"The world is yours, as well as ours, but in the last analysis, it is yours." Way to be cryptic, Chairman.
I think Matheson was probably happy to get paid for his novel without having to also write the script for this one as well. He adapted several of his own novels and stories and works by other writers as an active screenwriter in the '50s,'60s, and '70s.
A family member brought this home to watch when I was a young boy. It scared me but seemed kinda' cool at the same time. I had many fantasies of being the Omega Man while growing up. I rented the movie as an adult to watch again and enjoyed it despite its glaring flaws.
Never knew anything about Matheson's book until I saw the adaptation with Will Smith. "Hey, this is a remake of Omega Man!" When I got home, I researched it. Then, of course, I had to find and watch Last Man on Earth.
I rather like the post-apocalyptic genre. But that's mostly thanks to The Road Warrior.
I have always enjoyed Omega Man. Dystopian future movies from the late 1960s and 1970s are so interesting and thought provoking, depending upon the writing and acting instead of high end special effects.
My experience was similar to that of Henry Brown. I was a kid in the 1970s and never heard of I AM LEGEND. That's why when I read it being compared to the book I have to wonder if the reviewer is aware that most of the audience never heard of the book and perhaps instead of being compared the movie should simply be critiqued on its own merits.
When I was young Charlton Heston was our Gary Cooper/John Wayne. The personification of the American man, the man of The West. I had seen fighting a horde of ants in the jungles of South America, lead the Hebrews out of Egypt, fight the British at the Battle of New Orleans, win an amazing chariot race, chase the Islamic Moors out of Christian Spain, defeat the Boxer Rebellion in China, hold out at his last stand against fanatical Muslims in Khartoum, save a 747 Jumbo Jet from crashing, saving more people after a great Los Angeles earthquake (the first PG movie I saw in a theater: in SENSE AROUND!), and helped destroy the Imperial Japanese Fleet at Midway (also in SENSE AROUND) - so I was excited to see him in a science fiction movie (I had not seen either PLANET OF THE APES or SOYLENT GREEN yet).
It did not disappoint.
I had nightmares for days after The Family removed their sunglasses and revealed their "marks" to Neville. And I can assure you most of my friends at recess also recalled the scene with chills. Anthony Zerbe scared the $#*^ out of us.
Woodstock? The Last Man On Earth wanted to see a movie which showed enormous crowds. That was my takeaway.
Later, when I grew older and viewed it again I saw this as a very conservative movie. On one hand you had a Left-Wing Mainstream Media type lecturing the American people about judgment and then, after acquiring power, doing the same thing the Jacobins always do: burn books, tear down statues, and condemn the norms and traditions of The West. They hated the smell of gasoline. They considered it evil. One wonders how they would have felt about EVs! Western art and Western science enrage them. You could choke on their self-righteousness. And their attitude towards firearms . . . ? There's something extremely fun about watching a man - who would later become the President of the National Rifle Association - mowing down torch bearing zealots and then returning home to a fortress of solitude piled high with "gadgets, gimmicks, and guns."
It's also fun watching a man drive a Mustang convertible through stop signs, traffic lights, and barricades at full speed with zero consequence. Before the four refugees from the zombie apocalypse settled down in the Monroeville Mall to listen to their vinyl LPs being played on the most top of the line hi-tech hi-fidelity stereos Charlton Heston's Colonel Robert Neville had been doing the exact same thing.
And that's another part I appreciated the Corrington's adding which was kept in the Will Smith version but had nothing to do with Matheson's vision. In addition to being a scientist, Charlton Heston is also a commissioned "bird" colonel Army officer, with the scrambled eggs on his brim representing that he is not only The Last Man but The Last American as well. I appreciated how Boris Sagal held the frame on that iconic representation of the last vestige of authority in the Western world before the hippies pile into their Range Rover and head for the hills.
The Dark Herald is viewing this movie more than half a century after it's release. Trust me on this. For the time? This movie was awesome. It remains one of my all time favorites.
And the soundtrack by the late Ron Granier is a masterpiece of innovation with regard to the instruments used and hauntingly melodic in its execution. Jerry Goldsmith's score for PLANET OF THE APES was perfect. However neither Goldsmith nor John Williams, Lalo Schifrin, John Barry - not even Ennio Morricone - could ever comparably match Granier's superb soundtrack.
For a deeper dive into how most Horror Fans perceive this neglected gem go onto the Classic Horror Film Board: //www.tapatalk.com/groups/monsterkidclassichorrorforum/the-omega-man-1971-t3037.html
The conversation started in 2006 and still continues to this day!
I just reviewed the Classic Horror Film Board conversation on this movie.
This post from 2006 echoes my own.
