"The Last Man On Earth"-1964 : A Cult Classic

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Richard Matheson's seminal sci-fi horror novel, "I Am Legend",
published in 1954, is first and foremost, a character study, and
any film producer must come to terms with that, if there is to be
a successful adaptation from print to screen.
The novel was adapted to screen in 1964 as "The Last Man On
Earth"; producer Sidney Salkow, hampered by a low budget, intuitively
did the best he could, and came close to pulling it off!
What Salkow did was convey the novel's mood, tone, atmosphere
and plot in primitive fashion, crudely capturing the gist of the
novel - that of one man, Robert Neville's confrontation with a
horrendous existential dilemma - to be, himself, that is; or not to
be, a plague-induced vampiric shell.
While "TLMOE" was not entirely successful in translation,
especially in the ending - co-scripter Matheson ultimately distanced
himself from the final product - it nevertheless, clearly outshines
a later technically superior 1971 remake, "The Omega Man" in the
aforementioned aspects.
"The Omega Man", taken on it's own, is an interesting,
entertaining film; but when referenced against the novel, falls
flat on it's face. (Matheson himself stated that that film and his novel
were two completely different animals.)
In contrast, "TLMOE" fares much better when referenced: it
shows that Morgan's(Neville's) battle is more with reactions within himself than
with the vampires as a physical threat per se, as it becomes obvious that the vampires are
slow-moving and dull-minded individually, and disorganized as a
group, each instinctively and savagely interested only in HIS
blood.
Besides the perpetually nightmarish nuisance of the vampires,
who have a collectively demoralizing effect on him, Morgan(Neville)
must fight against the horror generated by the desolation and doom
of a post-apocalyptic world; against the loneliness of being the
last human on earth and against the agony of tragically losing a
wife and daughter to the plague.
In the final analysis, "The Last Man On Earth" could be
likened to a series of crude, but brilliant brush-strokes of feeling
tones. As such it fully deserves it's cult-classic status. - AH

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Topic - "The Last Man On Earth"-1964 : A Cult Classic - AudioHead 12:28:49 07/26/01 (0)

And sure enough, she STILL wouldn't sleep with him... (n/t) - Statman 19:47:51 08/02/01 (0)

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