Possible Spoilers!
Believe it or not, I read the book when I was ten, and saw the film three years earlier! (My parents didn't do much to restrict my childhood movie-going experiences!) But even at that age the subject interested me.
I have to say that while I like the film it doesn't hold a candle to the novel. The book is far more realistic in its depiction of a post-nuclear-war world -- who would be left and where, the length of time it would take for the radioactivity to spread south, that sort of thing -- than is the movie. (I'm setting aside the question of whether the basic premise -- the annihilation of all life on Earth -- is even plausible. All such stories have to have at least one "gimme" in order to work, and the main point is that we don't want to risk finding out exactly what would happen.)
The film excels in its mood and bleak tone. It's far better in how it feels, its oppressive sense of doom, of the end of life on the planet, and the consequences of human folly, than in either its facts or, most importantly, in its plot logic or consistency. In addition, there are stray references in the film to things fully described in the book -- but in the film these are random, fleeting, unexplained, momentary bits, never mentioned again, and which make absolutely no sense in their contexts. Consider:
>>In the book, Towers has a superior officer stuck in Brisbane with his ship. When the radiation reaches there he sends Towers (then in his sub returning from his mission to America) a message transferring command of the United States Navy to him. In the film, there's a scene (after Dwight has come back from that voyage and is at Moira's farm) involving that same message -- Admiral Bridie reads it over the phone to Dwight -- but nowhere in the film is there any reference to another U.S. Naval officer in Brisbane or anyplace else, of even the existence of other U.S. Navy vessels besides Dwight's submarine. The whole scene makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, though if you'd read the book you'd at least understand the reference.
>>In the book, the Northern Hemisphere has been destroyed but the entire Southern Hemisphere initially remains -- not just Australia, but the South Pacific, South America, and central and southern Africa. This makes sense both from a geopolitical and military standpoint as well as a geographical one: the whole point is that nukes would not be dropped in the Southern Hemisphere because there were no militarily important or threatening targets there. In the film, however, we're explicitly told that only Australia remains -- not Africa, not South America, not the Pacific islands, not even -- and this is essentially impossible -- New Zealand, farther south and east of Australia. This is to put it mildly ludicrous, and also pointless.
Yet the film betrays even this bit of idiocy in the scene where Peter asks the doctor about the suicide pills that have been issued in Port Moresby and Darwin. Moresby is in New Guinea, not Australia -- granted, just north of Australia, but still, not in it...even after we've been told that life remains only in Australia.
>>The film begins in January, 1964, and the admiral tells Holmes that it'll be about five months before the radiation reaches them in Melbourne -- June. Yet much later, at the auto race, Dwight mentions to Moira that the fishing season has been moved up to the first of August and asks if she would like to go...though according to the film's opening they should all have been dead for two months by then. This too is a carry-over from the book, where the poisoning of the South takes about two years, and the main characters die in mid-to-late August, 1963. But here again the film took an isolated bit from the book and inserted it without explanation or adjustment into the script, apparently because nobody (screenwriter John Paxton or producer-director Stanley Kramer) bothered to align the screenplay's particulars with the changed circumstances from the novel.
There are many other examples of the film's inconsistencies and random references to things in the book not otherwise mentioned or explained in the movie. To me, these glaring errors are so numerous and so illogical that they detract from the film far, far more than the matter of characters' accents or whether the film is "too American". The book is simply better organized and vastly more logical, expository and consistent in its plot development than is the disjointed and contradictory screenplay of the movie.
