Panic in Year Zero! (1962)

It's 2017 and you can hear and read in and on lots of sites of what we might experience if unprepared for a major catastrophe. This movie of like 55 years ago and the exercise in telling are superb. The acting is excellent. Frankie Avalon is better than good and what a surprise! All actions/ reactions are spelled out with attitudes and responses of maximum credibility. Very cool to be so surprised after expecting a low-level thing here... I was surprised that Ray Milland would take part in a "B" level movie. Well it isn't B level... Although not a Jean Hagen admirer her presence was why I expected less than is delivered. And she too gets my praise. A WOW of a movie. (I'm in the middle of it and await the final moments... and wouldn't for any reason under any conditions "spoil")

Directed by and starring Ray Milland, "Panic in Year Zero!" is the story of a family of four whose planned camping vacation is interrupted by the onset of nuclear war. The husband (Milland) decides they should be proactive and head for the hills, away from the predictable hazards that will accompany the breakdown of civilization. As they struggle to survive, they make difficult choices that may change them.Shot in black and white, which helps add gravity to the story, the film features a jazz soundtrack by Les Baxter--accomplished and celebrated arranger--that is misplaced. On occasion, it detracts from the somber tone of the film.Besides Milland, the film also features Jean Hagen as the wife, and Frankie Avalon as the son. The entire cast is credible, though a group of three hoods is portrayed in a predictably stereotypical fashion.This is no "Lord of the Flies", but its depiction of what happens when civility is removed from civilization is just as revealing. There are always those for whom lawfulness is merely a thin veneer or a well-acted façade.

Panic in Year Zero (1962) aka End of the World CONTAINS SPOILERS The Cuban Missile Crisis ignited an explosion of excellent movies dealing with nuclear holocaust including Fail-Safe (1964), Dr. Strangelove (1964), (Stanley Kubrick's follow-up masterpiece to Paths of Glory (1957) and Lolita (1962), (Spartacus (1960) is very good, but it is what it is)), and The Bedford Incident (1965). The theme was explored from slightly different angles, (Seven Days in May (1964), Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977), Wargames (1983), The Manhattan Project (1986), By Dawn's Early Light (1990)), and with varying degrees of verisimilitude, (A Day Called X (1957), This is not a Test (1962), The War Game (1965), The Day After (1983), Threads (1984)), quite consistently through the end of the Cold War. Most of these movies deal with a big picture view and, at least in part, give a ringside seat to the councils of the decision makers, (at least the local ones in Threads). There are some very good exceptions of course, particularly Malevil (1981) and Testament (1983).Panic in Year Zero appeared a year before the missile crisis and follows a family of four, who happen to be driving away from Los Angeles on a vacation when the city is destroyed, as they try to survive the growing chaos in the surrounding areas. An AI exploitation picture, the low budget precluded dramatic scenes of large scale carnage or destruction, but allows at times for a surprisingly intelligent examination of some of the moral issues about survival, self defense and self preservation. (For instance, Ray Milland (who also directed, by the way) has to overcome his son's, (Avalon), initial reluctance to use a rifle; later, Avalon is actually eager to use it. As soon as Milland sees this, he scolds him and makes clear that he must be prepared to use the gun if necessary, but he should never want to or enjoy doing so and must always be on guard against his own inclinations that way.)Neither Fail-Safe nor Dr. Strangelove, (and other than by implication On the Beach (1959), for that matter - which Arch Oboler did better in Five (1951), in my opinion), show weapon effects, so their minimal use here is not an issue in and of itself. The problem is how much they, and the social dislocation, are attenuated: there is no sense of real chaos because the movie never fully allows the thin veneer of civilization to flake off, (something done very effectively in the last fifteen minutes of Miracle Mile (1988)), and so the theme of these four being the maintainers of ethical standards amongst a collapsed society rings false. And in the same sense, the finale finds the protagonists essentially having passed through the crisis and gives the movie rather a happy ending. My guess is AI, as usual, wanted to give the audience a good entertaining scare but not seriously frighten anyone.Still, a very worthwhile movie in many ways - certainly worth watching if one enjoys these types of dramas - and deserving of inclusion in the Nuclear Disaster film canon. And it's always nice to see Ray Milland acting and directing after he found that weekend he misplaced.XYZ

This was made during the Cold War when there were duck and cover drills in schools, people actually had bomb shelters built in their backyards, and many people feared a real nuclear war could happen. In this movie you have a patriarch played very well by Ray Milland, Frankie Avalon is his teenage son and he does a very good job, Jean Hagen is the wife who still thinks in terms of civilization, and the daughter (Mary Mitchell)is a drab character in this film. Ray realizes the situation before the others and is the driving force in their survival as a family. He buys gas, food and supplies using cash at first and then force later on. As this show progresses you sees the two women going farther down the chain of authority as the family starts reverting towards a lower order of civilization. All in all a very nicely done film. Reminds me of the book by Robert Heinlein called "Farnham's Freehold" which is a decent read.