The Friday Night Fright: The Last Man on Earth

With I Am Legend currently in cinemas and, inexplicably, breaking box office records, now seemed like a good time to revisit the first, and still the best, version of Richard Matheson’s classic novel.

With a budget that was probably less than a third of what the dog in I Am Legend got paid (inflation adjusted of course) this American financed and Italian shot film manages to create more tension, more suspense and more emotion than the mega budget Will Smith starrer could even dream of. For example it’s far more effective to have Neville, or Morgan as he’s renamed here, confront his dead wife when she returns from the grave than have her die in some unnecessary CGI explosion. The big bang may look more impressive but that’s just superficial gloss. The Last Man on Earth isn’t glossy, for one thing it couldn’t afford to be, but it works on a gut level that’s far truer to the original story.

I have to admit I was a bit surprised by Will Smith’s performance, he does surprisingly well (with the exception of the Bob Marley scene) even if he is miscast. I had feared we were in for a performance like I, Robot or, heaven forbid, Independence Day, instead he’s surprisingly restrained. He can’t hold a candle to Vincent Price though.

Price was a great actor but often given to hammy performances, almost always entertaining ones, but hammy nonetheless. Think of Corman’s Poe films, his two appearances as Dr. Phibes or Theatre of Death, they’re all over the top characterisations but Price was capable of much more. As Robert Morgan he gets to show the subtlety and an emotional depth that’s essential for the film to work. He’s onscreen for virtually the full running time and for much of it he’s alone yet he easily holds our attention. There’s a naturalness to him that’s a world away from the horror theatrics he’s famous for, whether scruffily tucking his shirt in or breaking down while watching home movies of his lost family he’s utterly convincing. I’d guess he relished the chance this film gave him to really act, something by this point in his career he was getting to do less and less.

The action scenes with the zombie-like vampires (or should that be vampire-lie zombies?) are nicely done. The night time siege scenes put me in mind of Night of the Living Dead, which this predates by four years, and I’d be surprised if George Romero hadn’t seen Last Man before making that zombie cinema milestone. But it’s Price’s visits to the mass funeral pyre that are the creepiest moments in the film.

Richard Matheson was part responsible for the script, hiding behind the name Logan Swanson as he was unhappy with changes that were made to it. Still it’s a more faithful adaptation than either I Am Legend or The Omega Man, so were he asked today perhaps Matheson wouldn’t be so dissatisfied with the film.

Now a question – who directed the film? Was it Sidney Salkow who gets credited on the DVD or was it Ubaldo Ragona who apparently appears on the credits of Italian prints? Or was it a bit of both? What’s the story behind the film’s production that resulted in two directors getting credited in different territories? Hopefully someone out there knows the answer.