THE BEGINNING AND THE END
Talbot, Daniel
tempts unsuccessfully to explain how humanity got so fouled up. There are other situations in the film of equal cartoon-strip dimensions. In the end the Dust comes, but not before a Salvation...
...These glimpses say infinitely more about what is happening in this story than all the double talk...
...Of the six hours occupied by both films, Ben Hur starts off by telling us in three and a half that the Sermon on the Mount got us off to a good start in matters of conscience, while On the Beach, in two and a half, disposes of conscience in awesome fashion...
...Somewhere in between Evil entered...
...In the end the Dust comes, but not before a Salvation Army banner emblazons the screen with the words: There is Still Time, Brother...
...The memorable things about On the Beach are the silent sequences of a doomed populace queuing up for death pills, of a vast Salvation Army jam session in which everyone is without salavation, of cold streets empty of people but littered with newspapers, and of two old club chums frantically trying to drink up the club's supply of spirits before doom descends...
...Gregory Peck is given an untenable role...
...Apparently he has become schizoid over the death of his wife and two children (of whom he talks as if they were still alive), yet when the occasion calls for immediate, reality-oriented thinking and action, he suddenly becomes as shape as his ship...
Vol. 24 • January 1960 • No. 1
