The first version THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (1964) was made in Italy starring Vincent Price with a script by Matheson himself (although unhappy with the result Matheson used the pseudonym Logan Swanson for his credit) that sticks with the basic premise: a virus turns most of the planet into vampires except for a few lone humans. More recently, Francis Lawrence's I AM LEGEND (2007) had Will Smith as the scientist who survives the plague and battles nocturnal mutants in an empty New York City. THE OMEGA MAN is the middle child both in production value and when it was released. The more recent I AM LEGEND has the benefit of CGI to create an eerily barren New York City and the terrifying mutants that emerge after the sun sets. THE LAST MAN ON EARTH had the first shot at Matheson's story. Originally to be filmed in England for Hammer Films, THE LAST MAN ON EARTH ended up becoming an Italian production with unimpressive results.
Adapted by the husband and wife writing team of John William Corrington and Joyce H. Corrington and directed by Boris Sagal, THE OMEGA MAN begins with the seemingly last man on earth Dr. Robert Neville (Charlton Heston) riding around a desolate downtown Los Angeles in 1977 with just his Ford Mustang and an automatic weapon. Its been over two years since biological germ warfare between the superpowers of the world wiped out almost every human on earth. After watching WOODSTOCK in an empty theater for the umpteenth time, Neville emerges from the cinema to discover he's lost track of time. The sun has begun to set. Neville races back to his fortified apartment building before the night's denizens, a group of albino, light averse zombies known as the Family led by their fanatical leader Matthias (Anthony Zerbe) emerge from their nest to attempt to capture and destroy Neville.
In a flashback, we learn Neville worked for the U.S Army as a scientist. As society crumbles, Neville flies away in a helicopter with an experimental vaccine headed for an undisclosed location. The pilot and Neville are overcome by the virus mid-flight and the helicopter crashes. Bloody and about to die, Neville injects himself with the serum which keeps him alive and immune from the plague. Neville is supposedly the last human left alive. Those that did not succumb to the virus have become albino night creatures. When the sun rises, Neville ventures out, scouting for the Family's lair. While trying on some new clothes at a department store, he notices one of the mannequins moving. It's another human, an African American woman. He chases the woman but she eludes him. Neville celebrates the discovery of more humans in a basement bar but he's not alone. He's captured by Matthias and his followers including his second in command Brother Zachary (Lincoln Kilpatrick). Neville is convicted in a kangaroo court judged by Matthias and sentenced to death.
Neville is tied to a wooden wheel in the middle of Dodger Stadium, about to be burned when the floodlights come on, temporarily blinding the zombies. Dutch (Paul Koslo), a former medical student and Lisa (Rosalind Cash), the woman Neville saw in the department store, rescue Neville. Lisa leads him to a motorcycle and they ride off (pulling off some Evel Knevel stunts in the process). Lisa takes Neville to their compound, a house in the hills outside the city. Besides Dutch and Lisa, the other humans consist mostly of young women and children who are seemingly resistant to the virus. Lisa shows Neville her brother Richie (Eric Laneuville) who has caught the virus. He's slowly turning into one of the zombies. Neville takes Lisa and Richie back to his apartment to work on a cure for Richie.
As night falls, Matthias and the Family wait below, calling to Neville, trying to lure him out. Zachary scales the apartment building only to be shot off the balcony by Neville. The next day, Neville and Lisa go to a deserted hospital. Neville provides his blood to create antibodies to create the serum that saved him. They try the serum on Richie and it works. He's human again. Neville reports back to Dutch he has the cure. Dutch promises to swing by Neville's apartment the next morning with the kids and pick everyone up so they can flee the city. But Richie sneaks out to find Matthias and tell him about Neville's cure (which doesn't go well for Richie when he finds the Family's nest). Lisa contracts the virus. When Neville returns to his apartment, Lisa has allowed Matthias and his sect to infiltrate his sanctuary. As the sun begins to rise, Neville and Matthias wage their final battle for the sake of mankind.
