On the Beach

At its heights it's almost a 50's Children of Men: using sci-fi to dramatize cultural anxieties. But it too often boils down to showing how nukes can destroy melodramatic romances. The writing is clunky, as the dialogue can be trite and the Men on a Mission plot doesn't start until late in the film. Clever photography & Peck's great performance aren't enough for a recommendation. Avoid. Instead watch The World, The Flesh, and the Devil, from the same year & see a better post-apocalyptic story.

Respectable, dignified adaptation of Nevil Shute’s compulsive downer of a novel. Solid work by Peck, Gardner and Astaire - the latter a real change of pace in what I understand was his first dramatic performance, although Perkins seems uncomfortable in his role. Uneven, long but never dull and the final moments are powerfully rendered other than a clumsy final shot. Odd that it was Oscar-nominated for its score, which is largely a particularly mournful version of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ playe

Kramer's take on the end of the world is intoxicating and you'll be in turn thoroughly depressed and, depending on your tolerance level for sentimentality, averse to the more maudlin beats. For this subject matter, however, you really do need something contrapuntal... so those moments are (almost) justified. The Grand Prix parable was powerful. Fred Astaire, in a serious role, all but steals the film.

One of the most powerful movies I've ever seen -- so powerful that, as a child of the Cold War, it horrifies me to the point that I cannot watch it.

For a movie with such a simple and eminently workable concept, the screenplay picks the most circuitous, tiresome routes to take through it. The narratives of the two main couples switch off at random, with no thematic parallels and little of the tension maintained. I agree with its message, but the film plods with such tendentiousness and mawkishness that I just don't care.

A great sci-fi story is bogged down by light preachiness and an overly optimistic message that falters on the side of cheesiness. If it ended about fifteen seconds earlier and in a more consistently bleak manner then I would have been truly stunned.

Does drag in places, and felt the story was over sentimental, but hard to tell if this was just the style of the era.

One of Stanley Kramer's "important" films that actually works. Fred Astaire plays a serious role here, and he's damn good. It doesn't end like you'd think, either

Pretty depressing subject matter when it dawns on you what's happening. Although it's also a film that, while it offers some good performances and powerful scenes, can't quite figure out how to pace itself both physically and emotionally. It also suffers from a weird and previously unstudied after effect of nuclear fallout where all capability to produce and knowledge of music other than "waltzing maltida" has been lost. My oh my many a matilda got waltzed before the end.

phony Hollywood characters wrestle with upcoming doom, which creates some dissonance and drags the pace down. The tonal contrast is likely meant as a whiplash, and reassurance for the 1959 xmas audience that it's all just a movie after all, but when the other shoe drops it doesn't so much shock as jolts you awake. Still, some imagery does stick and the palpable anxiety the characters live in gives way to some poignant moments.

Nearly nothing happens, then the ending tells us how much we suck. Manipulative in a conceited, overtly moralistic way.

Interesting story, but the movie has too many drawn out scenes. The race scene is utterly ridiculous. Also, was there really a need for using the song "Waltzing Matilda" as much?

I really love the concept, and a lot of scenes were pretty great. Fred Astaire is particularly good. Aside from some overused Dutch angles, a fairly solid film, though it does seem to drag at times and have a thousand endings.

It's a bit disorienting how this connects the cheeriest scenes with its most dismal without skipping a beat - for the most part, the film works, but there's inconsistencies [the death race was......interesting]. Astaire/Gardner/Tate are the stand-outs while Peck/Perkins don't seem to give their best.

A poorly paced, slow thriller with a sledgehammer of an ending on the, of course, rather negative consequences of not getting our crap together on world peace, already. At least it's competent, with an interesting, non-dancing role for an older Fred Astaire. One would never think Kramer would bless us with 'Inherit the Wind' the year after.

This is a story that doesn't translate to film too well. What was a novel that, despite its inherent silliness on the absurd level of resignation towards catastrophe, was still interesting insofar it was trying to create a sense of mundanity within a gloomy apocalypse. This film; however, suffers from how much of the book is mundane with few plotlines holding much weight on the core premise cuddled with boring monologs about the looming doom that just come off as eyerolling in this context.

Wow! Never even heard of this ahead of its time post-apocalyptic move with an all-star cast. Gregory Peck, Fred Astaire, Ava Gardner and Anthony Perkins were all perfect. What an interesting movie!

Pretentious, sentimental film about the end of the world. Astaire and Gardner are very good, but that doesn't help much.

(probable score: 67) dying murmurs and cries of the human race at the end of the world; dark stuff! dampened by a constant banging of the drums for disarmament, but still a pretty shocking and powerful watch

On her arrival at Essendon Airport in 1959, ava Gardiner apparently remarked: "what an appropriate place to film the end of the world!" Gold

A Hora Final estreava há exatos 60 anos. Excelente distopia sobre um futuro nuclear quase imediato do auge da Guerra Fria - não por acaso foi o primeiro filme americano a ter premiere na União Soviética - trabalhada como drama intimista e não como as usuais ficções científicas filhas da guerra fria funcionavam. BlurayRip RARBG.

Not that good, I was expecting more. Because the idea is so strong from a humanistic perspective.

The film wastes no opportunity to remind you that it's set in Australia. Ernest Gold's score rides "Waltzing Mathilda" into the ground. Perkins briefly does an Australian accent that mercifully disappears after the first half hour. It's overly serious and much too long, but the intermittent high points make it worth a watch. Giuseppe Rotunno shot the film, so it looks much better than you expect this kind of star-studded, middlebrow affair to look.

Some parts of this film are great, but I could have done without the Ava Gardner character. It is a fairly depressing. Glad I saw it, but wouldn't want to watch it again.