Continuing reviews of dystopian films, now I come to count on On the Beach ("The Beach"), a film of 1959, black and white, with guest appearances of Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner and Fred Astaire .
In port, the main characters.
On the Beach is a movie we would call pre-and post-apocalyptic. The Apocalypse (total nuclear war) has already occurred, but their effects have yet end to protagonists. Commander Dwight Lionel Towers, the U.S. nuclear submarine USS Sawfish , up to Australia to escape complete destruction that has befallen the northern hemisphere, where cities were not bombed are poisoned by radiation. Radioactive particles floating in the atmosphere being carried by the wind, inexorably, to the south. When they get there, the last remains of the human species on Earth will die.
the meantime, however, Australians welcome the survivors who arrive by sea, providing a place to stand for a few months. The next (and last) mission of the USS Sawfish will sail back north and find the source of a distress signal that part of San Francisco, where there should be no one alive.
Looking for signs of survivors .
While the crew rests for a few days ashore, the commander knows Towers Moira Davidson a mature woman who is dedicated to seduce him for fun, but eventually falls for him. Towers must accept that his wife and children, who were in the United States have died. Julian Osborne, a former love Moira, racer scientific and leisure, then depart with Towers on the submarine.
Dwight and Moira, on the beach.
Amid this story we have also the young lieutenant Peter Holmes and his wife, Mary, who refuses to accept the fact that her husband should go on a mission and might not arrive in time to see her again woman and her young daughter.
Peter confronts Mary with the truth.
The expedition to San Francisco again without the desired results. Towers come back just in time to say goodbye to his love, and Osborne will be pleased to take the final Grand Prix of Australia in his Ferrari.
Research in San Francisco.
Near the end, the government began distributing free suicide pills, so that citizens who so desire to end their lives without suffering the terrible effects of radiation poisoning.
people queuing to get their pills.
the end I will not tell, but it is not surprising.
On the Beach is a very good movie. That could be filmed at the height of the Cold War, painting a realistic picture as the results of a nuclear war and the crazy arms race, and without a single reference or anti-patriotic, is in itself an achievement. The stories are interwoven in the plot are good, do not fall into melodrama or chill. The picture is so good that the lack of color is not strange at all, and special effects are few and only those necessary. There are no flashbacks or developments.
On the Beach is linear, and that is their strength, quite apart from the surprise price and false emotion contained a story require less. From the beginning you know that everything is very wrong in the world and can only get worse, one can see that love and redemption of the characters are only an oasis, the last spark of vitality (not of hope) of the human race.
After the extended break for the holidays we should take to break from the holidays that we take for rest of the penultimate break, return your 
