There are multiple ways to interpret Panic in Year Zero! (1962): through the lens of its era, through the lens of now, and through the distorting political lens of the American left-right spectrum, to name a few. I’ll attempt to do all of the above, because it’s an intriguing relic that, beneath a fairly disposable surface, does interesting things with the societal breakdown disaster film.
Harry Baldwin (Ray Milland, who also directs) is a conventional American patriarch, about to take his textbook suburban family on a camping vacation. Along with wife Ann (Jean), son Rick (Frankie Avalon), and daughter Karen (Mary Mitchel), he heads north from Los Angeles in a car with a hitched-on camper — just in time to escape the devastation of a nuclear missile strike. News on the road is scarce, at first, but Harry is quick to discern what’s happening and immediately acts in his family’s best interests: securing fuel, food, and supplies, and attempting to deliver them to a safe haven, away from millions of other desperate, panicked survivors. But Harry’s survival instinct pushes him over ethical and moral lines.
Panic in Year Zero! isn’t visually impressive by any means; indeed, its budget might deserve a co-writing credit, financial limitations seeming to dictate the extent and progression of the action. The aura of cheapness is reflected, among other things, by clumsy rearscreen projection, extensive stock footage, and a suspiciously small cast given the scale of the disaster. Even so, the film has its finger on something. At first, it seems extremely specific to its era — the nuclear paranoia, the homogenous white normativity. But it’s also timeless, examining the self-centered tribalism that persists across American history. Whether that theme lands is certainly up for debate; the Baldwin family adventure is given enough period heroic gloss that one struggles to determine if the film is condoning or condemning their behavior. My initial reaction was the former, which made Harry’s deception, violence, religious hypocrisy, and toxic indoctrination of his son to his “teachings” very difficult to get behind. But further reflection exposes, perhaps, a more critical subtext, thanks to two particularly memorable bits of dialogue. One is delivered by a a country doctor encountered by the family when they seek aid, who casually declaims, “our country is still full of thieving, murdering patriots.” It’s a nutshell description of Harry that largely flies over his head. The other involves an exchange between two soldiers who welcome the survivors back to a rebuilding civilization, ultimately describing them as “good ones,” an assessment that can be taken either literally or ironically depending on your perspective. I’m not sure the film has that firm a handle on its messaging to have made its point one way or the other, but it’s a thought-provoking watch, both a time capsule of its era and an early ancestor of the nuclear cataclysm subgenre.
