IMDb user comments for
On the Beach (1959) More at IMDbPro »

Filter:

Best Chronological Prolific Authors Loved It Hated It Hide Spoilers:

Page 1 of 13:

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

Index

122 reviews in total

---

105 out of 114 people found the following review useful:
A great Tour de Force by a fine cast, interpreting a great story, 13 April 2006

Author: hfelknor from United States

I watched this movie in a USAF chow hall on the island of Makung in the China Strait with about 20 other airman. The year was 1960. We were stationed there on a missile site. Our targets were 7 Chinese missile sites. Their target was us.

I was 22 years old and immortal.

Until I watched this movie.

When the movie ended, I will never forget the fact that no one moved for perhaps 10 minutes. There was just the bright, blank screen and the sound of the end of the film going around and around. Thiketa-thicketa-thicketa................... No one ever said a word about what we had just seen.

We, or at least I, never forgot this movie. As said earlier, it was more than scary. It was sad.

It seems strange now, 40 some years later, to be telling people that you really should watch this film and watch the masters at work, with a script that is chilling. And you know what? We still haven't outlived the possibility...........

---

65 out of 84 people found the following review useful:
Powerful Without Being Pretentious, 14 August 1999
Author: Eric-62-2 from Morristown, NJ

"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.

---

57 out of 72 people found the following review useful:
a great human drama, 20 May 1999

Author: Robert D. Ruplenas

The Cold War aspects of this movie may be a bit dated, but for those of us of a certain age it is a reminder of the fears we lived under at that time. In retrospect, it may be that Julian was wrong: it may have indeed been the very presence of these terrible weapons that prevented a third world war.

In any case, that aspect of the story never overshadows the movie's underlying theme, which is, rather, how each of us views the sum of our lives as our mortal end approaches. Are we alone? Have we connected with anyone? Have we failed? Have we loved? Have we been loved?

Color would have been all wrong for this essentially b&w story. Superb performances from Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire and the pre-Norman Bates Anthony Perkins. A fine bit as well by John Tate as the old admiral("to a blind, blind world").

A mere cold-war nuclear destruction movie would leave one merely frightened at the end. The fact that this movie leaves you with an almost unbearable feeling of terrible sadness is a testament to the human power of Nevil Shute's book, as well as to the fine script and Kramer's superb direction.

One of the most depressing movies ever made, but a truly great one.

---

36 out of 41 people found the following review useful:
Perfectly paced and well acted, it keeps melodrama minimised, 4 May 2000

Author: Phil Kafcaloudes from Melbourne, Australia

In an era (1959) and on a topic (nuclear war) that usually demands melodrama, "On the Beach" resists. In fact, the all-star principal cast and director Stanley Kramer seem to treat the topic as a stage play, focussing on the individual. And that is how such a story should be treated. Life on the northern hemisphere has been destroyed a defence mistake by one of the (then) two superpowers. Gregory Peck's nuclear-powered submarine was submerged at the time (they stayed under water for a hell of a long time in those days). The sub heads for Melbourne, Australia, which is one of the only places in the world not yet affected by radiation. But the radiation will come, and this is where the truth of the piece comes out.

The inhabitants of 'the end of the world' go through what you would expect: denial, anger, clinging to the thinnest hope, and finally, resignation. As I said at the start, this is clearly a story about the individual. Kramer knows this, and the cast of Ava Gardner, Tony Perkins, John Meillon and Fred Astaire play it with a reality that is all too rare. Even recent films like Final Impact fail to deliver on this count. The real joy of the film is the pacing, which gives the cast the chance to play it like it should be played. Astaire proves he is an actor, and only once slips into his raised eyebrow 'top hat and tails' mode. It is a well thought out movie without the Hollywood ending, but such is the art of Kramer that the ending is a good resolution, not just a funeral. The camera work is exceptional throughout, starting with the continuous shots in Peck's submarine. I don't know about the Waltzing Matilda music at the start, however. But it does work later in the piece, and makes it worthy of the Academy Award nomination it received.

