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Adam-12: Log 88 - Reason to Run (1971)
Whittinghill's Restaurant
In the scene featuring Dick Whittinghill, the phone booth, and the pusher, you can see the Whittinghill's Restaurant sign in the background while Officer Reed dukes it out with the pusher. The camera lingers on the sign so you can't miss it. How did Whittinghill, a has-been DJ, rate a favor like this from the Adam-12 producers? A buddy of Jack Webb's I guess. Oops, I need 10 lines. Well, I recognized Mantooth from the later Emergency series. Mantooth is suspected of stealing from employer. When it is revealed that the girl is a kleptomaniac we see Reed & Malloy nod knowingly to each other as if they are thinking, It figures, rich chick, kleptomaniac.
On the Beach (1959)
Gregory Peck struggles against temptation
On the Beach is noteworthy for its depiction of the repressed sexuality that characterized entertainment in the '50s. The story's hero, with the Eisenhoweresque moniker Dwight Lionel Tower (Gregory Peck), will do practically anything to avoid a good lay.
A nuclear holocaust has destroyed most of civilization. Commander Tower and his crew aboard the submarine USS Sawfish have been prowling the oceans for signs of life. The atomic death cloud hasn't yet spread to Melbourne, Australia, where the movie begins. Tower has been confined for weeks or months to a submarine with only men. The first woman he sees is the voluptuous Moira (Ava Gardner). She is clearly on the make, but Tower is standoffish. We learn that his wife and two children were vaporized. He clings to the delusion that his family still lives. He suffers wrenching humiliation when he accidentally calls Moira "Sharon," the name of his dead wife.
Moira does everything but give the commander a lap dance, but he is steadfast in his determination to remain loyal to his dead wife. We get to see Peck's familiar facial twitches as he struggles with the urge to give in to Moira's considerable charms.
With Commander Tower telling the crew every move to make, the Sawfish embarks on a journey to find out if the lethal cloud has spread to the Arctic North. A good chunk of the movie is devoted to this expedition, which confirms that the Sawfish crew and the citizens of Melbourne may be the only survivors.
Returning to Melbourne weeks later, Commander Tower comes to his senses and rushes into the arms of Miora. By the time we see Peck and Gardner frozen in a 10-second lip lock, the song "Waltzing Matilda" has been playing in a loop from the beginning and the viewer's patience has likely worn thin. But press on we must.
For a brief interlude, we get to see how a guy might act when the world is coming to an end and he's lucky enough to have a beautiful new woman in his life. Tower seems to actually be enjoying himself.
It is perfectly understandable that Tower would then tear himself away from Moira to be with his men, who have elected to return to the homeland, even if it has been engulfed in the toxic cloud. It makes perfect sense because sex is no big deal to this type of '50s movie hero. He'll jump at the chance to go back aboard the submarine with his men.
With "Waltzing Matilda" sawing away one last time, Moira watches from the shore as the Sawfish departs Melbourne for the grim death that awaits.