Today’s post was written by David Langbart, archivist in Research Services at the National Archives at College Park, MD.
The major United Artists motion picture On the Beach came out in 1959. It was based on the 1957 novel of the same name by Nevil Shute. The book and the movie depict a post-apocalyptic world in the aftermath of a nuclear war. It was the first major movie about nuclear conflict and it threatened to stir up international sentiment against war and nuclear weapons.
On the Beach received a great deal of advance notice and the studio made plans for premieres to take place in the United States and fifteen cities around the world, including Berlin, Johannesburg, London, Melbourne, Moscow, Paris, and Tokyo, on December 17, 1959. A previous post discussed the preparations the U.S. Government made for dealing with possible international reaction to the release of that motion picture.
As described in the earlier post, the United States Information Agency (USIA) issued an “INFOGUIDE” (information guidance) on December 4 to provide directions to its overseas posts on how to handle questions and comments about the picture.
While working on another project recently, I ran across additional guidance relating to On the Beach. Issued by USIA on December 30, 1959, a little more than three weeks after the INFOGUIDE, this guidance included a set of questions and answers prepared by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and dealt with scientific inaccuracies in the movie and the larger issue of nuclear war and its effects.
For more about On the Beach, see International Reaction to the Motion Picture “On the Beach.”
Another aspect of the On the Beach story is in Responding to the release of “On the Beach:” Early use of emojis.
Source: United States Information Agency Circular Airgram CA-1594, December 30, 1959, file 103-USIA/12-3059, 1955-59 Central Decimal File, RG 59: General Records of the Department of State.