On the Beach - (1959) Kramer - Movie No. 337

Co-stars: Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Tony Perkins, Fred Astaire, Dona Anderson

Plot: Based on the Nevil Shute novel, "On the Beach" describes the fate of a small group of people in Australia helplessly waiting for a lethal cloud of radiation (caused by WW III) to engulf them. Everyone has five months to live, and the characters include a Naval Sub Commander (Peck), an Australian naval lieutenant (Perkins) and his young wife (Anderson), a cynical scientist (Astaire) and a blase women who's wasted her life but still looking for love (Gardner).

Pros: Gardner, Supporting actors, a few good scenes, Music, Peck-Gardner Romance, 1950s Australian location shots

Cons: Direction, slack pace, too talky, distracting accents, Anderson's character

On the Beach is a hard film to rate since almost every positive is diminished or canceled out by a negative. Gardner, Perkins, and Astaire all do good excellent jobs but adopt distracting accents that come and go and never sound right. Peck is well cast as the upright Sub Commander and plays well off Gardner - but often seems wooden. Gold's music is mostly a plus - but is sometimes repetitive and intrusive. Even certain scenes are a mixture. In a touching scene, Gardner watches Peck sail away on his sub but then Kramer drags it out too much. We then see a haunting "Dead" Melbourne - well done - but then Kramer ruins *that* by ending the movie with blaring music and a ham-fisted shot of a banner reading "There is still time brother." Get it? Similarly, the touching spectacle of a sailor dying in SF, is undercut by an absurd scene of the Sailor talking to Peck through a periscope.

Like many Kramer movies, "On the Beach" often drags and is far too long. Kramer has to spell it out for us, over and over, with lots of *very* deliberate talk. Other scenes seem unnecessary and slightly silly. We spend 5 pointless minutes watching Fred Astaire in a silly car race, we get endless discussions between Perkins and Anderson on taking the suicide pills, we see Peck fishing, and too many shots of the sub sailing to Alaska and back. And everyone is a little too mannered and blase about the whole end-of-the-world thing - including the authorities who don't do much except hand out suicide pills.

Yet, Gardner gives a marvelous performance, and there are several impressive scenes. For example, many of the Peck-Gardner scenes, the shots of "Dead" SF and Melbourne, finding the radio with coke bottle, and most of the scenes (some comic) focusing in on the English/Australian supporting actors, Its too bad -given a good premise and some good actors - Kramer couldn't have done better.

Summary: An uneven effort, enjoyable mostly for the actors involved and the occasional good scene. Rating **1/2