On the Beach (1959)

[the blob]

On the Beach Blu-ray

Posted on their Facebook page a short while ago. Excellent news!

[The Great Owl]

Outstanding!

I love the Nevil Shute novel, and I've always wanted to see the movie adaptation.

[the blob]

I would have thought this would be right down Twilight Time's street. Really good to see this Kino deal getting to grips with older MGM catalogue.

[UseY0ur1llusi0n]

Another classic! As always, count me in!

[James Luckard]

Excellent!!!! One of my favorite novels and films!

I had hoped Criterion would handle this. It was an important film at the time and it would have been nice to have it put in context with their usual bonus features.

The film was highly controversial in 1959, because saying that nuclear war was a bad thing that could mean the end of life on earth was a very risky, "lefty" thing to do at the time - everyone who was in the film was making a statement just by taking the roles. It's hard to believe it now, but the right wing accepted wisdom at the time was that a nuclear war could be "limited" and "winnable". The makers of the film were thought of as anti-American by many on the right for suggesting that our super weapon was actually a potential crime against humanity.

It was shot on location in Melbourne, the southernmost major city in the world, which was basically unheard of at the time. When it was completed, it premiered simultaneously around the world, in 18 cities on seven continents, which was also unheard of. Among the cities were LA, NY, Tokyo, and even Moscow.

Still, I'm glad to see this make it to HD, as the existing DVD is a 4:3 letterboxed transfer from the early days of digital.

Look here for more info:

http://greenbriarpictureshows.blogsp...ing-beach.html

[MifuneFan]

Wow, I've been waiting for this one for years, and pretty much gave up hope of it coming out. Kino is on fire this year with these Studio Classics releases.

[Cujo]

Fantastic news, and I will definitely upgrade. Perhaps Kino can get Miracle Mile and The Day After from MGM as well, though my most wanted anti-nuke film on Blu is Paramount's Testament.

[MifuneFan]

So glad this and Witness for the Prosecution aren't going to TT

[rkolinski]

Originally Posted by Cujo

Fantastic news, and I will definitely upgrade. Perhaps Kino can get Miracle Mile and The Day After from MGM as well, though my most wanted anti-nuke film on Blu is Paramount's Testament.

I would also like to see a Testament release on BD as well as this one:

Panic in Year Zero! (because I own several versions of the original movie poster as well as the lobby card set)

Panic in Year Zero! Official Trailer #1 - Ray Milland Movie (1962) HD - YouTube

Looking forward to owning On the Beach on BD as well since I also own an original movie poster for that film too!

[UseY0ur1llusi0n]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

http://greenbriarpictureshows.blogsp...ing-beach.html

That is so cool, thanks for the link.

[AKORIS]

very good film, very sad.... memorable... glad to be able to get a good release... the old dvd was not even anamorphic!

[jblank]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

Excellent!!!! One of my favorite novels and films!

I had hoped Criterion would handle this. It was an important film at the time and it would have been nice to have it put in context with their usual bonus features.

The film was highly controversial in 1959, because saying that nuclear war was a bad thing that could mean the end of life on earth was a very risky, "lefty" thing to do at the time - everyone who was in the film was making a statement just by taking the roles. It's hard to believe it now, but the right wing accepted wisdom at the time was that a nuclear war could be "limited" and "winnable". The makers of the film were thought of as anti-American by many on the right for suggesting that our super weapon was actually a potential crime against humanity.

It was shot on location in Melbourne, the southernmost major city in the world, which was basically unheard of at the time. When it was completed, it premiered simultaneously around the world, in 18 cities on seven continents, which was also unheard of. Among the cities were LA, NY, Tokyo, and even Moscow.

Still, I'm glad to see this make it to HD, as the existing DVD is a 4:3 letterboxed transfer from the early days of digital.

Look here for more info:

http://greenbriarpictureshows.blogsp...ing-beach.html

Depends on your definition of "winnable". A lot of talk at the time was that a calculated first strike, of certain sites, coupled with a first strike against the command and control system (of either side) could possibly make it such that no more than 10-15% of the arsenal of either country, could be launched. Now, in the '50's, the arsenals were made up of warheads mostly in the "kiloton" range, not the multiple megaton bombs that became plentiful a bit later. Is it possible that the US or the USSR could have survived an attack of just 10-15% and eliminated (for all intents and purposes), the other side? Yes, it is. Would there still be severe damage, absolutely, and thank God it never happened.

