On The Beach (1959)- On The Beach, staring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, and Anthony Perkins, is one of director Stanley Kramer 's better (7/10 stars) works of of film. This motion picture is an alarming view of what a post-apocalyptic world would look like. The whole film is from the perspective of those people who avoided the destruction of functioning civilization. In the film Australia, more specifically Melbourne, has apparently "evaded destruction ", as it was spared complete obliteration. Gregory Peck 's stand alone portrayal of a United States Navy Submarine captain Lionel Towers leads his submarine back to an Aussie port in the last hope humanity. Once Tower 's navy reaches Australia he teams up with the few …show more content…
The team is faced to realized their worst fears as the horrifying radioactive cloud slowly creeps downward from the north... America is completely whipped out with no life remaining. Kramer also portrays how the people of Melbourne try to live their lives as if nothing is happening... As if they aren 't going to die within a few months. Kramer does a excellent job showing the struggling people of Melbourne trying to avoid the ever-present future that they will all die a horrible death of painful radiation sickness. As with much of the novel, most of the film occurs in the Australian city of Melbourne. A personal favorite scene of mine was the car racing sequence which was actually filmed at the "Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit, home to Australian motorcycle Grand Prix." Other filming sites included the Melbourne suburbs such as Frankston and Berwick. Kramer does a fantastic job in filming the scenes of the ghostly and desolate streets of Melbourne and San Francisco. Arguably the most emotional scene in the film was with Anthony Perkins and Donna Anderson. Aussie Navy officer Peter Holmes is burdened with the task of informing his wife, who always lived life with an easy going attitude, that soon they’ll all be dead. This actually brings the film