The Last Man on Earth

In my post on Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend I mentioned that is has been adapted into a film three times. The first was The Last Man on Earth, a B-film from 1964, starring Vincent Price as a chemist who believes he is the last living person on Earth.

As with the book, a plague has killed off everyone or turned them into the living dead--vampires who can only come out at night. By night they surround Price's home, clamoring for his blood. By day, he drives around, looking to kill all he can find, staking them through the heart. He protects his home with garlic and mirrors, which are anathema to the creatures.

As in the book, he is visiting a graveyard when he loses track of time, but he doesn't have much trouble getting back into his house, as the creatures are weak. He finds a dog, but it dies, and then finds another person living in the daylight, hopeful that she is not infected.

Unlike the book, there is a long flashback as to the plague's beginnings and Price's work on finding a cure. This is what happens in B-films: it appears that Price and a colleague are the only two men in the world working on a cure, and they don't even work for the government. We see Price's wife and daughter in happier times, but as the plague spreads the dead and dumped and burned in a large pit. Price manages to bury his wife, but when she shows up at his door he's understandably horrified.

This is a pretty good film--fairly faithful to the book (it makes great changes at the end) and with bleak black and white photography that reinforces it as the antecedent of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Perhaps due to the time period, though, the vampires (what we would today call zombies) are never particularly scary--maybe they were back then.

I also question Price's role in this. Of course he was a great interpreter of horror, but this character is regular joe, something no one ever accused Price of being. It's hard to see him looking disheveled, or taking delight in his daughter's birthday party. He's much more at home in Victorian clothing and being malevolent. He just doesn't make a good hero.

Note: Richard Matheson worked on the script for this film, but disavowed it, so he used a pseudonym: Logan Swanson.