Panic in Year Zero!

How I recall those tests of the Emergency Broadcast System on FM radio.  A voice followed by a several second long beep.  The voice returned to tell us that had an actual emergency occurred, instructions would follow.   In 1962's PANIC IN YEAR ZERO!, the Baldwin family find their camping trip interrupted by such an event while en route.  One that struck fear into every Cold War baby for decades.  Flashes of bright light.  A mushroom cloud over their home, Los Angeles.  It becomes clear, after the Baldwins hear a broadcast that the "enemy" has started an atomic war, that the good citizens of the U. S.A. will forget brotherhood and "it takes a village"-type of thinking and resort to every man for himself.  First with right crosses toward gas station attendants, and later with looting and murder.

How quickly even the meekest seeming can adapt.  Harry Baldwin (Ray Milland, who also directed) transforms from pleasant suburbanite to rifle toting badass.  To protect his family: wife Ann (Jean Hagen), son Rick (Frankie Avalon), and daughter Karen (Mary Mitchel).  But as Harry's actions grow increasingly desperate and violent, he wonders aloud if this terrible germ was in him all along.  His wife is shocked, wondering who this man she thought she knew, this seeming stranger, really is.  Desperate times call for, you know.  But when Rick takes a buck shot at a trio of punks who harass his family, Dad recognizes that maybe the kid actually enjoyed it, and dresses him down.

John Morton and Jay Simms' screenplay does provide some moments of insight , some nominally existential musings commenting on this terrible scenario, but I kept wondering how much better it would've been with someone of Rod Serling or Richard Matheson's caliber at the typewriter.  PANIC IN YEAR ZERO! is an American International production, a B-movie, though Milland never allows potential exploitation elements to overrun the movie.  Part of that may be due to the time in which it was made.  Had this come out ten years later, we might've seen more blood, more mayhem, and that offscreen rape.  Unfortunately, the film is hurt by period hokyness, which undermines the tension and grit Milland establishes much of the time.  Even worse is Les Baxter's hysterical, loud scoring, which at times sounds like a sinister carnival.

PANIC IN YEAR ZERO!, which inspired Steely Dan's apocalyptic tune "King of the World", is essentially drive-in fare with a conscience, with the occasional good line like "There are no more civilians" and "Our country is still filled with thieving, murdering patriots."  Yeah, it still plays effectively and relevantly in the 2020s.  When the enemy may be "us" more than ever before.