before the cloud of nuclear radiation (from a war which has killed everyone else) makes its way down to them. It's not a particularly uplifting film, and the Australian accents of Ava Gardner and Anthony Perkins (and the Englishish accent of Fred Astaire) are appallingly unconvincing. But it's powerful film-making, long shots, interesting music - indeed the soundtrack evokes all the lost places and people which the characters can't bear to think of... I thought I should include these scenes (pixilated because I watched the DVD on my laptop and then took a picture of it) because they show the route I so recently took every day down to the State Library of Victoria and, below, the plaza in front of it.
These are among the final scenes in the film, and what we're seeing is all the people who are not there - all dead. (The government passes out suicide pills, giving a whole new meaning to the line "You'll never catch me alive, said he" from Waltzing Matilda, the main musical theme.) The second scene is the third time we've seen of this place: the first time a big crowd was gathered for a Salvation Army Rally. In the second, the crowd has thinned a bit. Now everyone's gone, and as flyers are pushed around by the wind, the banner calls out mutely...Funny thing about black and white films, but also about films about the insanity of mutually assured destruction (MAD) - it seems like that world did end in annihilation. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part, wishing that the danger of nuclear annihilation has passed...
