Review: Vincent Price in "The Last Man On Earth"

[Hardrock69]

I saw this last night for the first time.

http://www.monstersinmotion.com/catalog/images/dvd/lastman.jpg


Back in about 1970 or so, I saw a cool film on TV. I was getting into a phase as a kid where apocalyptic sci-fi was interesting to me, and I happened to see "The Omega Man" with Charlton Heston:
http://www.montrealfilmjournal.com/dat/pic/M0000382.jpg

Pretty cool, huh? Quite a stretch from Moses to Ben Hur to modern-day Vampire Killer...

So anyhoo...I was still young enuff that I automatically assumed that movies were all based on books, so I asked for "The Omega Man" for my birthday. I learned to read at age 3, and have always been reading something every day. Certainly since the Internet came into being, I read too much now.....

But anyway....

You youngsters might only be marginally aware that there were no VHS players back then. No laser-disc.

If you wanted to see a movie on TV, you had to hope that one of the 4 networks would play it sometime during the year.

That was why I asked for the book.

So I got this...the original novel by Richard Matheson, "I Am Legend", written in 1954:

http://www.pandora.ca/pictures10/501467.jpg

I read this bitch until the cover fell off.

So fast forward to last night. I had heard about this film for years, and it happened to be on TCM about a month or 2 ago, so I Tivo'd it, and finally watched it while transferring it to my hard drive for eventual burning to DVD.

Really pretty cool. This movie was filmed 4 years BEFORE George Romero's "Night Of The Living Dead".

For those of you who have never heard of this story, a new air-borne virus travels the globe, and only one man is left alive, Vincent Price, who plays a Medical Researcher who sees his whole world dying before his eyes, and is powerless to come up with a cure. He watches as his daughter dies, then his wife, and everyone he knows.

So anyway, everyone that dies of this virus becomes undead vampires.

He goes out every day with stakes in hand, that he personally makes on a lathe in his garage, searching for them as they sleep, and then pretending to be Vlad The Impaler for a minute or two, before loading the corpse up in his station wagon to take to the pit.....the huge firepit built by the authorities to burn all the bodies...and then he makes sure he is home before nightfall, as the undead populace comes to his house every night to try to kill him.

It is easy to see how Geoerge Romero could be influenced, as the vampire/undead in this film are pretty much zombified.

In the original novel, they were much more active, more like those portrayed in "The Omega Man".

Even though a lot of folks think "The Omega Man" was a better film, "The Last Man On Earth" is totally faithful to the book, much moreso than the later film.

I am glad I have it.I give it a thumbs up.

And here is even better news:

It is in the public domain, and can be downloaded for free here:

http://www.archive.org/details/the-last-man-on-earth
http://ia310124.us.archive.org/1/items/the-last-man-on-earth/TheLastManOnEarth.gif


If ya want to download the full blown version suitable for burning to disc, here is an MPEG-2 that is 2.3 Gb in size. The only drag is it is in fullscreen version, not the original widescreen:

Last Man On Earth MPEG-2 (http://www.archive.org/download/the-last-man-on-earth/TheLastManOnEarth.mpeg)


And then there is even BETTER news.....I have been aware for sometime that it is being made again, with the title "I Am Legend". It wqas going to be made in 1999, wif Ahnold starring, then due to lack of fundage or whatever, it got shelved for a few years.
It began filming in September, is currently still in production, with a November 21 release date planned.

The bad news about this film?

It stars Will Smith.

Look, Will is ok, but I do not want to see him starring in EVERY classic sci-fi film made for the next 20 years. He was already in I, Robot. And ID4 before that, as well as MIB and it's *ahem* sequel.

Will?
Enough already! Go make a rap movie or something.

But I digress:

Here is the Wikipedia page on all of the above rubbish:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Legend

[Hardrock69]

Oh and there is a novel for all you apocalyptic sci-fi junkies that was also written in 1949 by George R. Stewart called "Earth Abides".

Here is the Wikipedia page on Mr. Stewart:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_R._Stewart

It is a very realistic version of what happens in such a situation.....like 6 months later, the power goes out. Years later, the water pressure is gone.

Some people who survive, go insane because they cannot handle what has happened.

Due to the lack of humans in the environments, you have animal populations that run out of control.

And you have problems with people because suddenly there is no "law", and security and living with your fellow human in the face of global disaster becomes a big deal

I wish they would make that as a movie.
When the world dies, the protagonist in the book is in his mid-thirties. The book follows his life until he is in his 70s or 80s.