One last note. Shute had moved from Britain to Australia in 1949 or '50, where he devoted himself full-time to his writing. (He had also been an aircraft engineer in Britain.) A major purpose in his writing On the Beach was to disabuse many people, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, of the notion, quite widespread in the 50s, that the South would be unaffected by a nuclear war that engulfed the Northern Hemisphere. Thousands of people migrated south from Europe, Asia and North America precisely for this reason. (Akira Kuroaswa's 1955 film I Live in Fear -- a.k.a., Record of a Living Being -- addresses this precise belief, in a story of a wealthy industrialist terrified of the prospect of nuclear holocaust, who wants to sell his business and relocate his family to the imagined safety of Brazil.) Shute chose the most apocalyptic vision to demonstrate that this was not so, but even if all life on Earth would not become extinct, a thermonuclear war across half the planet would obviously seriously damage the Southern Hemisphere's atmosphere and its ability to sustain life as before. Shute wanted to show that the notion of a Southern Hemisphere remaining untouched by an atomic war in the North, cheerfully going on its way even if with a few inconveniences, was simply delusional.
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sul-4
8 years ago
Interesting commentary and very educational, especially about the move of people to the So Hemi to avoid nuclear holocaust. I'll re-read the book.
I've seen the movie a dozen times and never noticed these inconsistencies, not that I'm that good at catching continuity and factual details in film.
I think I get so caught up in the drama and characters that the details they talk about becomes a bit of noise.
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hobnob53
8 years ago
Thanks, sul-4. I think you should re-read the book. I do so every few years, or at least substantial portions of it, just for the enjoyment (if you can call the subject matter "enjoyable").
As I said I saw the movie first and read the book later, at the impressionable ages of 7 and 10 respectively. Pretty young, I guess, for this sort of thing. But because of my age it took me a number of years, re-viewings of the movie and re-readings of the book, to really appreciate each for its strengths and shortcomings. It's only after repeated viewings and thought about the film, and comparing it to the book in a more in-depth way, that so many of the film's problems become starkly apparent.
I think most people are so taken by the mood of the film that they don't notice the errors and inconsistencies, the illogical aspects, that are rampant throughout the movie. The ones I mentioned above are just a sampling. In one way this is a positive testament to the power of the film itself and the tone and images it captured. There's a feeling almost of a kind of nostalgia for a mankind about to be lost forever, intermingled with the sadness of it all. The film excels in this regard, and coupled with its ability to convey actual images, it's far more emotionally powerful than the book. If Stanley Kramer, John Paxton and the rest had only taken more care with the conceptualization, writing and shooting of the movie, they would have had a better, more powerful film.
Coincidentally, just a few days ago I saw an excerpt from a documentary on the making of On the Beach in 1959 in which it was said how much Nevil Shute came to dislike the changes Kramer was making to his story (long known), but that Gregory Peck, among others in the cast, agreed with Shute and felt Kramer was messing up the movie. But he was the director and producer, so there was nothing they could do. Shute more or less repudiated the movie after it premiered on December 17, 1959, then died suddenly of a heart attack only 26 days later, on January 12, 1960, five days before his 61st birthday. His widow, somewhat overwrought, said that aggravation over how the film came out caused her husband's death, but I wouldn't be surprised if his angst over the film had in fact contributed unneeded additional stress to Shute's obviously weakened heart.
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sul-4
8 years ago
Books vs Movies will be a long debate. Almost all books are better than film adaptations of them, I can think of only a few exceptions. But, you said yourself, that the aim of Shute's book had a different scope and goal than Kramer's vision, so aside from the inherent inconsistencies in the movie, it was not going to make the book lovers happy.
I am intrigued with your comment about the exodus of Northern Hemi people to So Hemi places to avoid WWIII. I googled around for a couple days to see if I could find some articles or books about this, can you point me to anything?
It reminds me a bit of the Y2K fears, there were people I knew in the SF bay area that quit their jobs, converted all of their stocks, investments, and cash to gold, sold their home, and bought a ranch off the grid in the Mt Shasta area. Ironically, their daughter ended up at the same college, dorm, and dorm suite as my daughter, so we got the epilogue on their great escape. This story would be worthy of a Coen Brothers treatment I think.
The WWIII fears were real, I was frightened by it as a child, had neighbors with bomb shelters, so the migration to Aus/NZ would not have been out of bounds, but it's an interesting story nonetheless, and wonder at the scope and effects of such a migration.
Thanks for your comments.