The Omega Man
Jun 24, 2006#113
You can definitely count me in as a HUGE fan of The Omega Man. I know there are others out there also. Remember the magazine, "Sci-Fi Universe"? They used to have a page devoted to huge fans of a particular Television show or movie and sure enough, in one of the issues there was an Omega Man guy. I can understand that those who grew up at the time may not have liked it, especially if they had read Matheson's book or seen the Vincent Price movie or even were comparing it to Night of the Living Dead - but -
Here's why I (and many of my age and younger) like this movie:
I grew up in the 70s and Charlton Heston was THE MAN of that decade. My folks were as mainstream conventional "normal" as you could find. Both of them were raised on farms and both of them were immigrants. Needless to say, neither one of them were into nor could understand what their son saw in horror, sci-fi or fantasy. But they respected Charlton Heston. With so many A-List stars doing genre work now people forget that this was not always the case. Heston was an Oscar winner. He was Moses. He was Ben-Hur. He was Michelangelo. He was a war veteran. He was a thoughtful and articulate spokesman on the topic of civil rights, yet a passionate defender of the status quo. So when I was 9 years old and the broadcast television premier of the Omega Man came on I was allowed to see the movie. None of us in our family sitting around the TV set knew what it was about; all we knew was that it had an interesting title. After the first five minutes my parents explained to me that "Omega" was the LAST letter in the Greek alphabet and we all "got"
the title.
A very compelling opening. None of us saw people walking around in the background because our eyes were focused on the main character.
And speaking of eyes: it was an innocent time. When this 9 year old first say the "pretty marks" he didn't know what the hell contact lenses were. All he knew was that when these people removed their sunglasses they looked pretty damned scary!!!
Needless to say I was afraid of the dark for a couple of weeks afterwards.
What was the appeal?
The materialist aspect was cool. Your car breaks down? Hotwire a Mustang and drive it through the dealer's window. No prob. In the days before VCRs and DVDs - you want to see a movie . . . ? As long as you have a generator at the local Bijou you're set (just hope that Woodstock isn't the movie you're stuck with unless you enjoy seeing large crowds).
The shopping, the personal arsenal, the latest stereo, closed circuit television - all pretty cool.
But that haunting music of Greniers said it wasn't worth it.
The music. Every time a repeat came on I would watch it and be humming the music for days. I was one of the first to get a copy of the Film Score Monthly released soundtrack (INCREDIBLE liner notes) and listen to it driving to work at least once every six months.
Dated? The clothing styles? Sure. The HUGE red infrared scope mounted on his rifle? Sure? The land yachts he drives around in? Sure? The Geopolitics? The Soviet Union and Red China aren't exactly everyone's big concern these days - sure.
But the threat of Biological warfare . . . . . ?
I loved the politics. The embodiment of Western Civilization. Not one but TWO titles: Doctor and Colonel. The field grade Army service hat became the most iconic hat in cinema. Even more iconic than Kenneth Tobey's Monster Killer Hat in "Attack of the B Movie Monster"! And even if Colonel Neville was an establishment conservative he was preserving the art (including jazz and Picasso) of the West and defending it from the book burning neo-Luddites of the Family.
Some on this board compare the Family to the evangelical right. I see them as being closer to the ALF, radical environmental groups, and what has been called the Watermelon Left (Green on the outside and Red on the inside). A charismatic media personality - and lunatic - leads a rag tag bunch of maniacs (the movie clearly establishes that the disease brings on mania as well as physical changes such as light sensitivity). These people are closer to Jacobins than evangelicals. And since Neville represents everything they detest ("cars, gadgets, gimmicks, guns" - who on the evangelical right loathes these things?) they are hellbent on killing him. That is why he is justified in hunting them during the day. That and for the sake of his own sanity (listen to Professor Ashley Montague on the special feature of the DVD).
The religious subtexts ought to convey who is righteous in this movie as well. Matthias does not die in a cruciform pose, with a spear piercing his side and giving his blood for the salvation of what remains of the human race. Matthias is a fricking Luddite who is half Walter Cronkite and half Charles Manson (a reactionaries worst nightmare!).
I could go on and on but, needless to say - this movie is not a guilty pleasure: it IS a pleasure. More scenes like the Dodge command car driving through the streets and Neville blasting away at the family at night would have been awesome.
Another thing: Countless actors say, "Oh My God" and it comes out as meaningless (ohmigod!). But when Heston says it after Richie has been slaughtered it almost sounds like he is praying. He MEANS every syllable.
When the family destroy everything they loathe about modernity ("your art, your science - it is all a nightmare") I find it interesting that they burn his books, smash his statues, tear down his gun rack, rip apart his laboratory and tear apart his paintings - but save the destruction of his television for last. Does anyone believe that wasn't intentional?
I love The Omega Man MORE than Soylent Green or Planet of the Apes and I love both of those movies as well. But the Omega Man remains one of my top five favorite films of all time.
"The world is yours, as well as ours, but in the last analysis, it is yours." Way to be cryptic, Chairman.