It's really a fascinating (and frightening) period of history and one I've enjoyed studying and reading a lot about. I grew up in the '70's and '80's, at the end of the "Cold War", but that entire period from WWII until the collapse of Communism is just incredibly interesting to me.

Not sure if you have seen it, but if you REALLY want a realistic look at the effects of a real, modern nuclear exchange, watch the movie 'Threads'. It is unfortunately not even available on DVD, let alone Blu-Ray, but you can stream it on You Tube. If you want another good recommendation, try to find the film Testament, with Kevin Costner and Jane Alexander (no Blu-Ray or streaming option for it) or even The Day After, a TV movie ABC made in the early '80's.

As far as Blu-Ray goes, if you're interested in the weaponry themselves, get Trinity and Beyond. It shows a lot of the test footage and details the process of moving from the older technology, to the Thermonuclear, multi-stage warheads that are prevalent today. https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Trini...-Blu-ray/8889/

[MacEachaidh]

Originally Posted by jblank

Not sure if you have seen it, but if you REALLY want a realistic look at the effects of a real, modern nuclear exchange, watch the movie 'Threads'.

Yes, remarkable docu-drama. It is out on DVD, but I think only in PAL format (from the UK), so that would limit access for people in the US. Another one worth seeing is Peter Watkins' The War Game (not to be confused with the Matthew Broderick flick), and again British, which details the true scale of the aftermath in ways most nuclear-war films skim over. It seems to be OOP at the moment, though, so it's a bit harder to lay your hands on.

Ahh, Trinity and Beyond!! A great compilation of footage and facts. In some ways it's a kind of annihilation-porn — I find many of the shots of the test explosions just strike me dumb. Beautiful, awesome and terrible, all at once. What do you say in the face of that shocking power?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Shute was being quite provocative with his novel, certainly in the face of the concept of a "limited" exchange. He not only suggested there was no way a nuclear exchange would or could remain limited, but he also suggested that the consequences could be way beyond what the real-life Groetescheles were predicting. It was, in fact, a very early expression of the outcome of chaos theory, though he obviously wouldn't have recognised the term.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by jblank

Not sure if you have seen it, but if you REALLY want a realistic look at the effects of a real, modern nuclear exchange, watch the movie 'Threads'. It is unfortunately not even available on DVD, let alone Blu-Ray, but you can stream it on You Tube. If you want another good recommendation, try to find the film Testament, with Kevin Costner and Jane Alexander (no Blu-Ray or streaming option for it) or even The Day After, a TV movie ABC made in the early '80's.

Cool, sounds like we have similar interests. I was a history major and studied the Cold War. Did one paper about the production, release and impact of On The Beach, Fail-Safe and Dr. Strangelove, and another about Threads, Testament and The Day After.

The final three were interestingly all shown/released within one 12 month span, while the Cold War was at arguably its most dangerous point. It's interesting to look at the same topic, and see how it was represented onscreen by the BBC, ABC, and PBS. (Testament was a PBS television movie that turned out so well, they decided to release it in theaters).

American ICBMs were being installed across Europe, people were protesting, aged Soviet leaders were dropping like flies making things in the USSR a bit murky, things were very tense. That was the time of Operation Able Archer, a little-known incident one of my professors told me about that was among the closest we ever came to full nuclear war. He said it was far more dangerous in its way than the Cuban Missile Crisis. Who could have imagined Gorbachev arriving two years later and that he and Reagan would find a way to change things. I'm no Republican, but from everything I've read, I respect how the two of them managed things.

BTW, Threads is on DVD from the UK, I have it.

Also worth checking out is the UK animated film When the Wind Blows.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by jblank

If you want another good recommendation, try to find the film Testament, with Kevin Costner and Jane Alexander (no Blu-Ray or streaming option for it)

BTW, Testament is available streaming from Amazon, in HD:
http://www.amazon.com/TESTAMENT-Jane...dp/B00DQJH9C4/

[hoytereden]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

Outstanding!

