Vitals

Ray Milland as Harry Baldwin, California family man-turned-survivalist

Sierra Nevada Mountains, Spring 1962

Film: Panic in Year Zero!
(also released as End of the World)
Release Date: July 5, 1962
Director: Ray Milland
Wardrobe Credit: Marjorie Corso

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

In addition to his prolific acting career that won him the Academy Award for his performance in The Lost Weekend (1945), Welsh star Ray Milland also directed a handful of films and television episodes. His penultimate directorial effort was Panic in Year Zero!, a survival thriller written by John Morton and Jay Simms that underscored contemporary apocalyptic anxieties during the atomic age.

Every footpath will be crawling with men saying “no matter what, I’m going to live,” and that’s what I’m saying too. My family must survive!

Milland also starred in his film as Harry Baldwin, the resourceful patriarch of a well-to-do family from southern California leading a fishing trip to the Sierra Nevada mountains with his wife Ann (Jean Hagen) and their teenage children Rick (Frankie Avalon) and Karen (Mary Mitchel).

Shortly after the Baldwins hit the road one early morning in March, their journey is interrupted by a thermonuclear explosion that destroys Los Angeles—part of a massive targeted attack that also decimated major cities across the world from New York City and Chicago to London, Paris, and Rome. As they gradually understand the scope of the situation, the family’s vacation transforms into a struggle to survive amidst the quickly decaying morality of a society driven to desperation. Continue reading →