Just two hours after departing Los Angeles for a vacation, Harry Baldwin (Ray Milland) and family discover that Tinsel Town is glow-in-the-dark: a nuclear attack has demolished the city of now-ascended angels. Stoically pragmatic, Harry declares, "When civilization gets civilized, I'll rejoin." His tight nuclear family, which includes Frankie Avalon as brother Rick, gathers provisions and holes up in an isolated cave for protection against the looters and assorted hooligans. This defensive posture is trumpeted by the president's emergency radio bulletin: "There are no civilians. We are all at war." The ensuing violent encounters, including the brutal rape of Harry's daughter, are handled with cruel efficiency. Harry, it turns out, is an A-one civilian soldier. Overlooking peripheral devastation from nuclear war, Milland's film suggests that individual cunning is enough to win the day-an ironic prescription for survival after the Big One.-Steve Seid

• Written by Jay Simms, John Morton. Photographed by Gil Warrenton. With Ray Milland, Jean Hagen, Frankie Avalon, Mary Mitchell. (92 mins, B&W, 35mm, From Kit Parker)