THE LAST WOMAN ON EARTH (1960)
Tagline: They fought for the Ultimate Prize!
(Sci-Fi, Drama, Two Shady Dudes) [PG]
If you take things as they come, if you do them step by step, we're going to be all right.
In this one Evelyn, her creepy husband Harold, and a friend of theirs named Martin decide to go scuba diving in Puerto Rico. When they come up they realize there is a severe lack of oxygen in the air and use their scuba gear to get back on land. Once there, the air has been restored, but everyone else seems to be dead. Is Evelyn, THE LAST WOMAN ON EARTH?
Kind of interesting that the leading and "only" lady in this movie is Evelyn. The first three letters of her name spell out “Eve”, the first woman on earth. Not sure if writer Robert Towne did that on purpose or not. I ended up seeing the black-and-white version of this movie, but there is also a color version out there. To be honest, for this movie it really doesn’t matter what version you watch because they’re aren’t really any set or practical effects or any of that to speak of. This 71-minute exercise in cinematic query spends its time analyzing not only how dysfunctional Evelyn and Harold are as a couple, but what little slices it would take to divide them. If it was the end of the world, would you and your significant other withstand the test? I think most couples would say yes, but what would really happen?
Acting-wise, Betsy Jones-Moreland who plays Evelyn would go on to be an extremely well-accomplished actress, but in this movie her performance is flat and she and both of her co-stars are reading their lines like they have never seen a script. No one is as dry as Ben Stein in FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF, but they are just all very very bad. Betsy Jones-Moreland’s other big sci-fi flick was also a Roger Corman film done at the same time as this one called CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA. Robert Towne (the scriptwriter) actually played Martin and does a terrible job. He would go on to better things though. He also wrote the screenplay for MISSION IMPOSSIBLE and MISSION IMPOSSIBLE II. Antony Carbone plays Harold and is probably the best of the worst. Carbone also had a solid career and was most famous for THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, so it’s not like we had a cast that was inept. They just don’t appear to be trying at all for “this” movie.
I don’t have any complaints about the set and the ending was at least intriguing but also ends on about the most downer note that this movie could have mustered after already being a downer. Out of the movies from the early ’60s that I have reviewed thus far, this thing is by far the worst. The questions this movie asks, this movie doesn’t do much to sway me to ever want to watch it again. It’s bad in nearly every way possible except the actual concept. It reminds me of a bad version of THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL.
THE LAST WOMAN ON EARTH gets a 2 out of 7.
GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF A FILM GROUP PICTURE AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.
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