THE OMEGA MAN (1971)

You can see what attracted Charlton Heston to this Richard Matheson novel (filmed with Vincent Price as LAST MAN ON EARTH/’64*; again with Will Smith under original title I AM LEGEND/’07).  Its post-plague dystopian Earth lets Heston repeat his Last Man Standing from PLANET OF THE APES/’68, here a vaccine-hunting scientist; a mutant race give chase like the Apes in APES; a commune of mildly infected survivors need rescuing like APES’ slaves; even a ‘wild girl’ for a roll in the hay.  And mirroring the timeless rural East Coast of APES; near-future urban West Coast.  But what chance does this have to work when every element has been downgraded: director, script, cast, score, lensing, budget, even the mutant makeup disappoints.  (Those Ape prosthetics look primitive now, but at the time they were startling enough to win a LIFE Magazine cover.)  Zoom-happy tv director Boris Sagal seems unable to shake cinematographer Russell Metty into his former talented self, so we’re stuck with crappy ‘60s Universal house-style even though it’s a Warners film.  The Ron Rainer score might work better as a cut on a Tijuana Brass L.P.  Lead villain Anthony Zerbe has a Peter Sellers vibe, and a ‘daring’ interracial smooch between Chuck & Rosalind Cash proves less interesting than her remarkable Afro.  One of those don’t sit behind her classics.  All while consumerism runs amuck in a deserted downtown that’s well stocked with everything except irony.  A real missed opportunity for satire or drama.  A sentiment that, judging by his own published diaries (READ ALL ABOUT IT: THE ACTOR’S LIFE), Heston would have seconded.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  Many people like the Vincent Price version.  Here, not so much.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/08/last-man-on-earth-1964.html