The Real McCoy?

1957 saw the publication of Nevil Shute's On the Beach, Jack Kerouac's On the Road, and the successful launch of two Soviet Sputniks. That's right -- there was a whole fleet of the little things, perhaps better called Baby Sputniks. Not only did they usher in today's age of the communication satellite and everything that goes with it, but they also sent the US into panic mode. On November 3, 1957, Laika (a husskie mongrel) became the first cosmonaut in space inside Sputnik 2. She also became the first "space martyr." The Russians went on to successfully bring back alive two other dogs, Stelka and Belka, three months before JFK beat Richard M. Nixon in the 1960 US national elections (with Fiddle and Faddle already in the wings, no doubt).

If On the Road is about freedom of movement, so is "Waltzing Matilda;" On the Beach is about the end of movement, thanks to the Cold War becoming a hot one. Everything has a context. San Francisco columnist Herb Caen launched the term "beatnik" on April 2, 1958 (and he also later created the term "hippie"). Sputnik itself translates into English as "fellow traveller."

Though it all may seem comical and ridiculous now, the Cold War kept the world hostage to destruction, and on a very short leash.

When the movie version of On the Beach appeared in 1959, it naturally created quite a stir. How it explores the aftermath of nuclear war is what makes it fascinating. It shows, for instance, the breakdown of infrastructure. Imagine today the sudden ending of all air travel, followed by power outages, rationing, and bad coffee. In mythical 1964 Australia, people start riding horses again, pool resources, use horse and buggy for transportation. And people ramp up their lifestyles, drinking, boat racing, and, in one scene, racing cars as furiously as Mad Max will later in the Road Warrior movies. Few want to die "naturally" of radiation sickness, and the government will issue cyanide pills "when the time comes."

The movie made Nevil Shute one of the most famous authors of his day, but he hated it, especially because the Gregory Peck character does fall for the charms of Ava Gardner's Moira after his return from the reconnaissance cruise. Shute's version has Captain Towers keep things platonic, preferring the English stiff upper lip to Stanley Kramer's cinematic version. Shute died less than a year after the movie's release. Coincidence? You can check out his foundation (his full name was Nevil Shute Norway) here: http://www.nevilshute.org/

The key players of the film version came from backgrounds outside the then-dominant self-proclaimed heterosexual WASP elite. Stanley Kramer was Jewish; Fred Astaire (Austerlitz), Catholic-Jewish-Protestant; Anthony Perkins, gay/bisexual; Gregory Peck, Catholic; Ava Gardner, North Carolina Catholic. They bring an urgency to the film, and a feel for complexity. There is no enemy in the film except, perhaps, radiation and death, and the human psyche.

These celebrities could give the current ones a run for their money. During the shooting of On the Beach, Veronique Passani, Peck's second wife, stayed with him in a well-stocked villa; they regularly entertained Ava Gardner and others. How fun! As for today's crew, it'll be interesting to see how Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie handle their films from here on out -- especially when Angelina tends to fall in love with every leading man she works with, as she herself freely admits. More scenes of Brad weeping, I'm guessing. He's already back to smoking, poor man.

More on Ava and company soon. On the Road will finally be adapted to the big screen, too. Stay tuned for details on this . . . and on the titillating connection between On the Beach and Jonestown.

Until then, arrivederci!