On the Beach (1959)

Another entry in the Gregory Peck festival, this one seemingly less remembered but important for showcasing Peck's anti-nuke stance. It is not a "beach movie," one lighthearted beach scene notwithstanding. Novelist Nevil Shute evidently chose the title for a touch of irony. It's set mostly in post-apocalyptic Australia and features a dangerous auto race, but that's about where its similarity to the Mad Max franchise ends.

In 1964 (incidentally when Dr. Strangelove and Fail-Safe debuted), bombs have rendered Australia the only reportedly habitable place left in the world -- and not for much longer, as radiation sickness spreads. Naval officers Dwight (Peck) and Peter (pre-Psycho Anthony Perkins) must leave their loves -- new girlfriend Moira (Ava Gardner) and wife Mary (Donna Anderson), respectively -- in order to investigate the first sign of outside life in a while: incessant, indecipherable telegraphy from the ruins of California. Tip: Don't get your hopes up for a Children of Men-like ending.

Shall We Dance (1937)

At one time, I would have called musicals my favorite film genre. Alas, it gets harder and harder to find promising ones I haven't seen already. Most musicals from the last few decades are either made with kids in mind or dark in tone with nearly constant singing. The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers era has neither in abundance, but their works can have little good to offer besides dancing. I had no guarantee that I would get anything halfway new out of continuing to watch them.

Here Astaire plays a ballet star with a taste for tap dancing, whose stage name "Petrov" carries a different air from birth name Peter P. Peters. Like in Swing Time, he wants to marry a woman he knows almost nothing about, in this case tap dancer Linda Keene (Rogers), who feels ready to resign and never meet another dancing man. Petrov pulls strings with his unknowing, stodgy manager Jeffrey (Edward Everett Horton) to get on the same cruise as Keene. When an aggressive suitor pursues Petrov, Jeffrey tells her that Petrov has been secretly married for years. Word spreads on the ship...until irresponsible papers all over declare that Petrov and Keene are not only married but expecting, which makes an already awkward courtship even more so.

Easter Parade (1948)

What a ripoff: We never see the parade itself! ...OK, I didn't really come for that, and probably neither did others. In truth, the story doesn't have much to do with Easter festivities; it just happens to start on one Easter and end on the next, possibly because Irving Berlin didn't feel like stopping the theme with Holiday Inn.

Apart from Berlin, whose lyrics account for a large percentage of the dialog, the main draws are Fred Astaire and Judy Garland in her most attractive years. Fourth place might go to the employment of Technicolor to highlight the fashions, which were sadly anachronistic for the early 1910s. (Why did Garland keep playing characters from earlier generations, anyway?)