Blu-ray Review On the Beach Blu-ray Review (1 Viewer)

On the Beach Blu-ray Review

A doomsday film that is less thriller than a humanistic exploration, Stanley Kramer’s On the Beach nevertheless offers a harrowing look at the end of the world by investing the movie’s running time in a handful of interesting and eclectic people, all of whom approach the end with differing points of view and assorted approaches to their mortality. It’s beautifully crafted and quite memorable despite its bleak story and an occasional heavy-handed image or two from the director.

Studio: MGM

Distributed By: Kino Lorber

Video Resolution and Encode: 1080P/AVC

Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1

Audio: English 2.0 DTS-HDMA

Subtitles: English SDH

Rating: Not Rated

Run Time: 2 Hr. 14 Min.

Package Includes: Blu-ray

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Disc Type: BD25 (single layer)

Region: A

Release Date: 08/26/2014

MSRP: $29.95

The Production Rating: 4.5/5

It’s 1964 when a nuclear face-off between world powers has left the world a people-less wasteland, wiped out by radioactive clouds which sicken and inevitably destroy all in their path. Australia seems to be the last of the civilized areas left, given five months before the deadly clouds reach Down Under, and inhabitants of Melbourne are all reacting differently in the face of imminent death. For American submarine commander Dwight Lionel Towers (Gregory Peck), it’s hard to wrap his head around his wife and children being gone, so frequently absent from their lives his long voyages at sea have caused him to be. Aussies Moira Davidson (Ava Gardner) and scientist Julian Osborne (Fred Astaire) drown out reality in vast quantities of alcohol. Young married Lt. Peter Holmes (Anthony Perkins) and wife Mary (Donna Anderson) have a new daughter, and Mary refuses to discuss anything negative while Peter knows he must plan for their inevitable future. A curious radio signal from San Diego offers some hope that perhaps weather conditions have dampened the toxic effects of the nuclear clouds allowing survivors there, so Towers knows he must take his sub and investigate this signal to see if they do indeed have any chance at survival.Based on Nevil Shute’s novel of the same name, John Paxton’s script deftly balances the many personal stories with the main characters interacting with one another with some of the dramatic action involving the mission to San Diego and later a thrilling Grand Prix event (really a show piece with some astounding stunt work) in Melbourne and genial sequences where the characters enjoy living in the moment before it’s too late. Here is a film where the mere images of empty streets, vacant skyscrapers, and monster electric power plants: all devoid of any sign of human existence are as creepy and unsettling as any horror film, and watching the survivors in Australia turn to different things for comfort: leisure activities, drinking, religion, sports are sobering indeed. Director Stanley Kramer has done a first-rate job with the sequence where the radio signal is eventually tracked down (its ultimate revelation is one of both humor and anguish), and the scene in San Francisco where one of Towers’ men (John Meillon) decides he’ll meet his end at home rather than returning to Australia, the first of the lump-in-the-throat decisions which await all of the central figures in the drama, bring us to moments where each of the main characters must make their final decisions. If the final image of a banner left by some fundamentalists spelling out to those who might have missed the message of the film is a bit heavy-handed, the preceding two-hours and thirteen minutes do a sensational job of selling the film’s prophetic theme quite sublimely.Playing Australians, neither Ava Gardner, Anthony Perkins, nor Fred Astaire attempt much of an accent (Astaire begins with bits and pieces of one but doesn’t seem to retain it much in later reels; the many true Australians in the cast belie the ones who are merely play acting), but dramatically all do sterling work with their emotionally volatile characters, each reaching career high points of vulnerability and likeability. Gregory Peck does his stalwart, no-nonsense man with the steadiness of a rock as the commander, and Donna Anderson makes a fine introduction to films as the young wife who doesn’t want to face the facts of a grisly future.

Video Rating: 3/5 3D Rating: NA

The film is presented at 1.66:1 and is offered in 1080p resolution using the AVC codec. At its best, the film is beautifully sharp and detailed with a stunning grayscale rendering offering deep black levels and sharp, solid whites. But the film is just as often not at its best littered with dust specks, spotting damage, and scratches. Contrast varies (sometimes deliberately when the director is going for representing the toxic cloud hovering over an area but not always so), so the wide variance of image quality is troubling. The film has been divided into 8 chapters.

