On the Beach

On the Beach is a post-apocalyptic end-of-the-world novel written by British author Nevil Shute after he had emigrated to Australia.

The novel was adapted for the screenplay of a 1959 movie featuring Gregory Peck (USS Sawfish captain Dwight Lionel Towers), Ava Gardner (Moira Davidson), Fred Astaire (scientist Julian Osborne) and Anthony Perkins (Australian sailor Peter Holmes). It was directed by Stanley Kramer, who won the 1960 BAFTA for best director. Ernest Gold won the 1960 Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Score.

There was also a 2000 television movie featuring Armand Assante, Bryan Brown, Rachel Ward and directed by Russell Mulcahy.

The story is set in what was then the near-term future (the earlier movie makes 1964 explict in the way that the book does not) some time after World War III has devastated the northern hemisphere, polluting the atmosphere with nuclear fallout, which is gradually being carried south by the global air currents. The only part of the planet still inhabitable is the far south of the globe, specifically Australia and New Zealand, South Africa, and the southern parts of South America.

From here, survivors detect a mysterious gibberish Morse code radio signal emitted from United States. With hope that some life has remained in the contaminated regions, the last American submarine, the Sawfish, sails north from its port of refuge in Australia to try to contact whomever is sending the signal. Captain Dwight Towers leads the operation, leaving behind him a woman of recent acquaintance, Moira Davidson, whom he's fallen in love with despite his feelings of guilt with respect to the death of his wife and child.

After sailing almost to the Arctic Circle the expedition determines that radiation levels are not diminishing, but intensifying, and discovers that the emitted signal is in fact the result of a Coca-cola bottle caught in a curtain which is moved by the wind. The submarine crew return to Australia to live the little time that remains before the poisoned air arrives and kills everyone.

Despite their best efforts to enjoy their last remaining time while they may, the characters descend into frustration born of inability to put the past behind them. This is best exemplified by Captain Towers joining his crew in their final voyage back to US to die there, instead of remaining with Moira Davidson. Most of the Australians opt for the government-promoted alternative of suicide rather than waiting to die from the radiation. Another interesting aspect of the plot, commented upon by the characters, is that in Shute's world for the most part people do not flee southward as refugees but rather seem to accept their fate once the lethal radiation levels reach the latitude where they live.

The incident which is stated in the book, though not mentioned in the film, to have begun the war is the bombing of the US by Egyptians. The aircraft specified were obtained from the Soviets. It seems to refer to the contemporary Suez crisis.

Much of the novel's action takes place in Melbourne, as the southernmost part of the Australian mainland. Shute is said to have despised the first movie version, which was released little more than a year prior to his death, feeling that his characters had been altered too greatly.

External link

• IMDb's entry on "On the Beach" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053137/)