One Disaster Movie
and
One Disastrous Movie
Film feature for The Stranger, 6/28/98
ON THE BEACH
(dir. Stanley Kramer, 1959)
Local oldtimers remember when Stanley Kramer lived here in the ’80s and hosted KCPQ’s Sunday-night movies. He was always trying to make a statement, but usually took every commercial break to try to meander back to his original point, usually unsuccessfully. Here, though, he makes his point early and blatantly. In Aussie novelist Nevil Shute’s story, the Yanks and Russkies have fired their nukes in 1964, destroying most of civilization. Australia wasn’t hit, but the radiation clouds are on the way; so, as Ava Gardner’s character sighs, “There isn’t time. No time to love. Nothing to remember. Nothing worth remembering.” Well, actually there’s time for Gardner to fall for U.S. submarine captain Gregory Peck, for Fred Astaire and Anthony Perkins to try to keep up the townspeople’s spirits somehow, for a brass band to play one last round of “Waltzing Matilda,” and for one lingering B&W shot of Melbourne’s eventually-lifeless streets. The spookiest antinuke flick of them all (including the ’80s TV ones), precisely becuase of its lack of onscreen gore.
RENALDO AND CLARA
(dir. Bob Dylan, 1978)
After Dylan mumbled through his role in Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), the Voice of a Generation apparently thought he could act–and even direct! So when he made a filmed record of his 1975-76 Rolling Thunder Revue tour, he padded it out to five hours with fictionalized backstage antics, incoherent pontifications, and sub-dinner-theater acting. Dylan plays the “ambiguous” Renaldo (as described by the All-Movie Guide). His then-wife Sara plays Clara. Ronnie Hawkins and Ronee Blakely play Bob and Sara Dylan. Joan Baez plays The Woman In White. Bob Neuwirth plays The Masked Tortilla. Sam Shepard (his on-screen debut) and Harry Dean Stanton attempt to add professionalism. Dylan and Shepard share the writing credit/blame. After its box-office failure, Dylan issued a two-hour cut of just the music (including Arlo Guthrie, Joni Mitchell, Roger McGuinn, and an out-of-place Roberta Flack). Neither version’s easy to find.
