Originally published at: Panic In Year Zero (1962), a survival science fiction film was just uploaded to the Internet Archive | Boing Boing
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Panic In Year Zero (1962), a survival science fiction film was just uploaded to the Internet Archive
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My favorite line, after a guy learns “we won the war!”, he says “well, ding ding for us!”
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Ah yes the 50’s-60’s public propaganda about surviving nuclear was…
all a great big lie.
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Atomic Cafe stuff right there…
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I was only aware of it because of the Pere Ubu single that used a similar name.
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I always assumed that was a reference to post revolution (France and at the time Cambodia).
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I saw this a few times on TV, in the Saturday late morning / early afternoon spot reserved for horror and SF films.
Rewatched it a year or so ago.
It’s not bad. No mutants, a fairly sane survivalist dad, some interesting little touches (like a doctor still manning his home practice after most people in his town have fled).
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Reading the synopsis of the film just now I seem to recall seeing it once too, probably when I was a kid. I may have stumbled on it while changing channels.
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I just watched that movie, not bad. That jazzy soundtrack was a bit too peppy for my liking though, needed more theremin and to be more somber.
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I watched Panic In Year Zero a couple of weeks back and found it had a very peculiar flavour.
Yes, it has a lot of that quaint, white, '50s style, clear-cut gender roles and square jawed stoicism. But overwhelmingly, it’s filled with people behaving selfishly and violently.
It’s a textbook of Rugged Individualism Uber Alles and to watch it is to gain an insight into how the US got to be where it is now.*
It’s a remarkable movie, way ahead of its time. But it contrasts strongly with say, On The Beach which is of the same era and covers similar subject matter.
*The last few years - Covid, toilet-paper hoarding, all that stuff…
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Very similar to a number of other apocalyptic, end of the world, Last Man on Earth type stories, including No Blade of Grass, currently streaming on TCM - Watch TCM
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I love a good end of the world movie, regardless of how many times I’ve seen a similar plot before.
Ray Milland is awesome. Whether in the daft “Frogs” against a very sexy Sam Elliot or as the arrogant villain in “Colombo”, he was always class.
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