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hobnob53
8 years ago
You're right, books are usually better than the films made from them, although the comparison is often rather apples-and-oranges -- as when only small portions or limited aspects of a book are cherry-picked for a film, something that Howard Hawks, for example, excelled in. But dealing with the very different requirements of two entirely different mediums is always tricky, so I usually cut filmmakers some slack. Even when they stray a good deal from the book, many filmmakers have come up with great movies -- it's just that they're a different take on the book's subject matter.
This could have been the case with OTB had they not had so many inconsistencies and illogical plot errors, or so many stray references culled from the novel but without any internal meaning within the film itself. Changes are to be expected and some things, such as limited budgets (not an issue where writing books is concerned) or, in this case, the refusal on the part of the military to cooperate, often make changes unavoidable. Still, there are good and bad ways of accommodating such issues.
I'm sorry, I really can't point out offhand any references to north-south migration in the 50s. What I know is from things I've picked up from various sources I've read over the years, but I have no one book or article I can specifically recall or point to as a source. I also want to be cautious about this subject: while it's true that many, maybe most, people around the world believed an atomic war was a real threat, the actual numbers who migrated to the Southern Hemisphere on that account were fairly small. Australia did have an energetic resettlement policy after WWII, trying to lure people from Europe, especially Britain, to the country in order to beef up its population and secure its future, and many thousands of migrants did make the (government-subsidized) move there. But avoiding the consequences of a WWIII was not their primary motive in moving. I think this was an idea that developed in the 50s, and surely some people took this into account in making the decision to relocate, but obviously most people in the north didn't uproot and migrate south. But the idea of the South being a safe haven was popular in the public mind.
That Japanese film I mentioned, I Live in Fear, touched on an interesting aspect of migration, namely, that there is a significant Japanese immigrant community in Brazil (or at least now they're descendants of immigrants). I recall the story of a Japanese soldier (I believe his name was Hiroo Onoda) who was found in the Philippines in 1972, still hiding out 27 years after WWII. There had been a few such cases scattered across the Pacific, but Onoda was given a hero's welcome when he returned and given an apartment and a pension. But very soon he came to dislike the unrecognizable Japan he was confronted with, so completely different from the one he had left over three decades before, and within a few months he moved to a Japanese immigrant community in the jungles of Brazil, where he would feel more at home. So the idea in Kurosawa's film of going to Brazil had some basis in fact, to which he added the increasingly common belief in the Southern Hemisphere as a refuge from nuclear war.
In 1950, a year after my parents were married, they moved from New York to Florida to run a hotel. Decades later I found out this was done at the insistence of my grandmother, who was convinced there was going to be an atomic war and that New York City would of course be a prime target. My parents returned within two years, but even in my family here was this notion of moving south to be out of danger...though by Nevil Shute's standards Ft. Lauderdale wasn't nearly far enough south!
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sul-4
8 years ago
a bit of time passed, thank you for the thoughts. I've been pondering this on and off and it took me a bit of time to figure out the obvious, of course there had to be groups fleeing from the threat of nuclear war, heck lots of bomb shelters in the US, so it's no stretch to imagine some sort of migration to Southern Hemi.
The followup question that probably can't be answered would be whether people moved to Australia/NZ as a consequence of either the book or movie of On The Beach, whether there were more because of the story!
In the leadup to Y2K, my wife's sister had a neighbor who sold their home in the SF bay area, the husband left his high paying sales job, they converted most of their investments to gold, pulled their kids out of school, then bought a ranch up near Shasta to try to live completely off the grid, convinced of society's collapse. Of course nothing happened, and the stories that filtered back from the neighbors to my sis-in-law sounded hilarious, maybe a screenplay in the making!
It's common for religious-like cults to "escape" to the wilderness to avoid coming calamaties, historically all kinds of religious groups in the mid 1800s from the 7th days to Mormons migrated to wilderness areas to escape the calamity of the End of Days.
Recently, I read there were a number of people who sold homes and fled when that May 21 2011 date was pending, this was that Christian cult guy on the radio - Harold Camping.
