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THE LAST MAN ON EARTH
This 1964 adaptation of Richard Matheson’s seminal novel I AM LEGEND has been accorded classic status in some quarters, presumably due to many viewers’ nostalgic memories of seeing it as a child (a weakness I’ll confess to myself, though not with this film), or maybe just because it’s old. Don’t believe the hype, though, as this is a lackluster effort in every respect.
The Package
I AM LEGEND by Richard Matheson, which first appeared back in 1954, is not
only a great yarn that still holds up over fifty years after its initial
publication, but one of the key modern horror novels. Stephen King has singled
the book out as an important inspiration in the way it lifted the genre out of
the old-dark-castle school and into modern-day suburbia with its nightmarish
narrative about an ordinary man who finds himself alone in a neighborhood--and
an entire world--overrun by vampires. Matheson further showcased his talent in
innumerable short stories, as well as novels like THE SHRINKING MAN, A STIR OF
ECHOES, HELL HOUSE and HUNTED PAST REASON, fourteen scripts for the original
TWILIGHT ZONE series (including classic episodes like “Little Girl Lost” and
“Nightmare At 30,000 Feet”) and screenplays for films such as BURN, WITCH,
BURN!, THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER and Steven Spielberg’s DUEL.
I AM LEGEND is widely acknowledged as the key inspiration behind George
Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and was the source, unfortunately, for the bad
Charlton Heston movie THE OMEGA MAN. The book was originally set to be filmed
by England’s Hammer Films, but that proposed adaptation fell through after
British censors turned down Matheson’s script. The adaptation did eventually
happen, but in tawdry low budget form as THE LAST MAN ON EARTH, shot entirely in
Italy (though set in America) under the auspices of American International
Pictures. Matheson understandably had his name removed from the credits,
replacing it with the pseudonym Logan Swanson, a name Matheson has since used
whenever he’s unhappy about a publication or screenplay (the original edition of
his novel EARTHBOUND was accredited to Logan Swanson, and the screenwriting
credit for the 1986 TWILIGHT ZONE episode “Button, Button” was also
Swanson’s).
The Story
Neville, once a hard-working scientist, now finds himself the last man on
Earth—the last living man, that is, as everyone else has been turned into
vampires. They all, it seems, are after Neville, who barricades himself inside
his once-ordinary home each night, in the daytime going from house to house and
staking the undead occupants.
A lengthy flashback fills us in on Neville’s earlier life, when he laughed
off the mysterious contagion that would eventually wipe out the human race. His
wife is struck down, however, as are all his neighbors, and Neville is forced to
face the facts of this horrible disease, especially when his beloved shows up on
his doorstep one night…after he’s buried her!
Back in the present things seem to be looking up, as an attractive young
woman has apparently decided to move in with Neville. He thinks he’s found
happiness until he learns the truth: the woman has been sent to spy on him by
members of the new ruling class, a band of genetically evolved vampires who view
Neville as a freak. Around this time his house is infiltrated by a vampire army
and Neville escapes into a church for a final confrontation with his new
overlords.
The Direction
Although this film follows the narrative of I AM LEGEND reasonably closely,
it departs from the text in a number of crucial ways. Events that were
important in the book, such as the protagonist’s discovery of a dog and his
final encounter with the woman, are dealt with in extremely perfunctory and
plain lazy fashion here--in one scene the woman is screaming and running away
from Neville, yet in the next is inexplicably seen with him in his house. And
don’t even get me started on the awful “blood transfusion” climax, a BIG
departure from the book; I hated the same device when it was used years later in
the otherwise brilliant NEAR DARK, and like it even less here.
The book would seem to present a filmmaker with innumerable opportunities
for striking imagery, but this film, which had two directors, makes do
with a lot of schlocky vampires presented in flat, TV-styled compositions,
giving the whole thing a cheap B-movie feel.
Vincent Price does what he can in
the lead role, but is miscast as an everyman faced with unspeakable
horror--Price may have been one of the genre’s great screen personalities, but
an everyman he most definitely was not, and anyway, he can’t overcome the
ennui of this terminally uninspired production.
Vital Statistics
THE LAST MAN ON EARTH
American International Pictures
Director: Sidney Salkow, Ubaldo B. Ragona
Producer: Robert L. Lippert
Screenplay: “Logan Swanson” (Richard Matheson), William F. Leichester
(Based on a novel by Richard Matheson)
Cinematography: Tonino Delli Colli
Editing: Gene Ruggiero, Franca Silvi
Cast: Vincent Price, Franca Bettonia, Emma Danieli, Giacomo Rossi-Stuart,
Umberto Raho, Christi Courtland, Antonio Corevi, Ettore Ribotta, Rolando De
Rossi