| Panic in Year Zero! | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Ray Milland |
| Produced by | Arnold Houghland Lou Rusoff |
| Screenplay by | John Morton Jay Simms |
| Story by | Ward Moore |
| Starring | Ray Milland Jean Hagen Frankie Avalon Joan Freeman |
| Music by | Les Baxter |
| Cinematography | Gilbert Warrenton |
| Editing by | William Austin |
| Distributed by | American International Pictures |
| Release date(s) | July 5, 1962 (United States) |
| Running time | 93 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Panic in Year Zero! (1962), sometimes known as End of the World, is a science fiction film directed by and starring Ray Milland. The original music score was composed by Les Baxter. It was adapted to film by John Morton and Jay Simms from Ward Moore's stories Lot (1953) and Lot's Daughter (1954).
In the 1962 novelization of the film by Dean Owen, which was published under the title End of the World by Alta Vista Productions with Ray Milland's photo on the cover, the introduction page asserted: "The screenplay was by John Morton and Jay Simms, from an original story by Jay Simms."
Contents |
Soon after Harry Baldwin (Ray Milland), his wife Ann (Jean Hagen), their son Rick (Frankie Avalon), and daughter Karen (Mary Mitchell) leave suburban Los Angeles on a camping trip, the Baldwins note unusually bright light flashes coming from a great distance. Sporadic news reports on CONELRAD broadcasts hint at the start of a World War - which is confirmed as the Baldwins see a large mushroom cloud over what was Los Angeles. The family initially attempts to return to rescue Ann's mother near Los Angeles, but soon abandons these plans as panicked refugees from Los Angeles climb over one another to escape the fallout from the multiple nuclear explosions. Witnessing the very threads of society breaking down in front of them, Harry makes the decision that the family must make it to their secluded vacation spot in search of an isolated refuge. Along the way, they stop off to buy supplies — or, in the case of hardware store owner Ed Johnson (Richard Garland), take them by force when he won't accept a check — and extra gasoline. They also encounter three threatening young hoodlums, Carl (Richard Bakalyan), Mickey (Rex Holman), and Andy (Neil Nephew), on the road, but manage to drive them off.
After a harrowing journey, the Baldwins reach their destination and hole up in a cave to wait for order to be restored. They find that Johnson and his wife are their neighbors - but not for long. The three thugs show up and shoot them. A farming couple suffers the same fate and their teenage daughter, Marilyn (Joan Freeman) is kept as a sex slave. Mickey and Andy happen upon Karen and she is raped. With guns in hand, the Baldwin men fight back, killing the two murderers and freeing Marilyn. When Carl returns, he is killed as well, but Rick is seriously wounded.
With Marilyn's help, they get the young man to Doctor Strong (Willis Bouchey). The doctor does what he can, but the boy needs to get to an army hospital over a hundred miles (160 km) away or he will die. On their drive there, they run into a military patrol, scouting for the army that is reestablishing order. After a tense meeting, they are allowed to pass through.
Michael Atkinson, the film critic for The Village Voice, liked the film and wrote, "This forgotten, saber-toothed 1962 AIP cheapie might be the most expressive on-the-ground nightmare of the Cold War era, providing a template not only for countless social-breakdown genre flicks (most particularly, Michael Haneke's Time of the Wolf) but also for authentic crisis—shades of New Orleans haunt its DVD margins...the movie is nevertheless an anxious, detail-rich essay on moral collapse."[1]
Glenn Erickson writes, in his DVD Savant review, "Panic In Year Zero! scrupulously avoids any scenes requiring more than minimalist production values yet still delivers on its promise, allowing audience imagination to expand upon the narrow scope of what's actually on the screen. It sure seemed shocking in 1962, and easily trumped other more pacifistic efforts. The Day the Earth Caught Fire was for budding flower people; Panic In Year Zero! could have been made as a sales booster for the gun industry."[2]
Film critic Dennis Schwartz discussed the film's theme and philosophy, "This was the first film Ray Milland directed. A modern audience would have no trouble identifying with its pessimistic treatment of humanity and the frightening possibility of what a nuclear attack could do. We live in a time of terrorists and the scenario presented onscreen is not that far fetched from the realm of possibilities. The only thing that was hard to fully approve of in Panic in Year Zero!, was Milland's selfish philosophy for survival—it was simply not a very human one. It was a narrow philosophy that did not give him the high moral ground over the looters, who also recognized it was a dog-eat-dog world and they must also look out only for Number One. But if everyone behaved like that, the world would indeed be a place of anarchy and hell. Otherwise this rather grim tale acted in a satisfying but desultory manner, in pointing out what realistically might happen in such a catastrophe. Its theme as stated by Milland is: 'I’ll return when civilization becomes civilized again.'"[3]