Even though THE OMEGA MAN is post apocalyptic science fiction and takes place six years into the future from the film's 1971 release, the film reflects the social attitudes of the late 60s/early 70s. All of that went over my head when I watched THE OMEGA MAN as a kid. I just remember the zombies were scary in their robes and alabaster skin. I remember Heston and Cash jumping the motorcycle over the zombies. I remember the shock of Cash's afro turning from black to white and her eyes becoming dull blue as the virus overtook her. It's incredible the parts of a film you don't recall when viewing it as a kid. Watching it as an adult, most of THE OMEGA MAN seemed new to me.
Hippie culture oozes from THE OMEGA MAN screenplay. Matthias is a Charles Manson like cult leader. The Family (of light sensitive zombies) are his followers, albino hippies with sores on their faces. Neville represents the establishment in Matthias's eyes. Ironically, Matthias is shown in flashbacks as a local television anchorman by the name of Jonathan Matthias who witnesses the fall of mankind and blames it on corporations and the military complex. He drops his first name and leads the revolt against the machines, the gadgets, the gimmicks with his plague infected followers (who were all able to pick up matching robes and mirrored sun glasses before the world crashed). They burn material goods. Matthias won't use modern weapons like guns or cars to defeat Neville. "Do we use the tools of the Wheel as he does?" Matthias asks his followers. "No," they echo back. The Family use catapults and shoot flaming arrows like Crusaders. When they capture Neville, the put a dunce cap on him and lead him to his execution in a wooden cart like some kind of Salem witch. Neville represents the bankers and businessmen of yesterday, now obsolete in this world. "You are refuse of the past," Matthias tells Neville.
Matthias may think Neville represents the material world but Neville's a closet hippie himself. In an extraordinary scene early in the film, Neville goes to a cinema and watches the ultimate hippie film WOODSTOCK (1970) again. He can quote what few lines of dialogue the film has including the prophetic words from the promoter of the Woodstock music festival Artie Kornfeld who tells an interviewer, "if we can't all live together and be happy, if you have to be afraid to walk out in the street...what kind of way is that to go through in this life?" This is Neville's predicament in this brave new world. Neville would probably smoke dope if he had someone to share it with. Instead, he drinks bourbon and plays chess with a statue of Julius Caesar, his penthouse decorated with Roman busts from empty museums. Neville may envision himself as a last emperor of mankind.
At the beginning of THE OMEGA MAN, Heston's Neville comes off as a narcissist. As the only human supposedly on earth, he looks at himself constantly in his mirror or in shop windows outside. He has inner monologues with himself (something Heston did at the opening of PLANET OF THE APES). He runs shirtless around the streets of Los Angeles while jogging and wears Hugh Hefner like outfits at night. But when Neville encounters other humans, the filmmakers hearken back to Heston's biblical film past when he played Moses or Ben Hur. Only this time Heston's a Christ-like figure for these few survivors. When Neville's almost burned in the stadium, he's tied to a wooden wheel with his arms stretched out, crucifixion style. When Neville tells Dutch and his followers that he has an antidote, a little girl asks Neville, "Are you God?" In the finale (SPOILER ALERT), Neville's impaled with a spear (just like you know who) thrown by Matthias. As Neville dies, propped up against a fountain, the water blood red, he passes to Dutch the precious antidote to stave off the plague for the survivors. The film ends with Neville dying in a Christ like pose again, as if he were on a cross. Neville has died to save Dutch, Lisa, and the children of the future. He's died for the sins of the world.
Anthony Zerbe who plays Matthias the leader of the Family was a familiar face to me. It seemed like he was in every television show in the 70s, usually playing a villain. But Zerbe bounced between television and films effortlessly that decade. He played the leader of a colony of lepers in Franklin J. Schaffner's PAPILLON (1973) and as a murderous army scout in Stuart Millar's ROOSTER COGBURN (1975). Zerbe plays Matthias as a zombie hippy cult leader. He calls his followers in the Family his brothers and sisters. Matthias never raises his voice to them. Like the TV anchorman he once was, Matthias speaks in a calm, authoritative tone. But Matthias is manipulative. He wants total control. He doesn't want to return to the old capitalistic, electronic society. He wants to start a new world from the ashes of machinery. When Richie tells Matthias that Neville has made a cure and they can become human again, Matthias rejects the suggestion, killing Richie. Zerbe's performance in THE OMEGA MAN is creepy and chilling.