---

36 out of 45 people found the following review useful:
We are all on that beach, on the thin line between life and death., 28 July 2003
Author: lucanujs

And the essence of our lives is expressed in the way we treat each other under the implacable threat of imminent mortality. As Ava Gardner's character says, at the penultimate moment of love's farewell, "It's been nice, Dwight Lionel. It's been everything." And what she says on her beach is true for every last one of us, on ours.

The primary power of this great movie to me is how well it conveys the idea that for us, on this beach, love and tender kindness are all that matter in the end, and the end is always near. The sheer kindness that Ava and Gregory's characters express for each other is surely the key element of their triumphant relationship.

The moment in which their relationship most completely triumphs, of course, occurs at the Narbethong Hotel. "On The Beach" achieves a cinematic moment of genius when the chorus singing "Waltzing Matilda" changes from a rowdy crowd of drunks to a magnificently harmonious group of fine male voices. As the sheer beauty of the music overwhelms us, it also overwhelms our characters, and we all unite together in a sublime moment of awareness that true love and kindness give us our only victory over imminent death. "You'll never take me alive," says the ghost.

The way Gregory Peck's character shifts from fumbling with the fire to turning toward Ava as the music inspires transcendence, and the way Ava smiles at him, make this scene unforgettably great.

Nearly as wonderful is the scene in which Ava's character learns that the Sawfish will be leaving, with her captain at the helm. She will have to face her death alone. She doesn't waste a moment in argument or recrimination, but expresses the fullness of her love for him and her great courage when she accepts his decision and thanks him: "..it's been everything." And then: "oh, I'm so frightened." This moment is one that I take to heart. It shows the love and courage I wish to have "when the time comes."

There is still time, brothers and sisters. But we are all on the beach.

---

37 out of 50 people found the following review useful:
A Great Movie, 9 April 2005

Author: angelsunchained from United States

On The Beach was made in 1959 and it's still a fantastic movie some 46 years later. As great as all the performances are, the photography and the script are as out-standing.

The only drawback to this black & white classic is the hauntingly depressing nature of the film. Death is never easy to explore and it's done here tastefully, gritty, and realistically. Gregory Peck shines in this controversial role. Ava Gardner gives her finest performance. Fred Astaire is incredible in this serious role. However, the film was stolen by the pre-Psycho Anthoney Perkins and newcomer Donna Anderson as a doomed young couple with a new baby. The ending of On The Beach is one of the most depressing in screen history, still this is a must see for any fan of any of the actors or the legendary Stanly Kramer.

---

21 out of 26 people found the following review useful:
Must see movie, 13 August 2001

Author: R Lipsitz from Washington D.C.

One of the most potent movies I've ever seen. Chilling! Although appearance of movie is dated...it should be...filmed in 1956. The characters, situation, emotion are timeless. The date of the movie in no way weakens the strength of the story. Only slight weakness is the relationship between Peck and Gardner. Too much time spend on these two at times distracts from story. Still it does set up a moving ending in which devotion to duty, comrades, (in a situation where such devotion is meaningless) deepens our awareness of humanity. Not for the weak of heart. No happy endings here!! All the more powerful for its non hollywood approach, we need more of these movies. Instead of finishing the moving feeling good, we finish THINKING GOOD. Much more important goal of a movie if you ask me.

---

34 out of 52 people found the following review useful:
Chillingly understated, 30 November 1999

Author: Holly (aromatic@ivillage.com) from NYC, NY

Is "under-wrought" a word? If so, this movie defines it. A great cast never seems like its acting in an all-too-realistic portrayal of the fifth Kubler-Ross phase of humanity. Past denial and anger, there is finally grim acceptance, replete with just the perfect sprinkling of gallows humour. The ultimate philosophical question is raised by author Nevil Chute,"What is truly important in life, if in the end, we're all dead?"

---

31 out of 47 people found the following review useful:
The last shore, 13 June 2001

Author: dbdumonteil

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.

---

12 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
There is Hope! There's always Hope! There has to be Hope!, 10 August 2006

Author: sol from Brooklyn NY USA

(There are Spoilers) Emotionally packed drama about a futuristic, for the time the movie was released in 1959, nuclear war that took place in the late fall and early winter of 1963/64. With the only survivors of the conflict being in Australia waiting for the Gime Reper to come and take them away in the form of deadly radioactive clouds.

