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Year: 1962 Production: Alta Vista / VIP Director: Ray Milland Starring: Ray Milland, Jean Hagen, Frankie Avalon, Mary Mitchel, Joan Freeman, Richard Garland Screenwriter: Jay Simmons Based (without credit) on the stories "Lot" (1953) and "Lot's Daughter" (1954) by Ward Moore. Novelization (1962) by Dean Owen 95 minutes; B/W
This cynical, violent film - one of the earliest examples of the survivalist ethos in cinema - shows how a typical US family have to act to survive the aftermath of an atomic holocaust: by trusting no one and shooting first. The father quickly, and almost gleefully, reverts to being a ruthless "natural survivor" who will let nothing stand in the way of getting his family to safety after Los Angeles has been A-bombed. The escape along roads jammed with panicking traffic is strongly done, but thereafter the film subsides into clumsy adventure in the mountains; it is inferior to, and lacks the sexual reverberations of, the stories on which it was loosely based, though it retains some biblical parallels. |
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