Pretty cool.

Oh, and it was a favorite read of Jimi Hendrix as well:

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/7/7c/Stewart_Earth_Abides.jpg


Oops...gotta go...Rock N Roll hall Of Fame is on....gotta see the trainwreck...

[jharp84]

Very good stuff indeed! Big fan of old black & white horror/sci-fi!! Grew up w/creature features and svenghoulie in CHICAGO!!

[Freewheelin]

Wow I thought I was like the last man on earth who knew about or liked those movies . I watched them both as a kid and my friends and I would play makebelieve that we were in the storyline . I have since shown them to my son and he leaned a bit towards Heston's portrayal but really they are both great sci-fi-horror. Thanks for letting me know about the original title , I will definitely seek that one out .

[Viking]

I met Vincent Price at a lecture at Frostburg State College (MD) back in '83. The man was even more impressive up-close than he ever was on-screen, and that's saying a lot. You really had to use the term 'charming' to describe him, and to meet him, it caried no effete connotations at all. I had no idea he was so tall - 6'4", at least. He had to bend slightly to shake my hand, and I'm 6'0". I'm a real geek for the old horror movies of the 30's thru the '50's. One of the best ones he ever did in the genre was A Comedy OF Terrors in 1963, with Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone, and Joe E. Smith. Better than any Abbott and Costello horror send-up of it's time, and waaaaay underrated. And both those Dr. Phibes movies are perfect for Insomniac Theatre. :D

[Hardrock69]

Ya lucky bastid! Vincent Price was an actor I would have wanted to meet!!!

Dr. Phibes fucking rules...

http://www.nmpft.org.uk/IMAGES/filmimages/phibes_small.jpg

[Matt White]

"http://www.monstersinmotion.com/catalog/images/dvd/lastman.jpg"


Hmmmmm....

This seems so familiar.....


I'm gonna have to hunt it down to see if I've seen it as a kid...

sounds good........

[Viking]

Yeah, I'm not big on that 'cult of celebrity' thing (including this place - this is as much about an attitude and lifestyle as it is a man), but as the years went along, I realized that the hand that shook mine also shook the hands of the other Great Ones, like Karloff, Cushing, Lee, Chaney, Lugosi, Rathbone, Lorre, all of them.

[Hardrock69]

In other words, you were in the presence of grateness!
:cool:

[Viking]

Originally posted by Hardrock69:

In other words, you were in the presence of grateness!

Mein freund, I was present when my father sold his metalphoto business - and it's proprietary photochemical process - to golfing legend Arnold Palmer. I spent three years at the Pentagon interfacing with and escorting foreign heads of state. Once, when my father and I shared an apartment in Washington, D.C. during his tenure as an AM talk show host in the market, I took a message from none-other than Pat Buchanan - whilst I was stepping out of the shower. THAT was greatness. But that was a nothingburger in the larger scheme of things because, for one brief moment, on a cold October day in the Maryland mountains in 1983, I was graced with the privilege of a momentary honor to look a LEGEND in the eye. To shake his hand. And to hear him say to me, in all sincerity, Thank you. Thank you very much!

When Jesus Himself takes my hand, then Vincent Price drops to second on my 'AWESOME' list.
:killer: :killer: :killer: :killer: :killer: :killer:

[smithcreww]

i still think vincent price got left in the oven a bit too long.

[Hardrock69]

In reference to the remake of "I Am Legend" starring Fresh Prince, here is the official movie site.

Release date is December 14.

http://iamlegend.warnerbros.com/#

http://iamlegend.warnerbros.com/images/header.jpg

[Viking]

I admit Will Smith's oversaturated the sci-fi remake department, but the guy is instant box office for that shit because he's a good enough actor to pull it off. He puts just enough OK-I-don't-need-this-shit swagger into it to make it convincing.

[ROTHisGOD]

Vincent Price is the man....

[Hardrock69]

Here is a neat blooper for "The Omega Man".

So in the beginning of the film, Charleton Heston is driving around in his 'stang, with an M3 Grease gun.

He is supposed to be the only guy who can go out during the day in the sun, cause he is NOT a vampire.

During one shot where they are shooting Charleton from the front as he is driving down the street, you look over his shoulder behind him, and you can see some guy in a black overcoat walking down the sidewalk away from the camera.
:D