I love the Nevil Shute novel, and I've always wanted to see the movie adaptation.

You're in for a treat.

[Greeno]

Hi. New member from Australia here.

I just went to pre-order "On The Beach" from this site. But I was redirected to Amazon. Don't know if that's normal.

Anyway, I went ahead with the order and when I got to the final stage I got a warning that the disc was Region 1. Yet on this site it says "Region A (B,C untested)".

So, what do I do now?

Thanks.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by Greeno

Hi. New member from Australia here.

I just went to pre-order "On The Beach" from this site. But I was redirected to Amazon. Don't know if that's normal.

Anyway, I went ahead with the order and when I got to the final stage I got a warning that the disc was Region 1. Yet on this site it says "Region A (B,C untested)".

So, what do I do now?

Thanks.

This website is just an informational site and a chat forum. The links to order always redirect to Amazon.

Amazon US always says every disc is Region 1 only, probably for legal reasons. There's no way to know for sure what region code this BD will be until someone has a copy in hand and tests it for us. I'm sure someone will report back soon, the disc comes out in just a couple of weeks.

[the blob]

What a frustrating release this is turning out to be. Is it disc? is it system? If I'm affected will it be enough to totally dud tract me? Are audio sync issues still better than a poor-looking non-anamorphic DVD? Haha!

I think I'll probably still end up running the gauntlet and ordering it before long anyway. Hit and hope!

[oildude]

Just finished watching On the Beach. This was my first ever viewing and all I can say is that this is one of those films you will carry with you for a long time afterward. Excellent acting from the leads and supporting cast, buoyed by superbly written dialogue, with a particularly harrowing performance in a small but critical role from Australian actor John Meillon (who most viewers today will likely only know from his decades later role as Wally from the Crocodile Dundee films). In an odd bit of role reversal for a movie filmed on location in Australia, Meillon plays an American sailor, Yeoman Swain, who gives the story a devastating emotional moment when the submarine U.S.S. Sawfish visits San Francisco.

There are so many iconic images in this film, from the silent reactions of the sub's officers taking turns looking through the periscope in one especially poignant scene, to Ava Gardner standing alone on the headland above the bay near the end of the movie. In fact, I could write about these scenes one after the other while rhapsodizing about their poetic beauty, because this is a film made up of moments and conversations as individuals come to terms each in their own way with what is happening to the world, all of it captured with impeccable staging and superb cinematography.

Video Quality

The picture quality is outstanding for over 90% of the run time. I do not hesitate to say large stretches are as good as anything that has appeared in black and white high definition. Where the transfer falls down is due to fluctuations in places, and some scratches that leap on screen from time to time. The worst parts are where chemical staining flickers for brief moments, particularly during a few scenes involving conversations between Anthony Perkins and his beautiful young wife (played by Donna Anderson). The fact that the vast majority of the transfer looks stunningly clear makes me wish even more that MGM had performed a full restoration to clean up the rough patches. This film most definitely deserves it.

Audio Quality (or How Bad is the Lip Sync Issue)

And what of the audio quality? I put the disk into my Oppo 103 having read comments here about the sync issues. Some viewers see them and others apparently not noticing anything wrong. So I was looking for the problem. For the first hour, everything is in-sync. The out-of-sync dialogue begins just after the 60 minute mark, when there are a series of facial close ups of conversations and moving lips, and it comes and goes for the remainder of the film.

Now, I am sensitive to this kind of thing, and had I not read about the problem ahead of time, I would still have noticed it in a few places. But it did not bother me enough to take me out of the film. It is not consistent during the last hour, or at least, not noticeable all the time, and not consistently of the same degree from one scene to the next where it does happen. The movie has a high number of close-up conversations, with many tight facial shots where one or two people fill the screen, and even the most noticeable instances of sync problems were no more than the briefest fraction of a second off kilter, as if voices were dubbed. Yes, the problem is most definitely there, but in my opinion should not discourage anyone from ordering the Blu-ray. I felt no need to start fiddling with my receiver to correct it.

On the Beach is a movie where so many words can be applied without fear of exaggeration: unforgettable is one of them. Very highly recommended.