PANIC IN YEAR ZERO! (1962)
Ray Milland, Frankie Avalon, Jean Hagen, Mary Mitchell, Richard Bakalyan, Rex Holman, Neil Nephew
Directed by Ray Milland
Harry Baldwin and his family have set off on a camping trip in the mountains. The car radio broadcasts Cold War tensions and then they witness a mushroom cloud over the Los Angeles skyline. Needless to say, the dropping of an atom bomb with its blinding flash of light and sonic boom spoils their vacation, and they retreat to the sanctuary of a fishing retreat in the wilderness to await information & possible instructions of what to do next. New York, Philly, Chicago, London, Paris and Rome have also been hit. We're never told who is responsible but in this era of 'Leave it to Beaver', it must be the Commies. L.A. is in chaos from the nuclear attack, rife with looting and hoarding throughout the city & suburbs, and its frantic citizens descending into frenzy. Motorists have jammed the highways to escape, people have armed themselves in vigilante committees, and in times of disaster, profiteering runs rampant alongside criminal ruffian scum seizing their moment to threaten the desperate & weak. We follow the ordeal of intense Harry (who never takes off his hat), his scared and sometimes clueless wife, Ann, (whose poor mother is abandoned after an aborted attempt to return to fetch her), and their 2 teen kids (everready Rick and indifferent Karen) in the wake of nuclear obliteration. The Baldwins manage to stay calm, while other survivors fleeing to seek refuge are never in doubt of being regarded as a dangerous variety who will automatically (and problematically) compete for scarce resources. Their harrowing journey into the unknown is just beginning and avoiding hysteria will take support, strength and selfishness.
Instead of observing any typical aftermath of war such as a bombed out L.A. looking like Dresden; or military quarantines; or control rooms teaming with HQ activity; or hospitals and rescue centers overflowing to capacity; or victims of radioactive fallout, we stay with the family as they gather supplies and take shelter in a cave. They listen to war news on a portable radio. Harry has already stolen from a hardware store and gas station, and beaten up the owners. He's adopted extreme methods (revealing a latent violence previously unknown) to protect his family, and has refused to share food with neighbors -- the husband & wife hardware store owners. The Baldwins' defining confrontation comes via a young trio of lawless hooligans, who were encountered earlier on a roadside, and have since robbed, raped and killed. The husband & wife hardware store owners are murder victims of the threesome. 2 of the delinquents are scared off by a rifle-wielding Ann after their attempt to rape Karen while she was doing laundry near a stream. This occurs while the 3rd goon is absent, and mother & daughter return to the cave. The Baldwin men head out to deliver a dish of some strong, hot justice on the trio. At a farmhouse, Harry shoots the 2 would-be rapists dead, and father & son rescue a young teen girl, Marilyn, who was being held as a sex slave. The 3 assholes murdered her parents and she returns with them to the cave. The 3rd thug returns and happens upon Rick and Marilyn who are out chopping wood. As both men fight, Marilyn shoots scumbag dead, who in the struggle has shot Rick in the leg. The injury requires urgent medical attention and will involve a long drive to a Doctor. All the while, radio bulletins from the UN have been providing news about the world situation. Will order be restored? Can normality resume? Will a life be saved?
When such tragedy hits, it is in this understanding of why nicety is forsaken as a necessary counter to fight back against the worst impulses of those who've deep sixed all decency. But this too runs the risk of the weary individual heightening their suspicion & paranoia, which can erode rationality and result in casting off compassion. It is this loss of trust that a hardened Harry struggles with when 'every-man-for-himself' carries the day. Doing whatever it takes to survive in a very battle for existence brings on heavy ethical & moral dilemnas; at what depths & lengths will one go to keep themself and their loved ones safe? And Harry's forcefulness in a frightening new world that sees humanity going the way of the dodo, poses the question: is it possible to be, and remain, truly civil when civilization has fallen, and society is surrendering to savagery? [Hmmm... does this sound like a current hit AMC TV show about a band of survivors, ploddingly facing the same plight]? This low budget B-movie has one main gripe: it starts and ends on some upbeat, swinging bouncy jazz, and the music is out of place for the subject matter being grim. PANIC IN YEAR ZERO! was released 3 months before the Cuban Missile Crisis when in October 1962, the whole world held it's collective breath as JFK and Nikita Khrushchev played a deadly 2-week game of missile-chess that put mankind on the brink of the end-of-days. As the fear in that episode in history was very potent, the content of armageddon itself in the movie is very restrained. In total, the emphasis here is on behaviour in crisis, and how sometimes with the best of intentions to preserve hope in the face of cataclysm, the methods to achieve such can be a bothersome combination of the awful becoming alarmingly more simple.
