On the Beach

I watched the liesurely but horrific 1959 film On the Beach last night. The movie, starring Gregory Peck, Fred Astair, and Ava Gardner, has the last remaining survivors of a global nuclear holocaust awaiting their certain deaths in Australia as radiation creeps towards them. The government issues everyone in Melbourne poison tablets to kill themselves rather then enduring radiation sickness. Peck as a submarine capitain heads back to the United States with his crew to die as the movie fades to black. It wasn't exactly a feel good movie. However, it seemed to resonate with a certain dignity, with no one rioting or hoarding, and everyone performing their duties as well as they could under the circumstances. In the movie, Fred Astaire as the scientist Julian Osborne says "Who would ever have believed that human beings would be stupid enough to blow themselves off the face of the Earth?" The horror of the movie lies in the knowledge that humans can indeed be that stupid.