Vincent Price isn’t exactly the everyman that the protagonist of the novel I Am Legend was, but as the star of The Last Man on Earth (1964) he still gives a wonderfully weary as the last uninfected man in a world of vampires. Staking is his business, and business is a bit too good to be good.
Nathan Shumate is the proprietor of Cold Fusion Video Reviews and the publisher of Cold Fusion Media.
#1 by The Rev. on August 27th, 2010
You know, I really need to see this.
Actually, I need to find and read the book, and THEN see this. Then maybe The Omega Man.
#2 by Nathan Shumate on August 27th, 2010
And it doesn’t stop there.
#3 by The Rev. on August 28th, 2010
True, but I’m not in much of a hurry to see Will Smith’s version.
I saw part of I Am Omega once but that doesn’t really count, if what I know of the original story is any indication.
#4 by Blake on August 27th, 2010
I had this movie on my hard drive for quite a while and never got around to seeing it. I did see the Will Smith version, though. That counts for something, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it?
#5 by Nathan Shumate on August 27th, 2010
When I see it, I’ll let you know. (The Last Man on Earth can be watched free through IMDb, BTW.)
#6 by Blake on August 27th, 2010
I got my copy from the Internet Movie Archive.
#7 by Rula on August 27th, 2010
Hi, first comment here for me. I’ve just been reading a book called “Queers in History” and apparently Price swung both ways? I would love this to be true but has anyone heard anything else like this?? As the last man on Earth, I imagine he’d be doubly frustrated…
#8 by Nathan Shumate on August 27th, 2010
I dunno — there seems to be an impulse for any marginalized group (gays, Mormons, what have you) to conclude that famous people were really “one of them” on tenuous evidence. The biological sketch provided by Wikipedia mentions three marriages and two children; he converted to Catholicism to marry his third wife.
#9 by Rula on August 27th, 2010
I guess I’m referring to his last wife, Coral Brown, an Australian who’d been married to gay men before and herself had same sex affairs – this seems to be something of well kept secret and I’m kind of fascinated that it could just be true?
#10 by Rula on August 27th, 2010
And just as an aside, Oscar Wilde was married and had kids…
#11 by Nathan Shumate on August 27th, 2010
Yes, but Oscar Wilde was also friggin’ Oscar Wilde — he joyfully provided all of the other evidence we need.
#12 by Read MacGuirtose on August 27th, 2010
Hm… at first blush, this sounded to me like just another completely unfounded rumor, too, but I did a little searching and found out that Vincent Price’s daughter apparently wrote a book that makes him out to be a possible bisexual. Still doesn’t mean it’s true — she could have had any number of reasons for making up a “fact” like that, or she could have misinterpreted some “evidence” and leapt to a fallacious conclusion — but apparently there’s a little more basis for the rumor than I expected.
#13 by Read MacGuirtose on August 27th, 2010
Ah, here’s a page with apparently a direct quote from his daughter about the subject. Apparently even during Price’s life there were rumors about him being gay or bisexual; his daughter tried to chase down evidence to find out for sure, but never found anything she considered definitive one way or the other, and finally concluded that maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t, and it really didn’t much matter. Which, I suppose, is probably a good place to leave it.
#14 by supersonic on August 27th, 2010
Oh, The Omega Man is definitely not to be missed. Makes the Price version look about three feet tall. Just don’t expect it to have any real connection to the book.
#15 by rjschwarz on August 27th, 2010
I enjoyed the Will Smith version of the story but found the CGI beasts distracting. I mean why? 28 Days later style rage infected would have been far scarier and I should think a lot cheaper. Instead it just reminded me of I Robot’s army of attacking CGI robots.
I enjoyed Omega Man for the wonderful 70s fashions.
#16 by Shambles on August 28th, 2010
Omega Man is fun but I still like Last Man on Earth more. Some of the shots from Omega are fantastic but ultimately I’d rather see a movie with Price over Heston.
Will Smith’s version is actually pretty solid and could’ve been great if it weren’t for the changed ending. If nothing else it’s an amazing film right up until that one point where everyone agrees things start to go sideways with the story.
#17 by jason farrell on September 2nd, 2010
I just like to point out that LAST MAN has one moment which really makes me think the Italians were on to something with all their dubbing.
The child actor who plays Morgan’s daughter is solidly poor. Aren’t all child actors? Well, anyway, the moment when she’s struck blind, she looks kind of silly because its obvious that she could never imagine what being blind felt like. But then she cries for help, and it’s creepy because it’s badly-dubbed; the words only match her lips in theory and, combined with her bad acting, and turns the scene surreal by accident.
Also, another thing great about its Italian pedigree is how alien the empty Italian city looks culturally to American eyes.