THIS IS NOT A TEST (1962)
Seamon Glass, Thayer Roberts, Aubrey Martin, Mary Morlas, Carol Kent, Alan Austin, Mike Green
Directed by Fredric Gadette
It's 4AM and Deputy Sheriff Dan Colter in his cruiser is called to set up a one-man roadblock along a belt of empty highway to capture an escaped psycho killer. In the dragnet, several vehicles on a barren backwater are detained, and among the drivers -- who haven't been told why they've been stopped -- are a grandfather with his granddaughter in a pick-up who are hauling crates of chickens; a young hipster couple returning from Las Vegas with a jackpot of $175,000; a trucker with a hitchhiker; an older bickering couple with a little dog who are on their way to Mexico; and a late-arriver on a Vespa scooter. The mixed party interacts with each other immediately and the hitcher is promptly identified as Clint Delaney, the wanted fugitive in the manhunt. He's chased by the state trooper but runs away. Colter and the motorists then hear over the police radio of an emergency warning about a looming nuclear attack. Yellow alerts turn to code reds and forced by events beyond their control, panic quickly ensues. After confiscating everyone's keys, the officer becomes increasingly stern to keep rules in place. The trucker tells everyone that location wise, they are sitting ducks and a prime bullseye target for an explosion. When people beg to get the hell out of dodge, the hipster is bashed in the back of the head by the barrel of Colter's shotgun for daring to cut loose with his beatnik-speak and mano-a-mano attitude. Sheriff Hard Ass isn't putting up with anyone's shenanigans nor does he give a damn about their griping. He organizes a hectic preparation to convert the truck into a makeshift bomb shelter, imagining they'll have to stay for 2 weeks.
As boxes are unloaded, the women help themselves to fur coats and the granddaughter (June) who has zero intention of shacking up in the truck, runs away to some nearby bushes. She meets Delaney who is hiding out. He isn't playing with a full deck and after somewhat putting the moves on her, is firm in wanting his left behind suitcase. June rejoins the group and sadly reflects at the thought of never seeing another Christmas. Meanwhile the trucker and wife-with-the-dog have gotten chummy and are now flirting. As the contents of the truck are being removed, Colter destroys all the liquor bottles. There'll be no drunks on this watch but the hipster couple have secret booze on hand and they amuse themselves merrily. The hipstress is a lush and as she gets tipsier, she cries at the heartache of the wedding she'll never have. Delaney slips in & out to steal canned food with Colter giving the shotgun to the trucker to go after him. [Sure, just hand over your weapon with no risk whatsoever of it being used against you]. Another bulletin blares that all looters are to be shot. The wife follows the trucker to bushes up ahead and they both make-out. For her it's an expression of an unhappy marriage. For him, it's pure dumb luck and he has no problem getting some tail at a time like this. They are caught by the husband (who has the shotgun) and instead of truckie getting shot and she getting pimp-slapped by someone who looks like he's about to snap, the lovebirds are calmly asked to return to the group. An interesting contrast seeing as hubby is a high-strung type who keeps getting anxious in the middle of all the activity.
For all his whining worry, no one ever tells him he's a pain in the ass who needs to calm down. Colter orders everyone to proceed with the truck to a further clearing. Driving the rig, the trucker is joined by the wife as the husband (looking catatonic) watches both pair together. This marriage is clearly over. For his absolute determination in the single-mindedness of what he's doing, Colter makes it plain that unbecoming for a lawman, he is a simpleton. He feels if people can survive Hiroshima, there's no reason why they simply can't in the truck. End of argument. He wastes precious water to create mudpacks to cover the screens of the truck's air vents to help act as an air-filter that will block radiation seepage. Wow, sound logic. He just will not hear that his transport conversion will not stand up to the magnitude of heat that will melt them all in milliseconds. [Also: Just how long are they gonna be sitting there piled in the back? What happens when the Spaghetti-O's and Ritz Crackers run out? Is there anything else to drink besides grapefruit juice? What about hygienic/sanitary conditions? What about bowel movements? Did anyone see any toilet paper? Is sex out of the question? And most terrifying of all -- Is Colter really going to remain in charge?] Delaney comes back to the now abandoned cars, gets his suitcase (we never find out why it was so important), and with none of the vehicles containing their keys, he flips out by attacking the defenseless poultry. Had they seen it, the chicken ranchers would have been mortified.