The USS Sawfish the only surviving vessel in the US Navy makes it's way down from the North Pacific to Melbourne Harbor with it's skipper Capt. Dwight Towers, Gregory Peck, on his first day on shore leave getting involved romantically with a local Australian woman Moira Davison,Ava Gardner. Towers a native of New London CT. where the Sawfish was based knows that his wife and two children had perished in the war and is in need to find himself someone who he can spend the last few months of his life with Moira filling that need. Moira herself had been involved for some time with nuclear scientist Julian Osborne, Fred Astaire, but he's become impossible to Iive with since the war started. Julian had developed a deep guilt feelings about his involvement with and testing the hydrogen bomb that he's become a suicidal mental case in both his, like Moria, drinking and driving.

There's also in the film the story about a young Australian couple Navy Lt. Peter Holmes and his wife Mary, Anthony Perkins & Donna Anderson, who had everything to live for.Now with the end coming they have to choose in not only taking their lives, with cyanide pills, but their infant daughter Jenny's as well. That's in order to avoid suffering the inevitable and horrific death resulting from deadly radiation poisoning.

For the most part "On the Beach" plays like an afternoon soap opera but the fact that you, and those in the movie, know that no one in it will survive the final credits makes it a lot more personal as well as heart wrenching and involving. Getting a radio signal originating from the US Pacific Coast the Sawfish heads out to sea to find out if there's any one still left alive in the United States by sailing thousands of miles and finally surfacing in San Francisco Bay. The eerie sights, through the Sawfish's periscope, of an empty and dead city was just too much for San Francisco native seaman Ralph Swein, John Meillon, who jumped ship and swam to shore. Later telling Capt. Towers, who was shielded from the radiation inside the Sawfish, that he'd rather "get it" here, in SF, then in Australia with the rest of the sub's crew.

The last hope of human survival on the North American Continent is dashed to pieces when Lt. Sunderstrom,Harp McGuire, goes ashore with a protective, from radiation, suit in San Diago where the mysterious SOS-like signal that's being picked up by he Sawfish is coming from. Lt. Sunderstrom is shocked to find out that its, the SOS signal, only coming from an empty coke bottle that's attached, by a window shade, to the Morse Code clicker.

The radioactive clouds from the nuclear devastated Northern Hemisphere starts sweeping into Melbourne and the rest of Australia a lot earlier then most of the scientific experts expected them to. It's then that everybody frantically start to plan for their own deaths before the deadly radiation starts to take effect. This leads Mary Holmes to have a nervous breakdown not being able to bear to put her young daughter Jenny , more then herself and her husband Peter,to sleep forever. Julian not having any problems with the thought of his own demise, and alienating himself from all his friends and his former lover Moira, locks himself up in his garage and starts the engine of his beloved champion race car asphyxiating himself.

Both Mary and Peter come to terms with the end by having little Jenny drink her formula, spiked with an lethal dose of sleeping pills. Then in a last and emotional embrace have a drink of hot tea with the deadly cyanide pills mixed and dissolved in it. Capt. Towers after saying a tearful good-by to Moira goes together with his men on the USS Sawfish out to sea and back home to the USA to die together with their already deceased families and loved ones as the movie sadly come to an end to the music of "Waltzing Matilda".

Powerful and thought-provoking movie about a nuclear holocaust without a single person being killed, as a result of it, in the film. "On the Beach" may have been dated a bit after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 but has come back to haunt us with the events, and wars, that followed the attacks of September 11, 2001. With many people, on both sides of the battle-line, who never had to live through in the 1950's and 1960's the fears and nightmares of a nuclear Armageddon are now sadly reminded that it's a war that, like in the movie, nobody will win much less survive.

---

---

Page 1 of 13:

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

Add another review

---

Related Links

Plot summary	Plot synopsis	Amazon.com summary
Ratings	Awards	External reviews
Parents Guide	Plot keywords	Main details
Your user reviews	Your vote history