But the phenomena were different, comparing cults to a more organic mass fear I think.
As to your film comments, I find it interesting that in some films, I will overlook inconsistencies within the story if the overall film resonates strongly with me, other films that are otherwise good films I can nitpick to death.
No argument about the inconsistencies in Kramer's work here, and totally get why some people hate this movie. My kids are 28 and 26 and I don't think have ever seen the film. I've got to find a way to get them to watch this, would be interested to see their reaction to it, they never lived in the cold war, never did a duck and cover in school like we did every few months.
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hobnob53
8 years ago
Hi sul-4, I just found your last post.
On the topic of relocating, one thing about the novel (not really mentioned in the film) is that most people stayed where they were and didn't try to flee south. We learn that some people did, but most stayed put, even though they could seize a few months' more life by moving from, say, Queensland to Victoria. Society remained fairly stable and orderly: people went back to work, the basic necessities of life kept running, even though shortages and other issues gradually grew more severe.
But I've wondered whether such a thing would happen today. I very much doubt it. People have always tried to cling to life, but most today seem so much more self-oriented (not necessarily selfish, but concerned mostly with #1) that I suspect there'd be a great deal of unrest and civil disobedience, a breakdown of social norms and the provision of basic everyday essentials, mainly because people would expect others to take care of their needs without contributing anything themselves.
It's a generational thing. I don't see the willingness to sacrifice or make do with less or keep society intact for the good of all today compared to what it was (at least as I read the history of the times) during, say, WWII, or even the Depression, or the Cold War. People have come to expect everything to be handed to them, and with less and less sense of responsibility for themselves, than was once the case. In the event of a catastrophic worldwide crisis, I expect most people would crawl over others to survive and that no one would have any concern about keeping society together in order to allow it to function, even if only for a few more months. The example of the people you knew who fled to the hills before Y2K is a mini-example of what I'm talking about. We'd quickly devolve into gangs of loners killing others off in order to stay alive just one more day.
This is why I very much doubt Shute's 1950s scenario, of a country essentially accepting and dealing with its fate, would so easily and quietly happen today. People would think only of themselves. This is the world we've all made.
I hope you can get your kids to watch the movie. It was on TCM earlier today, in honor of Gregory Peck's 100th birthday. I hadn't seen it in a while and while I enjoy it, its problems still seem glaring. But its message and its mood still resonate.
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LuvvieHowell
8 years ago
I just saw this sobering movie last night on TCM, and was struck by the exact points you make. With a few exceptions, life moves on, in an orderly and 'normal' fashion after WWIII, with people still living within the law, almost calmly accepting their fate.
I dont' think this would be the case if there were to happen today. It would be more like the Zombie apocalypse films we see, with looting, and hoarding, and everyone shooting their fellow man over food.
I also agree with whatever poster said this should be shown in schools. High schools, to be more precise, and to get even more specific, only seniors in, say, a history class. I'd then ask students (I used to teach grades 7-12) to write a paper on what they thought of the film. I'd be very curious to read the feedback. In fact, I'd love to know if any teacher, anywhere, did this precise thing.
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hobnob53
8 years ago
The 2000 cable-TV remake, which takes place in the year 2006, and is generally awful in every department, shows a society disintegrating along those lines, though not too drastically -- not quite at zombie-apocolypse level. But the action takes place over just a couple of months, so the agony isn't too prolonged.
Have you read the novel, luvvie? Written in 1957, set in 1963, it describes a world from another era, when civil authority was still respected and society remained intact even as it neared its end. Much more than seeing the movie, high schoolers should be asked to read the book, which is far better, if dated in a few non-essential respects. I know of teachers who've assigned the book, and even of some showing the film to their students, though I think kids in 10th and 11th grades should be exposed to them, not just seniors.
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sul-4
8 years ago
To the point of acceptance of our fate vs fighting to survive...