Audio Rating: 3/5

The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo sound mix offers good reproduction of the dialogue in the center channel with Ernest Gold’s Golden Globe-winning and Oscar-nominated score (which does perhaps overuse “Waltzing Matilda” a bit too much) given a nice spread to the other channels and some impressive directional sound effects. But there are sync issues with the audio which come and go constantly throughout the film, (I found the problem on two different Blu-ray machines.) and there’s a bit of flutter to be heard in the background on occasion.

Special Features Rating: 1/5

Theatrical Trailer (4:47, HD)

Overall Rating: 4/5

An apocalyptic film classic, Stanley Kramer’s On the Beach is one of those films which haunts one long after it’s concluded and makes one wish all world leaders would give it a look every few years just to remind themselves of the immense power to destroy so many of them have with but the touch of a button. A film this important truly deserves a thorough remastering that it hasn’t been given with this release. The buyer will have to decide if the audio and video issues contained on this disc are serious enough to impede a purchase.

Reviewed By: Matt Hough

Support HTF when you buy this title:

Matt, thanks for the cool write-up. This is one of those films where I'd never seen it or heard about it before, and it sounds like the kind of movie I'd enjoy.

I'm a little wary based on the reports of sync issues, that's one of those things that has the potential to drive me crazy watching it. The occasional dirt mark or splice I don't really mind as much, but the audio out of sync might be a deal-breaker for me on a blind buy. Still, at the least, this will be getting a rental in the future thanks to your write-up!

I hadn't seen the film in years and upon revisiting it, it has really grown in my estimation. Very moving, haunting and thoroughly depressing.

I was so intent on watching for the sync issues that I rarely noticed any big visual flaws, except for some print damage at the very end. I tend to agree more with Matt's take on the disc's visuals than with Robert Harris'. But, of course, it's the kind of thing, like the sync issue, where everyone's mileage will vary.

Here we have a film that was made in my city when I was about 8-9 years old. Melbourne/Australia was the location Kramer filmed his epic and he was housed(with his wife) around the corner from my home from 1949-1957. The half-sister of Helen Reddy of Pete's Dragon also lived in that little street then. Dad met Mrs Kramer when one of the TVs hired to the production broke down and he had to fix it. Days of prosperity for us in the new field of TV and much bigger wages for TV repairers compared with radio work and we could buy our own house, not far from another Forum member who used to live nearby. The highway that divides my part of town from where he lived(now greatly expanded) was used by the production when they filmed scenes down the line at the large suburb of Frankston at the gateway to our Mornington Peninsula.

I look forward to seeing Blu Ray when it arrives and may well recognize a few faces.

I might add that the TV that was in the flat of Ava Gardner did not appear to have broken down, much to the disgust of the technicians who were hoping to go there but then she might have been else if such a repair was needed. Years later one of friends met Mickey Rooney at the races not far from that Frankston shot area but Ava was long gone from Rooney's life then. My friend worked race meetings in various capacities.

Thanks for you "like" Matt

Ken

Watching this now for the first time. Sync issues definitely affect the enjoyment of the film

jim_falconer said:

Watching this now for the first time. Sync issues definitely affect the enjoyment of the film

Click to expand...

I was worried about this too when I got the KL disc, but I checked it against my ancient MGM DVD, which has a totally different transfer of the film, and it has the exact same sync issues at the exact same points. The UK BD (which I bought to be even more certain, has the sync issues too).

I'm comfortably certain that these sync issues are inherent in the original film. They're mostly in exterior scenes, like the one of Gardner and Peck in the field at her father's farm. They're scenes that would have required ADR, and I've noticed a number of older films where, with the increased resolution of BD, I can see ADR sync issues I never noticed before. When I look at the old DVDs again, I invariably see the issues were always there, just hidden by the low resolution.

It's one of my favorite films of all time, as evidenced by the wall of my living room