Monster Island Theater presents
The Last Man on Earth (1964)

Director - Ubaldo Ragona, Sidney Salkow
 

The Monster Island Theater Wine Recipes...

The Plot
Reviews
Ingmar Ozu-Bresson on The Last Man on Earth
Cast and Production Credits

The Plot

Robert Morgan is the Last Man on Earth. Bitten by a vampire bat years before, he is immune to a world wide plague that has turned the rest of humanity into zombie-vampires. He spends his days searching out the lairs of the sleeping creatures and destroying them one by one. He barricades himself in his home at night while the weak-minded and weak bodied throngs surround his home. Morgan eventually discovers a group of people who have not fully transformed into zombie-vampires. In fact they are curable. He realizes that he been killing many of the "savable," and in fact it is he who is the monster to them.

Back to top

Film Notes

Antonioni-Like
What we have here is less a jump out of your seats monster movie than an existential treatise questioning what it means to be human. Imagine Michelangelo Antonioni slumming in a poverty row budget film production and you wouldn't be too far off from getting your mind around The Last Man on Earth.

Brecht Girls and Boys

Filmed in Italy, in a post-war post-modern urban setting, it stars Vincent Price acting in, for him, an underplayed style. It also contains bad dubbing of English for the Italian actors that actually adds to the "Verfremdungseffekt" (Bertolt Brecht's word for that which makes people and events appear strange and alienated).

Even Weirder

If this film whets your appetite for Franca Bettoja, you might want to hunt down "Touche Pas à La Femme Blanche" (Don't Touch the White Woman), an American western shot on the streets of Paris with Marcello Mastroianni as General George Armstrong Custer.

-- Ed Schneider - Alameda TV

Back to top

Ingmar Ozu-Bresson on The Last Man on Earth

"Le jazz, du vin, les femmes italiennes, la tuerie de zombi-vampire. Quoi de plus un célibataire de l'âge atomique pourrait-il souhaiter?"

("Jazz, wine, Italian women, zombie-vampire killing. What more could an atomic age bachelor wish for?")

Back to top

The Alameda Connection

Robert L Lippert - Lord of the B's
The producer of The Last Man on Earth was none other than Alameda own Robert L. Lippert. A pioneer in the movie exhibition business, he became a prolific producer of low budget films. Before his death in 1976, he was responsible for over 300 films.

Alameda TV annually celebrates the life and work of Mr Lippert with a mini-festival of his films on his birthday - March 31st.

Back to top

Cast

Production Credits

Back to top

For further research:

Vincent Price

Richard Matheson

Existentialism

Bertolt Brecht

Robert L. Lippert

For more information about Monster Island Theater...

Share your views of Monster Island Theater with other Alamedans....