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On the Beach

On the Beach (1959)

December. 17,1959
|
7.1
| Drama Science Fiction Romance

In 1964, atomic war wipes out humanity in the northern hemisphere; one American submarine finds temporary safe haven in Australia, where life-as-usual covers growing despair. In denial about the loss of his wife and children in the holocaust, American Captain Towers meets careworn but gorgeous Moira Davidson, who begins to fall for him. The sub returns after reconnaissance a month (or less) before the end; will Towers and Moira find comfort with each other?

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Artivels
1959/12/17

Undescribable Perfection

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ThiefHott
1959/12/18

Too much of everything

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Marketic
1959/12/19

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

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Salubfoto
1959/12/20

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

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ildimo-35223
1959/12/21

Still this one remains perhaps the most effective "end of the world as we know it" american films, cool-headed in frozen cold war times, with an unusually light touch by the Oliver Stone (but a tad more significant in my books) of those days. Not in the least pedantic, never dull (though a bit stretching at 134 minutes), at times almost elegiac and decidedly pessimistic, Kramer's On the Beach boasts a typically strong cast, crowned by a fantastic playing off each other of Peck and Gardner, with the latter being nothing sort of magnificent in her vulnerable first hour in the film. Premiered, among others, in Moscow 58 years ago this month. Peck, a life long supporter of nuclear disarmament, attended.

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alessio_salsano-42958
1959/12/22

I recently watched the movie on DVD with my eleven year old grandson who wanted to watch a movie that dealt with nuclear war. Ironically I was his age when the events of the movie were to have taken place. He was every bit as stunned and transfixed as I was when I first saw it. As for me now in my 60s the very overwhelming issues of the survival and/or destruction of humanity from that era actually brought tears to my eyes. Having read the book I must agree the movie was superior in touching the subject of nuclear annihilation.

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John Brooks
1959/12/23

The film does a good job developing the premise with a wide array of characters, each with their own intrigues pertaining to the plot - that of the end of the world. Through this apocalyptic narrative, each character reveals a different set of aspirations, preoccupying thoughts, and fears. The film does very well at sustaining an enjoyable framework for just about the whole 'first act', but the problem isn't nearly the take-off but rather the landing. It seems the film will end about 3, possibly 4 times, and all the tension it builds resolves, and yet it keeps going on, before deciding to end with an abrupt conclusion. It's too long for what it is, and the extra footage isn't necessary at all. It seems the whole tension/structural aspect has been over-managed, over-done. The apparent inherent logic seems to be one way, and then we're given an encore, and then another...and it only works against it. There's a lot of good in this film - good acting, entertaining content, somewhat interesting intrigues with their philosophical implications and romances...but it's just about half an hour too long.

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Sean Lamberger
1959/12/24

A coastal Australian population (and the US submarine coincidentally docked nearby) awaits the inevitable, weeks after the rest of the world was wiped out by a wave of nuclear-powered, mutually-assured destruction. There's an eerie sense of normalcy to the landscape, by far the film's greatest, most thought-provoking strength. The worker bees all go through their usual motions, as if a great big wall of radioactivity weren't looming off the coast, slowly creeping in to poison them all. It's enough to pull us out of the moment and consider how we might react in such a situation ourselves: when there's nothing to be done, isn't it better to ignore the inevitable, living out the rest of our days in a willfully-ignorant sense of unsteady bliss? Of course, there eventually comes a moment when such questions can't be dodged any longer, and the cast makes some bold, powerful decisions in the face of a long, grueling death by airborne toxin. Those uncomfortable choices, and the ethical quandaries that precede them, form a stiff backbone for the film. The slow, dry pacing of its superficial plot can be difficult to work through, though, and ultimately that's what keeps it from reaching its loftiest ambitions. As with many sci-fi commentaries of the era, you'll have to do a lot of reading between the lines to make the most of this one. It's smarter, but also far less accessible, than most of its modern counterparts.

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