Commander Dwight Lionel Towers (Gregory Peck) is the Captain of the American ship the USS Sawfish. The ship and crew are at sea when a global war annihilates most life on Earth. After checking several harbors, the ship makes its way to the only bastion left, Australia. The Sawfish and its crew are given safe harbor at Melbourne, but Australia knows that this is only temporary. With nuclear fallout in the air, it is only a matter of time, perhaps only months, before the prevailing winds spread the poison over the last stronghold. With everyone in the northern hemisphere dead, the Sawfish and its crew are put under the command of the Royal Australian Navy.
Lt. Peter Holmes (Anthony Perkins) is an Australian officer and is assigned to work with Towers as liaison. Peter has a wife, Mary (Donna Anderson), and a baby. To welcome Towers, the Holmes’ have a cocktail party. Included in the guests are Julian Osborn (Fred Astaire) and Moira Davidson (Ava Gardner). Julian is a rather morose nuclear scientist and one of the ones responsible for building the nuclear weapons, the result of which, are now slowly wiping out humanity. Moira is an alcoholic jaded lonely woman. Moira begins to fall for Towers, but Towers is still getting use to the fact that his wife and children are dead.
Scientists propose a theory that radiation levels may be dissipating faster than expected. The government decides to send the Sawfish to investigate. The ship first checks the coastline near Point Barrow, Alaska but they discover that the radiation is higher than expected. All hopes of sparing Australia from the radiation are dashed. The ship then lands near San Francisco to see if there is anyone still alive. Through the periscope the captain and crew see that the streets are empty. One sailor, who is from San Francisco, abandons ship so he can die in his own city. The ship heads down to San Diego to investigate some strange Morse code signals they had been receiving. They discover that the signal is coming from a coke bottle entangled in a cord from a window shade. A breeze blowing on the window shade is causing the bottle to tap on the telegraph key and sending out random signals.
Having found no life, the Sawfish returns to Australia.
“On the Beach” was released in 1959 and was directed by Stanley Kramer. It is an American science fiction post-apocalyptic drama. The film was based on the 1957 novel by Nevil Shute.
Since the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Navy refused to cooperate with the filmmakers, the submarine used in the film was the diesel-electric powered Royal Navy submarine the HMS Andrew. Most of the movie was filmed in Australia except for the racetrack scenes which were filmed in Riverside Raceway in California, although some were shot at Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit in Australia.
It is an extremely well-done movie, but incredibly depressing. It is billed as a science fiction story, but it is actually a drama. In a way, it is a social experiment concerning how people react to the end of the world. In all fairness, many post-apocalyptic films are more drama than science fiction since they usually take up after the main event has thrown a monkey wrench into the world, for example, “The Last Woman on Earth” 1960 or “Five” 1951. There isn’t much in the way of action except for the racing scenes.