I think Matheson was probably happy to get paid for his novel without having to also write the script for this one as well. He adapted several of his own novels and stories and works by other writers as an active screenwriter in the '50s,'60s, and '70s.
Good rundown.
A family member brought this home to watch when I was a young boy. It scared me but seemed kinda' cool at the same time. I had many fantasies of being the Omega Man while growing up. I rented the movie as an adult to watch again and enjoyed it despite its glaring flaws.
Never knew anything about Matheson's book until I saw the adaptation with Will Smith. "Hey, this is a remake of Omega Man!" When I got home, I researched it. Then, of course, I had to find and watch Last Man on Earth.
I rather like the post-apocalyptic genre. But that's mostly thanks to The Road Warrior.
I have always enjoyed Omega Man. Dystopian future movies from the late 1960s and 1970s are so interesting and thought provoking, depending upon the writing and acting instead of high end special effects.
My experience was similar to that of Henry Brown. I was a kid in the 1970s and never heard of I AM LEGEND. That's why when I read it being compared to the book I have to wonder if the reviewer is aware that most of the audience never heard of the book and perhaps instead of being compared the movie should simply be critiqued on its own merits.
When I was young Charlton Heston was our Gary Cooper/John Wayne. The personification of the American man, the man of The West. I had seen fighting a horde of ants in the jungles of South America, lead the Hebrews out of Egypt, fight the British at the Battle of New Orleans, win an amazing chariot race, chase the Islamic Moors out of Christian Spain, defeat the Boxer Rebellion in China, hold out at his last stand against fanatical Muslims in Khartoum, save a 747 Jumbo Jet from crashing, saving more people after a great Los Angeles earthquake (the first PG movie I saw in a theater: in SENSE AROUND!), and helped destroy the Imperial Japanese Fleet at Midway (also in SENSE AROUND) - so I was excited to see him in a science fiction movie (I had not seen either PLANET OF THE APES or SOYLENT GREEN yet).
It did not disappoint.
I had nightmares for days after The Family removed their sunglasses and revealed their "marks" to Neville. And I can assure you most of my friends at recess also recalled the scene with chills. Anthony Zerbe scared the $#*^ out of us.
Woodstock? The Last Man On Earth wanted to see a movie which showed enormous crowds. That was my takeaway.
Later, when I grew older and viewed it again I saw this as a very conservative movie. On one hand you had a Left-Wing Mainstream Media type lecturing the American people about judgment and then, after acquiring power, doing the same thing the Jacobins always do: burn books, tear down statues, and condemn the norms and traditions of The West. They hated the smell of gasoline. They considered it evil. One wonders how they would have felt about EVs! Western art and Western science enrage them. You could choke on their self-righteousness. And their attitude towards firearms . . . ? There's something extremely fun about watching a man - who would later become the President of the National Rifle Association - mowing down torch bearing zealots and then returning home to a fortress of solitude piled high with "gadgets, gimmicks, and guns."
It's also fun watching a man drive a Mustang convertible through stop signs, traffic lights, and barricades at full speed with zero consequence. Before the four refugees from the zombie apocalypse settled down in the Monroeville Mall to listen to their vinyl LPs being played on the most top of the line hi-tech hi-fidelity stereos Charlton Heston's Colonel Robert Neville had been doing the exact same thing.
And that's another part I appreciated the Corrington's adding which was kept in the Will Smith version but had nothing to do with Matheson's vision. In addition to being a scientist, Charlton Heston is also a commissioned "bird" colonel Army officer, with the scrambled eggs on his brim representing that he is not only The Last Man but The Last American as well. I appreciated how Boris Sagal held the frame on that iconic representation of the last vestige of authority in the Western world before the hippies pile into their Range Rover and head for the hills.
The Dark Herald is viewing this movie more than half a century after it's release. Trust me on this. For the time? This movie was awesome. It remains one of my all time favorites.
And the soundtrack by the late Ron Granier is a masterpiece of innovation with regard to the instruments used and hauntingly melodic in its execution. Jerry Goldsmith's score for PLANET OF THE APES was perfect. However neither Goldsmith nor John Williams, Lalo Schifrin, John Barry - not even Ennio Morricone - could ever comparably match Granier's superb soundtrack.
For a deeper dive into how most Horror Fans perceive this neglected gem go onto the Classic Horror Film Board: //www.tapatalk.com/groups/monsterkidclassichorrorforum/the-omega-man-1971-t3037.html
The conversation started in 2006 and still continues to this day!
I just reviewed the Classic Horror Film Board conversation on this movie.
This post from 2006 echoes my own.
