Le Dernier Rivage

In an age where sci-fi films seem to rely more on big budget special effects,and spectacular explosions,to hold an audience(usually at the expense of a decent script and plot line),On the beach is here to remind us of how it should be done.Although the plot is simple and uncomplicated, it works well on different levels,almost feeding of the paranoia that abounded at the time, concerning atomic weapons.

It tells the story of a group of individuals,and their last few months of life.An atomic war has wiped out most of the earth,only Australia and parts of the southern hemisphere are left,but it is only a temporary reprieve,the cloud of dust which has destroyed mankind is heading their way.It is against this backdrop that the film opens,and we get to meet the main characters.Dwight Towers,the american submarine captain,played superbly by Gregory Peck,good time girl Moira Davidson (Ava Gardner),desperately looking for one last chance of love,young naval officer and new dad Peter Holmes played by a young Anthony Perkins,and Fred Astaire as the towns drunken scientist,proving he could act as well as dance.

As these characters develop,and we start to care about them,(they are all believable and for the most part,likeable),the film starts to ask questions of the viewer.what would i do? what about my family?how would i cope?.Director Stanley Kramer plays on the very real fears of the viewer,much the same way as Byron Haskin did in War of the worlds and Robert Wise in The day the earth stood still,albeit in a more subtle fashion.

It is in the second half of the film,when the grim reality sets in,that Kramer cranks up the tension,almost scene by scene,we witness the growing despair and anguish of these poor souls,and there are some pretty unsettling scenes,non more so than when we watch people queueing up for "suicide"pills and then again when Anthony Perkins tries to explain to his young wife how to administer them to their young daughter in his absence"when the time comes". But of course,even amidst the doom and gloom,love blossoms,and the most poignant scene in the film for me,is when Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner kiss for the first time.

A first rate cast and script,together with a haunting soundtrack,(you'll be whistling waltzing matilda for days after watching this)makes this one of my favourite films.Don't just rent this classic,buy it and give it pride of place in your collection.

I was/am not an actor, but I was a Fulbright at the University of Melbourne 1958-1960. When the U.S. Navy and Stanley Kramer fell out, he needed bit players with an American accent. As a result, I was recruited to play the (nameless) part of the planesman ("Depth 45 feet, Sir" and other immortal lines).

It was great fun. I worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week (really -- though most of the time was spent playing poker -- made more money playing poker than I did for acting) for two weeks at the Melbourne Fair Grounds. Met and chatted with all the participants other than Ava Gardner, who had no truck with anyone other than her Spanish cameraman.

I was very impressed by Kramer and his writer. As to the others, it was clear that good brains do not make good actors (though all were nice people, particularly Fred Astaire who could have made millions as a salesman if he had not made them as a dancer/actor).

I have seen lots of times and think the best movie ever made (even better than "No Time for Sergeants", which I have seen even more times).

Would like to hear from Jack Boyer (the submarine medical corpsman) if he happens to read this.

"On The Beach", despite it's heavy subject of a nuclear holocaust wiping out all human life, succeeds because Stanley Kramer is mercifully more restrained and less pretentious than he would later be in "Inherit The Wind" and "Judgment At Nuremberg", which are memorable more for their polemics than their characters, in my opinion. Except for one minor speech by Fred Astaire at one point (which as the previous reviewer noted is somewhat ironic in light of the fact that the very thing Astaire rails against, the idea that large nuclear stockpiles could keep the peace, turned out to be absolutely true) the film is for the most part about people and how they react to the knowledge that their world and their lives will soon come to an end. This is what makes the film so compelling as far as I'm concerned. The cast is excellent, with fine performances by Astaire (his first non-musical part), Anthony Perkins and Gregory Peck. But the real strength of the movie is Ava Gardner's touching performance as the lonely, alcoholic Moira Davidson who manages for one brief moment before the end to find true love with Peck. Having read much about her life, there is something almost hauntingly autobiographic in Gardner's portrayal, and that only adds to the movie's overall poignance.

The French title is "le dernier rivage"(the last shore)The intellectuals dismiss this movie in France and I've always thought they were wrong.Ava Gardner had never been better with the eventual exception of Huston's "night of the iguana".My favorite part is the central one:one of the soldiers tries to find the cause for the strange Morse signals.He crosses bleak dead San Francisco harbor (the camera takes prodigious high angle shots of him,making us share his loneliness and his hope against hope)Hope that was to be short-lived!What a symbol,this equivalent of a bottle thrown into the sea!So few special effects,ans so much emotion.Stanley Kramer's peak.

I watched this movie because I had just recently read the Nevil Shute book and wanted to see how much I liked it. I loved the book and expected the movie to be good too. How could you go wrong with all the good actors and a BW Sci-Fi/Drama theme to boot? I saw this movie when I was in grade school or something and also wanted to know my reaction to it now. In short, I was disappointed. It was overly melodramatic, the characters had been all changed and the plot mixed up. Nevil Shute had written a wonderful, subtle story about the end of human life on this earth and how people might cope. This movie was harsh and jangling to watch, punctuated with loud blasts of music at dramatic points when it was obvious what we were seeing. Standing alone, with no comparison to the novel, its not a bad movie. It is 2hrs 15min in length and I was not bored durring any of it. I love Gregory Peck. He did a great job of portraying an American family man trying to cope with what happened. Its almost worth it just to see what an interesting actor Tony Perkins could have been. Fred Astaire may have been the most believable. He also is worth seeing. I love his dancing, but he can be a great dramatic actor as well. To sum up: If you like this theme and these actors, then definatly watch this movie. Its not a waste of time. I just felt there was a lot of depth that could have been there and wasn't. Esteban