Rosalind Cash as Lisa represents the Black Power movement in THE OMEGA MAN. With her classic afro and kick ass, no nonsense demeanor, she's more Angela Davis of the Black Panthers than black exploitation butt kicker Pam Grier. Naturally, Heston and Cash have an interracial love scene that was all the rage in the early 70s cinema. Yet, in a world where there are now very few humans, the color of one's skin doesn't matter anymore. All that matters is to be human. THE OMEGA MAN was Cash's second film credit. She would play strong black female characters in films like Sidney Poitier's UPTOWN SATURDAY NIGHT (1974) and on numerous television shows. Cash also appeared in the cult classic THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKEROO BONZAI ACROSS THE 8TH DIMENSION (1984) directed by W.D. Richter.
Paul Koslo who plays Dutch, the drop out Medical student now fighting zombies, in THE OMEGA MAN was an up and coming young actor in the 70s. Neville will become a role model for Dutch and passes the torch to the young man to lead the survivors forward in the finale. Dutch is a nice counterpoint to Neville's alpha male. Koslo's films include the car chase cult film VANISHING POINT (1971) and Michael Winner's THE STONE KILLER (1974) with Charles Bronson before having a long career in television.
Director Boris Sagal does a yeoman's job of alternating between empty downtown Los Angeles streets and the Warner Bros city back lot in THE OMEGA MAN to show a world devoid of life but his camera isn't perfect. In a few high long lens shots of Heston driving down a deserted LA city street, moving cars can be seen crossing intersections or even driving on nearby adjacent freeways. Sagal even freeze frames one high angle shot so the cars appear to be sitting idly on the street. It looks as fake as it sounds. Sagal would go on to direct the landmark television mini-series RICH MAN, POOR MAN (1976). THE OMEGA MAN reunites Heston with director of photography Russell Metty. Metty's career spanned over four decades and he worked with some of the great directors including Howard Hawks BRINGING UP BABY (1937), Stanley Kubrick's SPARTACUS (1960, and Orson Welles TOUCH OF EVIL (1958) which starred Charlton Heston.
One thing that Hollywood and literary authors are very good at are suggesting future scenarios that could happen. Volcanos erupting near large cities, incredibly tall skyscrapers catching on fire, or voyages to Mars seem farfetched in films yet some have occurred already and some will happen in the future. Yes, there was the Spanish Flu in 1918 but we have not seen a worldwide pandemic in a very long time. We've had some close calls recently with Ebola and SARS. In the last twenty five years, two films had plots involving deadly viruses that barely caused a ripple for movie audiences: Wolfgang Petersen's OUTBREAK (1995) starring Dustin Hoffman and Morgan Freeman and Steven Soderbergh's CONTAGION (2011) with Matt Damon and Kate Winslet. In today's current climate and stay home orders, both OUTBREAK and CONTAGION have been rediscovered thru Netflix and On Demand, becoming more popular than before in this new era we live in.
THE OMEGA MAN is more post-apocalyptic and horror like in its virus plotline than OUTBREAK or CONTAGION. But Richard Matheson's story, no matter how fantastical, has its roots in fact. While these newer pandemic films plots are ripped right from today's headlines, the virus coming from monkeys in Africa or pigs from Asia, THE OMEGA MAN'S pandemic is brought on by man in the guise of super powers that can no longer get along and resort to germ warfare to destroy one another. THE OMEGA MAN is a time capsule, exploring both the future and the recent, turbulent past. If Charlton Heston's Neville were alive in 2020 and we had an outbreak, how would he fare in today's world of selfies, Tik Tok, and video games? He might prefer the good old days of albino zombies instead.
