"On the Beach" is set in 1964 immediately following a nuclear war, World War III. Lt. Cmdr. Dwight Towers (Gregory Peck) is with his crew in a submarine out in the Pacific at the time of the bombing, and their equipment picks up on the high radiation levels in North America. Towers realizes that all life there must be either dead or dying. When they are passing San Francisco, one of the crew who is from the city decides he'd rather die in his own hometown than out at sea so he leaves the submarine to wait for the radiation to kill him. Towers continues down towards Melbourne, Australia, apparently the last place on Earth where life is still going on as normal. But the radiation from up North will eventually reach Australia too, killing all life, so all that remains to be done is wait for the end. Lt. Cmdr. Peter Holmes in the Australian Navy (Anthony Perkins) has a small gathering at his house with his wife Mary. It's kind of a cheering up party for Lt. Towers, whose wife and children perished in the nuclear war in America. Mary invites a friend, Moira Davidson (Ava Gardner) who reminds Towers of his dead wife. They start up a romance and fall in love, but at one point Towers is confused and calls Moira by his late wife's name. Undaunted, Moira says for their time left remaining alive, she will be Towers' wife if that's what he needs to get through this terrible time. They try to spend time enjoying life, dining out at a small inn and going fishing, waiting for the end.