7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 3.5 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
The war is over. Nobody won. Only the inhabitants of Australia and the men of the US submarine Sawfish have escaped the nuclear destruction and radiation. Captain Dwight Towers takes the Sawfish on a mission to see if an approaching radiation cloud has weakened, but returns with grim news: the cloud is lethal. With the days and hours dwindling, each person confronts the grim situation in his or her own way.
Starring: Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner (I), Fred Astaire, Anthony Perkins, Guy DolemanSci-Fi | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
In this last of meeting placesT.S. Eliot’s chilling assessment of what the “end of days” might be like found a near perfect novelistic analog in Nevil Shute’s big bestseller On the Beach, with one exception: while things in this post-Apocalyptic drama may indeed be winding down to a veritable whimper, there was indeed a bang, and a calamitous one at that. On the Beach deals with the devastating after effects of a nuclear holocaust which has wiped out the entire northern hemisphere. The only known survivors are in the southern hemisphere, including residents of Australia, who are waiting in various states of agony for a huge radioactive cloud to make its way to their isolated island, where it will certainly bring death and destruction. Shute’s novel was remarkable for its understated, almost stoic, approach toward this almost unimaginable fate, and it played into Cold War fears of untold nuclear catastrophes in a very visceral way. Stanley Kramer’s 1959 film based on the novel changes several salient elements of Shute’s original, but it maintains the same reserved, melancholic tone that infused the novel. There is a tamped down emotionalism running rampant throughout the film, as if the characters aren’t exactly in a state of denial, but have come to the conclusion that carrying on as best they can until the inevitable greets them is the best way to muddle through. The film has none of the special effects bells and whistles that would come to define the post-apocalyptic genre in subsequent years, and is instead a rather quiet, introspective character study of several people caught in a cataclysmic set of events which they all struggle to come to terms with in their own way. On the Beach doesn’t really celebrate the triumph of the human spirit, and in fact a lot of this film is relentlessly depressive, but there is a potent subtext of the (perhaps illogical) resilience of people who know they have limited time to live and who (for the most part, anyway) refuse to panic in the face of their imminent demise.
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river...
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.—T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men
On the Beach is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber Studio Classics with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.66:1. While the elements here have typical age related wear and tear, overall things look rather good on this release. Contrast is strong (a couple of stock shots and some brief anomalies notwithstanding) and black levels are deep and convincing. Gray scale in nicely modulated, and grain is managed effectively, adding a natural organic appearance to the presentation. Fine detail is quite good in close-ups (see screenshot 1). There are no signs of digital sharpening and no issues with image instability.
On the Beach's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono mix offers excellent fidelity, but it is now the second Kino Lorber Studio Classics title I've reviewed which has synch issues. In this regard, On the Beach is even more out of synch than Cast a Giant Shadow, but it may portend an issue here that audiophiles will want to keep an eye (or ear, as the case may be) on. Ernest Gold's Academy Award nominated and Golden Globe winning score (which uses "Waltzing Matilda" ad infinitum) sounds fine, as does the dialogue—if you can just ignore the fact that the lips aren't matching what's being said.
Shute used that excerpt from T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men quoted above as the epigraph for the first editions of his novel, and it sums up the fetid, decaying atmosphere that envelops On the Beach. This is a stifling, claustrophobic film that manages to be incredibly disturbing with absolutely no depictions of any carnage or destruction whatsoever. Life goes on, the philosopher says, until of course it doesn't. Or as a different kind of "philosopher", Broadway lyricist Fred Ebb, once wrote, "Life is what you do while you're waiting to die." On the Beach is a devastating examination of exactly how different people wait. Technical merits here are generally very good to excellent, and On the Beach comes Highly recommended.
1962
1957
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Warner Archive Collection
1964
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Includes "The Invisible Boy" on SD
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Limited Edition to 3000
1956
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