He's a typical middle class American suburban dad (albeit with his British accent) who goes on a fishing trip with wife and two kids, when they get news that World War Three has started. Milland instantly goes into survival mode - the refuses to return home to LA to pick up his mother in law (for safety reasons he says, although it's possible he had another agenda!), stocks up on supplies, won't tell the guy who runs the corner store that there's a war on, steals some guns at gun point, becomes very closed and doesn't help people. He constantly gets son Frankie Avalon to cover him with a gun as he runs people, ignores his wife's wishes and concerns, and won't let his daughter go out on raids with him and Avalon.
Eventually his daughter is raped by some juvenile delinquents (in many ways this is a JD film more than a post-apocalyptic one, complete with angry middle aged men, black and white photography, jive talking villains and jazzy score) - Milland doesn't seem so much interested in whether she's alright but in getting revenge. He shoots the two rapists, rescues their kidnapped sex slave (this, years before Casualties of War), and deals with the third.
A lot of this is corny and I get the feeling if I saw it in a cinema it would be full of laughter (e.g. Avalon drawing a painting on a wall, Milland's wife reassuring him about killing two men that she tried to kill them too). But it's also fascinating and doesn't whimp out - and within reason it's fairly realistic. A lot of men would react like Milland.
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