The year is 1964, and nuclear war has wiped out all life in the Northern Hemisphere. As lethal clouds wend their way south to Australia, life in Melbourne takes on the tragic folly of impending death, offering a stage for some excellent performances by Fred Astaire, in a rare dramatic role as a doom-drenched alcoholic; Ava Gardner as a woman who has always lived as though there were no tomorrow, until there is none; Anthony Perkins as a nervous young naval lieutenant; and Gregory Peck as the stoic, bereft captain of an American naval vessel sent to search for survivors in San Francisco. Of course the unique thing about this Hollywood film is that there are no survivors. Still, conspicuous by their absence are the dead, the maimed, and the radiation-sick. Kramer's purpose in all of this becomes resoundingly clear in the quiet of the film's final shot, as a banner waving in the deadly breeze exhorts us, “There Is Still Time . . . Brother.”