrated arranger--that is misplaced. On occasion, it detracts from the somber tone of the film.Besides Milland, the film also features Jean Hagen as the wife, and Frankie Avalon as the son. The entire cast is credible, though a group of three hoods is portrayed in a predictably stereotypical fashion.This is no "Lord of the Flies", but its depiction of what happens when civility is removed from civilization is just as revealing. There are always those for whom lawfulness is merely a thin veneer or a well-acted façade.

O2D I've never heard of Ray Milland but I will never watch another one of his movies. This atrocity starts with a family leaving to go camping at 4 am and they don't even try to make it look dark. They soon find out a nuclear bomb has destroyed Los Angeles and now they must fight to survive. Milland drones on about things that don't make sense, when he's not lying. At one point they can't pull out on to a road because there is a non-stop line of traffic.He dumps a bucket of gasoline on the road and throws a book of lit matches at it like a girl. The ensuing inferno instantly ignites another car, pay no attention to the liquid on the car. It just gets worse and worse and you hope everyone dies.Then it ends,WITHOUT an ending. Not only is the daughters rape scene the best part of the movie but by the time it happens, you'll be happy she gets raped. I would say watch it just to see how stupid it is.I gave it 2 stars because you can't give 1/2 stars,I'd like to give it 1 1/2.

deschreiber Whatever drew Ray Milland to direct and star in this piece of junk? Was it the chance to direct? Had his career hit a low point?The real blame goes to the writer. The script is terrifically plodding and predictable, clunking from one incident to the next with no finesse whatsoever. The dialogue--my god, the dialogue!--is completely cringeworthy. Most of the time it's just functional, but on the rare occasion when it tries to rise to something higher, it becomes ridiculously awkward. Dad tells Mom, "I was looking for the worst in others and found it in myself." Whoa, so pseudo-profound.Niney percent of screen time is given to Milland. Ninety-eight percent of the dialogue is given to him. Frankie Avalon and some young actress play Milland's teenage children--she probably has no more than six lines of dialogue. Apart from lots of "OK" and "Sure" Avalon may have eight or ten lines.Many scenes are shot on sets that are about as convincing as an episode of the Twilight Zone or an early episode of Star Trek. You can hear the voices echoing on the sound stage. The bushes and rocks are only rough approximations of the real things. The lighting is pure studio lighting, without even a pretense of being outdoors.Finally, the music is awful. I know it was the fashion around that time to use a kind of very intrusive jazzy score--like in In the Heat of the Night. But it puts up a wall between you and the action, its blatant artificiality a constant reminder of how false and patched-up the whole production is.For a summer drive-in movie, it might be worth the 25 cents, if it came with a second feature and some good cartoons. But why reviewers here have such good things to say about it, amazes me. It's the worst movie I've seen in a little while.