Movie Review: The Last Man on Earth (1964)

The Last Man on Earth (1964) directed by Sidney Salkow

Doctor Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) is the titular last man on Earth. A highly contagious airborne plague has wiped out most of humanity all over the globe. Morgan lives alone. He follows a monotonous routine of eating, gathering resources, and killing those who continue living after falling to the plague. When the plague started, rumors also started of the dead coming back to life. Is that the reason the government burned the infected dead rather than bury them? Morgan, as a man of science, scoffed at the idea and thought the burning was the best way to stop spreading the disease. Now that he is alone, he carves wooden stakes and hangs crosses and garlic on his doors. The undead know where he lives and come each night to get him and can't get past the defenses. They are too unintelligent to do more than throw sticks and stones at the house. By day, Morgan roams the city, killing the vampiric people as they rest and hide from the sun.

The story is based on Richard Matheson's I Am Legend (which was also remade as Omega Man with Charlton Heston and I Am Legend with Will Smith). The story is a classic with a long, slow burn for Morgan and an interesting twist at the end. This telling is fairly faithful to the text. Unfortunately, the version I watched is a very low quality transfer to streaming on Hoopla. The grainy footage and occasional mismatches between the video and the audio are quite distracting. The production didn't look like it had a big budget, either. Even so, a few moments of genuine shock happen. Price is good as always and carries most of the film. He has a voice-over that isn't entirely necessary, though the opening is slow enough that it does need something to help it along.

Slightly recommended--for fans of Vincent Price or the story who can handle a grainy old black and white film. I checked quickly on the Amazon Prime streaming version, which is much better quality for the first five minutes that I skimmed through. Watch there if you can (though probably avoid the colorized version)!