Harry Baldwin, Ray Milland and his wife Ann Baldwin, Jean Hagen, along with their children Rick Baldwin Frankie Avalon and Karen Baldwin Mary Mitchel, depart suburban Los Angeles at sunrise for a quiet fishing trip into the southern Sierra Nevada, lugging a small camping trailer along for the journey. What starts as a family getaway quickly tilts into a tense test of endurance as the landscape shifts from tranquil roadways to a crisis none of them anticipated. A troubling sequence of unusually bright lights streaks across the sky, and the car radios crackle with static as CONELRAD bulletins filter through, hinting at an unfolding atomic conflict. A distant, unimaginable sight appears on the horizon—a colossal hydrogen-bomb mushroom cloud rising over Los Angeles—reminding them that safety and civilization are fragile in the face of global catastrophe. Faced with the specter of mass panic and a city already transformed by radio chatter turned to fear, Harry grasps that returning to their old life might be impossible. The family weighs the options, and Harry makes a stark choice: push forward to a remote refuge in the mountains, away from the crowded roads and the spreading fallout, even if it means leaving behind the familiar comforts of home.
What unfolds next is a hard, blunt odyssey through fear, greed, and fleeting trust. In a small town off the main road, they seek supplies and run into Ed Johnson, Richard Garland, a hardware-store owner whose insistence on following local laws and verifying checks sets a dangerous limit on what they can purchase. Harry, determined to protect his kin, faces a moral boundary as the encounter escalates into violence; with Rick’s aid, he takes possession of tools and firearms, insisting that payment will come later. The tension intensifies at a gas station where price gouging and scarcity magnify the sense that survival hinges on quick, tough decisions. The Baldwins’ path then intersects with a trio of threatening youths—Carl, Mickey, and Andy—each a symbol of the lawless strain tearing at the fabric of society, and each encounter tests their resolve in the face of danger. Carl, Mickey, and Andy briefly press their luck, but the Baldwins manage to fend them off and keep moving toward the mountains.
Arriving at their secluded destination, the family confronts a grim realization: the trailer offers no real protection from radioactive fallout or the new, harsher rules of a postwar world. They retreat to a cave, packing up the essentials and waiting to see if civil order will ever return. Their isolation is reinforced by the nearby presence of Ed Johnson and his wife, who have also set up camp, but violence soon intrudes again when the hoodlums reappear with deadly intent, murdering the Johnsons in a brutal act that underscores how perilous this new era has become. In the behind-the-scenes drama, Ann’s careless blouse drifting downstream provides a clue that alerts the raiders to the Baldwins’ location, leading to a brutal confrontation in which Karen is horrified by their assault but saved by Ann’s quick reflexes with a rifle. The Baldwins, guided by the need to safeguard their family, hunt down the attackers and confront the brutal truth of the world they’re navigating.
In the wake of these horrors, the Baldwins discover Marilyn Hayes, Joan Freeman, a teenage girl kept in a locked room and counting among the long shadows of the men who torment survivors. Marilyn speaks softly of a past disrupted by violence, and after sharing her story, she is brought into the cave’s shelter where Ann tends to her with care and warmth, gradually earning a place within the newly formed family. The sense of kinship deepens as Marilyn becomes a bridge between the old world and the uncertain new one they face.
As the days pass, Marilyn accompanies Rick while he chops wood, and the safety of their makeshift family begins to hinge on each new member’s contributions. The fragile equilibrium is shattered when Carl slips into the camp and pressures Marilyn for information about what happened to his gang. In a desperate struggle, Marilyn seizes a rifle, uses it to defend herself, and the moment culminates in Carl’s death, though not without a price: Rick is wounded in the leg during the clash, leaving the Baldwins to confront a more precarious future. The group must now find a physician to save Rick’s life, and they set out for the relatively distant town where Dr. Powell Strong, Willis Bouchey, practices.
Dr. Strong stabilizes Rick, yet he makes clear that a blood transfusion is essential for his survival. The nearest capable facility lies more than 100 miles away, in an Army hospital, and the journey to reach it will be arduous and fraught with risk. The Baldwins face a tense encounter with an Army patrol; after a careful and measured exchange, they are permitted to continue, and the soldiers acknowledge that the family is among the “good ones” who managed to escape the worst of the radiation and chaos by retreating to the mountains. The sense of fragile hope lingers as they press on, aware that every mile could tilt the balance between life and death in a world that has been irrevocably altered.
There must be no end – only a new beginning.
