Published in June 1957 and an instant best seller, Nevil Shute’s On the Beach was one of the first “serious” novels my parents gave me to read. They were both obsessed by the possibility of nuclear explosion and even had a section earmarked for a ‘bunker’ in the long run, which at the time I thought was stark, raving bonkers. Once I read Shute’s book however, I started to understand why for people of a certain age at that time, the threat of atomic warfare was a very real thing.
On the Beach is the story that gave voice to Shute’s - and many others - concerns about the possible destruction of humanity. Set in the city of Melbourne in the then near future, Shute’s novel occurs in the aftermath of a devastating nuclear war in the northern hemisphere and is terrifying at best. It was a huge hit at the time of its release, and before long director Stanley Kramer bought the film rights from Shute, and it became a film classic starring the legendary Gregory Peck, Ava Gardnerand Anthony Perkins.
Published in June 1957 and an instant best seller, Nevil Shute’s On the Beach was one of the first “serious” novels my parents gave me to read. They were both obsessed by the possibility of nuclear explosion and even had a section earmarked for a ‘bunker’ in the long run, which at the time I thought was stark, raving bonkers. Once I read Shute’s book however, I started to understand why for people of a certain age at that time, the threat of atomic warfare was a very real thing.
On the Beach is the story that gave voice to Shute’s - and many others - concerns about the possible destruction of humanity. Set in the city of Melbourne in the then near future, Shute’s novel occurs in the aftermath of a devastating nuclear war in the northern hemisphere and is terrifying at best. It was a huge hit at the time of its release, and before long director Stanley Kramer bought the film rights from Shute, and it became a film classic starring the legendary Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner and Anthony Perkins.
It was a big budget affair, and realistically (for the time) portrayed what would happen if a poisonous radioactive cloud was slowly drifting southward, and the population of Melbourne were fated to be amongst the last survivors left on earth. It follows the crew of an American submarine searching for remaining signs of life on earth, eventually landing in Melbourne where they join the locals in the inevitable wait for the end. They have about five months left, and their lives are overshadowed by the pall of inevitable death, suicide capsules and all.
For most who have read the novel and seen the book, the opinion is that Kramer made a decent fist of best-selling British novelist Shute’s magnum opus. Shute however disagreed, and his anger towards the cinematic adaptation pursued him till he died – actually killing him. Shute was so livid about Kramer’s 1959 production that he worked himself into a fatal stroke (age 60) a month after it premiered.
Australian documentary filmmaker LawrenceJohnston (NIGHT, LIFE, ETERNITY) explores the life of Shute and the events surrounding the film of his novel in doco FALLOUT, bringing together interesting interviews with subjects like Shute’s daughter Heather Mayfield, Kramer’s wife and many others. It follows Shute’s early life as a Chief Engineer – he created the R100, a Hindenburg-like airship dismantled after its government-funded counterpart, the R101, crashed in France in 1930 and killed all but six of the 54 people on board – and his role heading the Royal Navy’s ‘Miscellaneous Weapons Development’ division, creating crazy inventions including a rocket-propelled wheel designed to roll down the beach and scare the hell out of incoming Germans! In 1950 Shute moved to Melbourne, banged out novels (he wrote 23 in total) and became of the highest paid writers in the world.
His personal story provides more than enough material for the documentary alone, but Johnston adds to the mix his crowning work and the science that inspired it, as well as a feel for the prevailing mood at the time. “I'm a working class suburban boy from Brisbane and the novel was on the curriculum at high school,” Johnston told an interviewer. “To read a novel with the dramatic concept that the world could possibly end, that was actually set in Australia, made an incredible impression on me.”
The end result is a documentary that is not only the story of a famous novelist, but also a depiction of a time when a Hollywood movie being made in Melbourne was the talk of the town, and a discussion of the still-relevant possible annihilation of the human species.
FALLOUT has been described as a “making of” documentary about the book and film version of On the Beach, but it’s much more than that. Not merely a look behind the scenes of the making of a historically significant film – and book, it is also a study of the impact the bomb has had on the 20th century as well.