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re: On the Beach
Robert — (archived)

I've been coming back to this thread because I've had such a hard time coming up with an answer to the question exactly as Jody phrased it: Not so much what movie moved me personally, but what movie moved the world?

On the Beach is an excellent choice. It, along with Dr. Strangelove, were the cinematic posters backdropping the anti-nuclear war movement, which begat the anti-Vietnam War movement. Both movies contributed a focal point to a historic movement, but where Strangelove was farce, On the Beach was terrifyingly grim.

Which leads me to its personal impact. I saw it on TV within a few years of its release, so I must've been younger than ten. I remember watching it with my mother, and to this day I can't hear "Waltzing Mathilda" with tearing up, not only because of its association with the bleak finale, but because my mother cried at that point in the movie. Two-hanky movies aren't always about the pain of failed romance. Sometimes they're about the end of the world, and men (and boys) can relate to that too.

It's interesting that we both zeroed in on that era in history. While wracking my brain for an answer, I thought of Valley of the The Dolls, Peyton Place, and Rebel Without a Cause because they shed light on American society at that time. But I rejected them as too parochial and ephemeral--domestic, and a world that no longer exists (and to what extent the movies are responsible for that, I can't say).

I'd say that you've come up with the best answer to a very difficult question. Kudos to Jody for asking.

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