Director
Stanley Kramer
Composer
Ernest Gold
Cast
Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire
Edition 2024
134'
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1959
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Drama, Romance
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Format:
DCP
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Dialogue:
English
There is still (a little) life left after 'the bomb' in Stanley Kramer's sober and understated warning of the consequences of nuclear war that plays like a dystopian character study. On the Australian coast, an all-star Hollywood cast faces the prospect that their days are numbered.
A few years before Stanley Kubrick made the first black comedy about the nuclear nightmare with Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1963), producer-director Stanley Kramer made the deadly serious On the Beach in which Armageddon takes place as early as 1964. Relentlessly slammed at the time, this forgotten classic still stands firm today thanks to its incredibly controlled low-key approach to an otherwise overheated subject matter. On the Beach is set on the Australian coast, the only place on earth momentarily spared from the effects of radioactive fallout after a nuclear war thanks to favourable winds. Kramer refuses to show any horror of the ‘day after’: not a single image of physical deterioration, of rotting and burnt bodies, chaos or panic. On the contrary, he modestly shows how the survivors try to spend their last days as meaningfully as possible.
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Credits
Directors
Stanley Kramer
Composers
Ernest Gold
Cast
Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire
Scenario
John Paxton
Director of Photography
Giuseppe Rotunno
Editors
Frederic Knudtson
Producers
Stanley Kramer
Production studios
Stanley Kramer Productions, Lomitas Productions
More info
Dialogue
English
Countries of production
United States of America
Screenplay based on
"On the Beach" (Nevil Shute)
Year
1959
Filmography
Stanley Kramer
Not as a Stranger (1955), the Pride and the Passion (1957), The Defiant Ones (1958), On the Beach (1959), Inherit the Wind (1960), Judgement at Nuremberg (1961), It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Ship of Fools (1965), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1957), The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969), R.P.M (1970), Bless the Beasts & Children (1971), Oklahoma Crude (1973), The Domino principle (1977), the Runner Stumbles (1979)
Technical Specs
Format
DCP