Lower Decks

Last week I wrote about Panic in Year Zero!, a 1962 film about a family struggling to survive after the world is devastated by nuclear war. Tonight I’ll be reviewing Last Woman on Earth, produced and directed by Roger Corman and released in 1960. Like Panic in Year Zero!, Corman’s Last Woman on Earth deals with the problem of living in a post-apocalyptic world. But the two movies are very different.

I watched Last Woman on Earth at the Internet Archive. The copy I viewed was a black and white print. I learned after finishing the movie that there is also a faded color print available. I’m not sure if seeing it in color would have made much of a difference. I enjoyed the movie and I think it may have benefited from being in black and white.

Last Woman on Earth

Last Woman on Earth

There are, for all intents and purposes, only three characters in Last Woman on Earth: Harold Gern (played by Antony Carbone), his wife Evelyn (played by Betsy Jones-Moreland) and his lawyer Martin Joyce (played by Robert Towne). Harold is a businessman on vacation in Puerto Rico who seems to be in a bit of legal trouble. Not that he’s worried.

During the first ten or fifteen minutes of the movie I got the feeling that the relationship between Harold and Evelyn was strained, perhaps even failing. But that doesn’t keep the two from going skin diving together and inviting Martin to come along. The three surface after an accident with a harpoon gun. That’s when the real drama starts. They find their native guide dead on the deck of their boat and, alarmingly, they can’t breath.

Thankfully, they’re still wearing their breathing apparatus. They make their way to the beach and venture into the jungle. When they start running out of air they realize the oxygen content in the atmosphere has normalized. They can breathe again. But everyone else is dead.

On the Beach with No Air

Finding themselves alone and surrounded with dead bodies, Harold, Evelyn and Martin do what anyone would do in their situation. They find a bar and start drinking. Soon enough they start making plans for the immediate future. They stock up on clothes and goods and head out to a house on the far end of the island. It is far enough away from heavily populated areas that they won’t have to worry about the stench of rotting bodies and is stocked with plenty of canned food.

What the house doesn’t have is another woman. Harold has Evelyn but poor Martin doesn’t have anyone. Before long Harold becomes uncomfortable with the triumvirate he sees evolving. Martin takes off for a while but returns. The three decide to eventually head to Canada where they can live off the land. So they learn to fish and start preparing a boat.

Love on the Beach

After a lot of fishing, Martin and Evelyn drink beer and make out on the beach. Harold attacks him and throws him out. Evelyn begs Martin to ask her to go with him and he does. They manage to get past Harold and head for the boat but Harold, after repairing a truck, drives after them.

Martin leaves Evelyn in a church and runs off. Harold chases him. They battle and grapple in the surf and then run up a bunch of stairs and battle and grapple some more. Martin, who was injured in the earlier fight with Harold, manages to get away and drag himself back to the church. He quickly goes blind and then dies, leaving Evelyn and Harold alone.

Martin Dies

After Martin dies, Harold wonders aloud whether humanity will ever learn. But at least his marriage is no longer in danger. Did I forget to mention that Harold continually worried about his marriage and tried to convince everyone that Evelyn was his wife and his property? For the most part Evelyn seemed to go along with this until she fled with Martin.

Last Woman on Earth is a character study. Harold is the pragmatist with control issues, Evelyn the carefree woman learning to assert herself and Martin the man who realizes that he has to fight for what he wants (once he figures out what he wants). Taken together, the three depict human nature at its worst.

The movie has some good quotes, mostly from Martin. To Harold: “You mean you’d exile one-third of the human race?” While dying: “My eyes are dim, I cannot see, I have not brought my specs with me” (apparently from a popular army/scouting song). He also quotes from Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” with Evelyn. The actor who played Martin, Robert Towne, also wrote the screenplay for Last Woman on Earth.

It isn’t a perfect movie by any means or even a very good movie. But it was just gripping enough to keep my attention. And I really do believe watching it in black and white helped.