Timing is a funny, funny thing. 1962’s Panic In Year Zero came out right before the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Cold War was in full swing, obviously, although the average person was no longer scrambling to build a home fallout shelter. Still, the threat of nuclear war was definitely there, and naturally American International Pictures saw the current situation as film fodder.
Panic At Year Zero opens with the Baldwin family of Los Angeles, who are packing up their camper to go fishing in the mountains. They’re driving along a mountain road when they see some strange flashes. It doesn’t register at first what’s going on, but then they look back toward Los Angeles and notice a mushroom-shaped cloud. No one thinks to duck and cover, though. They just all stare, dumbfounded.
What would Bert the Turtle say?
Anyway, the Baldwins figure out pretty quickly what’s going on. They also figure they’d better get gas and supplies as soon as they can because things are going to go from bad to worse before they know it.
These encounters all start looking alike. Dad Harry (Ray Milland) and whatever business owner he’s talking to go from talking to arguing, and finally Harry belts the guy and the Baldwins take what they need.
And they accumulate a big cache of stuff. The Baldwins finally set up house in a cave, which is remarkably spacious and well-lit, and bury their food around the outside of the cave in separate boxes, to keep as a bargaining chip and so they don’t eat everything all at once. It seems like a finely-honed system, and even though they’ve ditched their camper, the family stays remarkably clean and well-fed. Where they shower and use the toilet is a mystery, however.
Not everyone is so enterprising or thoughtful. There are people around the Baldwins who would like nothing better than to relieve them of their stash, and some of them cast creepy eyes at daughter Karen (Mary Mitchel). Son Rick (Frankie Avalon) gets pretty adept with a shotgun and traps, though, so anyone who comes calling will have some obstacles to surmount first. Mom Ann (Jean Hagen) isn’t too keen on slugging or shooting people, but there’s not much that she can do about it.
When Karen gets attacked and raped by a couple of local toughs, Harry and Rick go looking for them and find Marilyn (Joan Hayes), who’s basically a captive in her own home and a sex slave to those very busy hoodlums. Naturally, Harry and Rick take her back to camp with them. Things might be looking up when all is said and done, and civilization might be healing itself faster than anyone expects.
There’s not really an ending, though. It just kinda stops.
So. This movie.
It’s obviously very cheaply done, which was par for the course with American International Pictures, and very likely shot outside of Los Angeles, probably somewhere around Interstate 15. The footage of the atomic bombs may have been stock footage from nuclear tests. Also obvious are the many plays for our credibility. This movie is on the line of Gilligan’s Island in that these characters always look more or less perfect, despite being in survival mode.
Well, with the exception of Karen, who always wears perfectly pressed and starched dresses. Did the Baldwins bring an ironing board and iron on their camping trip? I highly doubt it, and anyway, where would they plug in an iron? Either way, they’ve got a lot of clothes and accoutrements for what should be a four-day excursion.
That’s not to say that the movie is all bad. It’s sort of realistic as far as what a family would do if they were caught away from home during a nuclear attack, or at least what a family would do if they were on a camping trip with a trailer full of stuff.
Ray Milland directed and starred in the movie, and gives a good performance, but it feels like he was spread a little thin. Frankie Avalon’s performance is a highlight as well, especially considering he’s most well-known for his campier fare, so it’s pretty refreshing to see him in a different kind of role.
Panic In Year Zero made a respectable $1.8M at the box office, or $28.6M in today’s money, with American International Pictures poised to make a big splash in Hollywood. Since Panic did well, it paved the way for Frankie Avalon to make more movies with American International Pictures, although it’s a mystery why Avalon was kept firmly in the camp universe instead of doing a mixture of parts. Yeah, camp was trendy, but a mix would have been more fun in the end. I’m guessing the public preferred Avalon in lighter fare.
The reviews were pretty kind as well. Harrison’s Reports said,
“One of the redeeming features of one of these low-budget films is that you can never tell when it will fashion itself into a vehicle of stand-up entertainment. What makes this come out on the probably profitable side of the ledger, is that it doesn’t intend to reach out to pretentious boundaries. Its plot-structure is simple, believable, forthrightly honest. The people go through their paces with the same characteristics that make up the story they are playing out.
Film Bulletin was slightly more measured: “Although the Jay Simms-John Morton screenplay attempts to probe such questions as how a well-adjusted man resorts to animalism to save his loved ones in time of crisis, the end result is strictly superficial melodrama, albeit with enough suspense and action to keep the masses entertained.”
“Unpretentious” seemed to be a byword for Panic. Photoplay said this about the film: “By playing up human reactions instead of mere spectacle, this unpretentious film achieves a manner of frightening realism. It isn’t just melodrama; even nice-kid Frankie is alarmingly eager to shuck off civilization.”
Not surprisingly, Panic In Year Zero has very much dated since the sixties in some respects, but its timing was impeccable and it remains a novelty of the Cold War era. As TCM put it, “The addition of a gang of toughs spewing antiestablishment invective through a filter of beatnik rebop adds an unfortunate kitsch factor that has made Panic in Year Zero! something of a Psychotronic whipping boy (the jazzy Les Baxter score doesn’t help either) but the sincerity and seriousness of the filmmakers is clear.”
Another post is coming out on Monday. Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you then…
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