The Omega Man
Jun 24, 2006#113
You can definitely count me in as a HUGE fan of The Omega Man. I know there are others out there also. Remember the magazine, "Sci-Fi Universe"? They used to have a page devoted to huge fans of a particular Television show or movie and sure enough, in one of the issues there was an Omega Man guy. I can understand that those who grew up at the time may not have liked it, especially if they had read Matheson's book or seen the Vincent Price movie or even were comparing it to Night of the Living Dead - but -
Here's why I (and many of my age and younger) like this movie:
I grew up in the 70s and Charlton Heston was THE MAN of that decade. My folks were as mainstream conventional "normal" as you could find. Both of them were raised on farms and both of them were immigrants. Needless to say, neither one of them were into nor could understand what their son saw in horror, sci-fi or fantasy. But they respected Charlton Heston. With so many A-List stars doing genre work now people forget that this was not always the case. Heston was an Oscar winner. He was Moses. He was Ben-Hur. He was Michelangelo. He was a war veteran. He was a thoughtful and articulate spokesman on the topic of civil rights, yet a passionate defender of the status quo. So when I was 9 years old and the broadcast television premier of the Omega Man came on I was allowed to see the movie. None of us in our family sitting around the TV set knew what it was about; all we knew was that it had an interesting title. After the first five minutes my parents explained to me that "Omega" was the LAST letter in the Greek alphabet and we all "got"
the title.
A very compelling opening. None of us saw people walking around in the background because our eyes were focused on the main character.
And speaking of eyes: it was an innocent time. When this 9 year old first say the "pretty marks" he didn't know what the hell contact lenses were. All he knew was that when these people removed their sunglasses they looked pretty damned scary!!!
Needless to say I was afraid of the dark for a couple of weeks afterwards.
What was the appeal?
The materialist aspect was cool. Your car breaks down? Hotwire a Mustang and drive it through the dealer's window. No prob. In the days before VCRs and DVDs - you want to see a movie . . . ? As long as you have a generator at the local Bijou you're set (just hope that Woodstock isn't the movie you're stuck with unless you enjoy seeing large crowds).
The shopping, the personal arsenal, the latest stereo, closed circuit television - all pretty cool.
But that haunting music of Greniers said it wasn't worth it.
The music. Every time a repeat came on I would watch it and be humming the music for days. I was one of the first to get a copy of the Film Score Monthly released soundtrack (INCREDIBLE liner notes) and listen to it driving to work at least once every six months.
Dated? The clothing styles? Sure. The HUGE red infrared scope mounted on his rifle? Sure? The land yachts he drives around in? Sure? The Geopolitics? The Soviet Union and Red China aren't exactly everyone's big concern these days - sure.
But the threat of Biological warfare . . . . . ?
I loved the politics. The embodiment of Western Civilization. Not one but TWO titles: Doctor and Colonel. The field grade Army service hat became the most iconic hat in cinema. Even more iconic than Kenneth Tobey's Monster Killer Hat in "Attack of the B Movie Monster"! And even if Colonel Neville was an establishment conservative he was preserving the art (including jazz and Picasso) of the West and defending it from the book burning neo-Luddites of the Family.
Some on this board compare the Family to the evangelical right. I see them as being closer to the ALF, radical environmental groups, and what has been called the Watermelon Left (Green on the outside and Red on the inside). A charismatic media personality - and lunatic - leads a rag tag bunch of maniacs (the movie clearly establishes that the disease brings on mania as well as physical changes such as light sensitivity). These people are closer to Jacobins than evangelicals. And since Neville represents everything they detest ("cars, gadgets, gimmicks, guns" - who on the evangelical right loathes these things?) they are hellbent on killing him. That is why he is justified in hunting them during the day. That and for the sake of his own sanity (listen to Professor Ashley Montague on the special feature of the DVD).
The religious subtexts ought to convey who is righteous in this movie as well. Matthias does not die in a cruciform pose, with a spear piercing his side and giving his blood for the salvation of what remains of the human race. Matthias is a fricking Luddite who is half Walter Cronkite and half Charles Manson (a reactionaries worst nightmare!).
I could go on and on but, needless to say - this movie is not a guilty pleasure: it IS a pleasure. More scenes like the Dodge command car driving through the streets and Neville blasting away at the family at night would have been awesome.
Another thing: Countless actors say, "Oh My God" and it comes out as meaningless (ohmigod!). But when Heston says it after Richie has been slaughtered it almost sounds like he is praying. He MEANS every syllable.
When the family destroy everything they loathe about modernity ("your art, your science - it is all a nightmare") I find it interesting that they burn his books, smash his statues, tear down his gun rack, rip apart his laboratory and tear apart his paintings - but save the destruction of his television for last. Does anyone believe that wasn't intentional?
I love The Omega Man MORE than Soylent Green or Planet of the Apes and I love both of those movies as well. But the Omega Man remains one of my top five favorite films of all time.
More on THE OMEGA MAN.
https://bamfstyle.com/2021/06/28/omega-man-safari/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBu_UYSahgI