On the Beach

On the Beach is a post-apocalyptic story written by Nevil Shute in the 1950’s, at the height of the Cold War. It is a story of people facing inevitable doom, how they cope, the values that support them, and their final pleasures. It is thoughtful and low-key, though the intensity of their is always there, boiling up and threatening to overcome them. It is at once, sad and hopeful. It is NOT Mad Max.The driving situation, and principal antagonist, in On the Beach is the aftermath of nuclear war. In a brief introduction, Mr. Shute provides the background of a nuclear war having snuffed out all life in the northern hemisphere and the radiation now moving slowly south. His story focuses on a few survivors in Melbourne, Australia who are waiting for the inevitable. How they handle that waiting drives the story.Mr Shute’s prose is simple, making this book an easy read. In fact, I think it reads like a screenplay. I don’t know if that was Mr. Shute’s intent, but two movies were made from his book. But then, the easy prose does highlight the common lives of the characters as they face an uncommon horror. Taken that way, the writing emphasizes the story’s everyday elements much as the writing in McCarthy’s The Road emphasizes that story’s bleakness. On the Beach is not bleak, though it is sad.The characters are depicted as was common for popular storytelling of the time—square-jawed, heroic men and brave, supporting women. Mr. Shute goes beyond these stereotypes, though, by placing them in a situation that heroics and personal grit can’t save. That point is brought out in several ways, one of which is the general cluelessness about where the nuclear war came from and why. Even the military men don’t understand it. As the submarine captain says:‘I’d like to read a history of this last war.’ said the American. ‘I was in it for a short time but I don’t know a thing about it. Has anybody written anything?’And so the inevitability of death is aggravated by the senselessness of it. It is this theme that makes this story, in my opinion, so very relevant.A modern version of this novel would be longer. The action does span the globe in that the submarine travels far and wide over the northern hemisphere checking war damage and radiation levels. Mr. Shute abbreviates all that. Today it would probably be expanded into subplots that switched between the submarine and the folks back home in Melbourne. I can even imagine the introduction of a political aspect that could make the story a thriller. All that would be a detriment to the storytelling, however, if it took away from the dynamic of people facing the end of everything.In these days when political leaders push for war and consider nuclear exchanges “winnable,” On the Beach makes its subtle point: common, everyday people suffer for the insane actions of their shadowy rulers. Such suffering coming from nuclear war would likely be worse than Mr. Shute imagines, but his point is well made that it is the final result of unbridled ambition and greed empowered by doomsday weapons.

On the BeachWritten by Nevil ShuteDirected by Stanley KramerThis review is about the movie. However, this review is equally applicable to the book. The book was successful in providing more details and continuing the experience of the story.I own this movie, along with other movies, such as, The Cruel Sea, Hombre, Day of the Jackal, French Connection, and Papillon.The movie inspired me to read the book. I also dream to visit Melbourne someday.I first saw this movie decades ago. It stayed in my mind. A year ago, I bought the DVD, without questioning whether it would be worth it to own.I have watched it multiple times. It's the kind of movie to fall asleep to in order to avoid loud commercials, except for the end.One cool part is when there is almost no gasoline for driving in cars, you can see old Melbourne (circa 1959) with no combustion-engine vehicles except a very few for the military. So the people of the most southern major city in the world are getting around by: walking; bicycling; horse-back; horse-drawn carriages; and some public transportation.The casting is very good. Gregory Peck and Anthony Perkins are true to their characters in the book. Eva Gardner is in it to broaden audience appeal. Fred Astaire is believable as a scientist. I especially liked the performance of Donna Anderson.This movie is not for everyone. Would you like to ponder what you would do if you were one of the few survivors of radiation, and your time would be up in approximately six months.The plot of the story demonstrates the pleasant life near Melbourne which is made more appealing in light of the impending end, just as death makes our individual lives seem more precious. The crew of the surviving American nuclear submarine go on a mission to explore the American west coast including Alaska to search for any kind of life or hope that the radiation is receding. The story also shows the power of denial in our minds when facing the end.My generation lived in fear of this type of nuclear holocaust. Unlike this story, I believe that some of human kind along with the eco-system would survive a nuclear holocaust. It is ironic that the reduction of carbon emissions caused by a nuclear holocaust could save the humanity and the eco-system in the relative long term. In the absolute long term, the planet, the solar system, and the galaxy are temporary.A similar book and/or movie like this should be made about climate change, only instead of Fred Astaire drunkenly yelling at a party that the radiation is nine times normal background radiation, he should yell that the atmospheric temperature is one and a half times normal.