I don't think this concept at all reflects a change of culture. When I first saw the movie, the powerful point was the peacefulness of humankind's end, I think that made the message so much more powerful. The quiet streets of San Francisco with no dead bodies, no apparent violence, and the ghostlike morse code signal (alluding to the repetitive song), as well as the quietness and understatement in the various relationships. This POV was surprising at the time, my mother commented on it. The book and movie came out in the wake of the most horrendous and violent war in history, we knew up close and personal what war was like. Naturally, a third world war would be much more of the same, if the massive violence of WW2 killed just a percentage of the earth, it was no stretch to imagine the violence that would kill everyone.
Indeed, the war in On The Beach was massively violent somewhere, the thousands of bombs exploded somewhere, we just never see it.
In an earlier post, I had mentioned that the film had dialogue between the Tony Perkins character and his wife. She had come to clarity, and was reminiscing with him how they met.. "on the beach". Until I read the book, I assumed this to be the source of the title, and perhaps look for too much meaning in that particular conversation, though to me it was poignant and tear jerking given it's context.
The book's title, of course, derives from TS Eliot, The Hollow Men, which is included (in whole or in part) in the novel.
I don't know that Shute's point was intended to be predictive, I think it was poetic and dramatic - intended to drive the point home, the loss and emptiness of man's end by his own hand.
And certainly, while Kramer didn't follow Shute closely, that same point was made cinematically, IMHO.
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hobnob53
8 years ago
Actually, I disagree entirely that the point of the film (or the book) was the peacefulness of man's end. That was at best incidental, although it did help contribute to the mood of the book and film. I think instead that your final comment is more apt:
I don't know that Shute's point was intended to be predictive, I think it was poetic and dramatic - intended to drive the point home, the loss and emptiness of man's end by his own hand.
The quiet fade-out of humanity was meant as dramatic background, not the actual point of the film or novel themselves. This too was made evident in one of the quotes with which Shute prefaced the novel:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang, but a whimper.Which has of course become more famous and even attached to the book because of Shute's citation. In the other Eliot quote, the exact phrase "on the beach" is not present; the quote reads:
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech.
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river.(I did both these from memory so I may be slightly off.)
But Shute's
point, and I think Kramer's -- as opposed to the emotional
backdrop against which they were setting the action -- was that the end of the world meant the extinguishing of humanity, and indeed of all life, entirely due to mankind's folly. The relative peacefulness of the final stages of this event was meant to provide an emotional context suitable to that theme -- that this is a truer source of regret and lamentation than even the horror of the war itself. Obviously, in a narrative where there was a lot of violence and anti-social behavior occurring in one last futile and explosive backlash of humanity against its fate, the effect of that deeper point would have been largely lost. In fact, that's one of the innumerable weakness of the 2000 TV movie: it loses all sense of the more fundamental emotional impact of what these events mean because it concentrates on societal breakdown. But unfortunately it's also probably a much more realistic view of how people would handle their impending extinction, especially near the end.
However, as to the 1959 version, as much as Kramer did a weak job of transferring the novel to the screen in many respects, he did indeed capture Shute's tone of loss and sorrow in the movie.
Incidentally, Mary's uttering the words "on the beach" is in keeping with Kramer's usual practice of including the title of his films somewhere in their dialogue. Not always, but usually, you'll hear the title spoken by one of the characters. Billy Wilder often did the same thing, all quite intentionally.
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sul-4
8 years ago
my point wasn't that Shute or Kramer said that the end would be peaceful. As I stated, in the 50s we were all aware of the horror and utter violence of war.
The story's presentation of mankind's end was more dramatic, I think, by not presenting ever more and more horror.
I don't think we disagree. As I said, it wasn't meant to be predictive of the reality of the war, but as you said a lamentation of mankind's folly.
I had intended to re-read, and haven't found my old copy. Time for an amazon or ebay visit... Prolly a whole $2.50! :^)
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freerun250
8 years ago
I also read the book when I was young, probably about 11 or 12, in the late 60s. I can remember "duck and cover" and testing of air raid sirens, so the book, and the times, impacted me greatly. Enjoyed the movie when I saw it later also.
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