On the Beach
On the Beach is a post-apocalyptic end-of-the-world novel written by British author Nevil Shute after he had emigrated to Australia.It was made into a movie in 1959, featuring Gregory Peck (USS Swordfish captain Dwight Lionel Towers), Ava Gardner (Moira Davidson), Fred Astaire (scientist Julian Osborne) and Anthony Perkins (Australian sailor Peter Holmes). It was directed by Stanley Kramer, who won the 1960 BAFTA Award for best director. Ernest Gold won the 1960 Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Score.
It was also made into a 2000 television movie featuring Bryan Brown, Rachel Ward and directed by Russell Mulcahy.
Warning: Plot details follow.
The novel is set some time after World War III has devastated the northern hemisphere, polluting the atmosphere with nuclear fallout, which is gradually being carried south by the global air currents. The only parts of the planet still inhabitable is the far south of the globe, specifically Australia and New Zealand, South Africa, and the southern parts of South America. From here, survivors detect a mysterious gibberish signal emitted from United States through Morse code. With hope that some life has remained in the infected areas, they send a submarine to get hands on whoever is sending the signal. Captain Dwight Towers leads the operation, leaving behind him a woman of recent acquaintance, Moira Davidson, whom he's fallen in love with despite his faithfulness to his wife who's fallen a victim in US. As the expedition discovers that the emitted signal is in fact the result of a Coca-cola bottle caught in a curtain which is moved by the wind, they return to Australia to live the little time that remain before the air gets poisoined by radiations. Eventually everybody escape their frustration into the seek of their past life, disregarding the possibilities of living a last time together. This is best exemplified by Towers getting back to US to die there, instead of remaining with Moira Davidson. Much of the novel's action takes place in Melbourne, as the southernmost part of the Australian mainland.