Speaking of which -- Grampa, June and scooter-boy are having none of the truck business and take off down the road. The husband has the shotgun again and this time kills himself -- not because the end is nigh but because of his wife's infidelity. Colter gets in the truck with the trucker, the wife (who's taking her hubby's permanent absence rather well), and the hipster couple. Once inside, everyone is mainly silent, seemingly lost in personal contemplations. After June and scooter-boy get Grampa some water from a spring, he remembers a disused mineshaft and sends the 2 there, convinced it will provide better shelter. Gramps won't be joining them. The future (if there is one) will belong to the young. Hopefully they can rebuild the world and not fuck shit up. This oldtimer is gonna check out by climbing to the top of a mountain to watch the globe blow itself apart. Back in the truck, Colter the brainiac states the wife's little dog (which he actually stares down(!) will use up too much needed oxygen. Solution? Strangle it and toss it aside without a shred of emotion. Perhaps he likely also thought it would be an irritating flea-bag that wouldn't shut up in its yapping fits. Yep, a real Einstein to rationalize that a small harmless animal could put everyone of them in serious peril by merely breathing. The senseless incident proves the last straw for the claustrophobic hipstress and she bolts for the door to get out which causes a fight. She gets smacked aside by the canine executioner, while her boyfriend (who was fanning himself with his Vegas money) gets knocked over and the trucker gets punched out.
Hipstress gets the door open and the 4 find a group of 7 men standing outside who heard the commotion. They are looters declaring themselves their own law and looking for gas. Explaining his mobile lodgings, Colter still steadfastly refuses to hear that the truck will be useless protection from instant incineration. As another bulletin announces incoming missiles, the 7 men overpower Colter for his keys to his cruiser and the sleaziest man in the bunch abducts the wife. Only 4 of the men drive off with her as a countdown of 2min25sec-til-impact is heard over the radio. The trucker, the hipster and the 3 ditched looters barricade themselves in the truck. Delaney pulls another random pop-in and confronting Colter (who is awakening from being knocked out), runs away again. The Sheriff calls to him to come back to get in the truck but no dice. So much for a truce and Colter now finds himself locked out. Delaney watches him desperately bang and yell to be let back in, only to be denied & ignored which elicits a genuine look of feeling sorry for Colter, knowing what will happen to him outside. Delaney's own calm indicates he's already accepted his fate. And then comes annihilation's farewell to thee. For his boorish & bullying behaviour of brutish authority, Colter could never see what everyone else could -- that he was the odd man out from the beginning. He is a bastard but not without a grain of empathy: Having gathered all the motorists, he felt it his duty to keep these civilians safe. He refused to let anyone leave and told them there was nowhere they could go that would be all right.
Out in the open and exposed, they would be toast. When people actively expressed wanting the free will to fend for themselves nonetheless, Colter shut them down and forcefully prevented this by saying that staying together was the only way they would have a chance, futile as it was. His stubborn insistence on obedience helped tear down an already splintered group dynamic, complicated by private separate matters converging into a public mess. Having lost final control, and failed at what he tried so hard to manage, fittingly, it is irony that punishes Colter. THIS IS NOT A TEST, like other films of this ilk, is a character study. Made on a shoestring budget (and boy does the Z-grade show), and clocking in at only 73 minutes, the cast are unknowns in roles that however shallow are atleast not stupid, and acting which is serviceable more than shoddy. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, LIFEBOAT and 12 ANGRY MEN are excellent examples of making use of singular settings with small surroundings. Those actors and their exchanges gave major bang for the buck. This movie operates in the same format and while obviously sharing nowhere near the same skill, success and praise, it's still commendable that the "What if" topic of incoming bombs about to vaporize unlikely travelers stopped at a desolate hillside road (somewhere in the California desert) has the potential to be relatable. Has it been done much better with an offering of more tension? Yes, but this quickie flick is honestly sufficient if not satisfactory. Monotone and melodramatic in places but I've seen duller and drier duds. It's crude but not an embarrassment.
One flaw that can be seen with the script is that Delaney could've easily been written out after he first runs away but it appears the writers kept him to hang around on the peripherals to provide some full-circle pity for Colter's last ever encounter; alone and all for naught. From the movie's opening, capturing Delaney is the whole point and when apprehending him is unsuccessful, it ceases to be a priority in the face of more pressing concerns. Done differently: having Delaney exit as someone still presumed on the run and who we don't see again, presents a reasonable & workable view that even for a criminal, his evasion and non-return could be interpreted as probably luckier & better off than the rest of the motorists who are trapped by Colter's concrete intransigence. And what of the dialogue? It's really no different than what can be found in a passable 30min. TV anthology episode, and discussions by the characters about how they'll all turn out deal with an actual seriousness. It is the stress and unraveling of these people that maintains any interest. If this movie was a stage play, I imagine a particular idea being explored: whether rendering whatever 'worthwhile' amounts to nothing more than being 'worthless' for in the race against time ahead of the impending end-of-the-world strike, we see how in an exact moment of nearing-catastrophe, the folly of our characters too late in their predicament. They are representative of a larger whole in the doomsday playbook -- of never thinking that such an eventual, from the impossible, is destined to become the inevitable. It's a conundrum that should you give THIS IS NOT A TEST a chance (and these days, who doesn't have an hour for youtube?), you might find the quandary interesting rather than inane.
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