I
suspect this Warner Bros. film was a popular topic in the break room
some fifty years ago. Critics at the time were certainly divided,
though. It has not held up all that well and it is longer than
necessary at nearly one hundred minutes. The intrigue during the
first third holds up the best and that is where I have focused my
comments. Directed by Boris Sagal with a screenplay by John and Joyce
Corrington, it is a warped adaption of Richard Matheson's novel, I
Am Legend, from 1954. Australian composer Ron Grainer—of
Doctor Who and The Prisoner fame—was
tapped to do the music score, and though it never gets in the way, it
is merely adequate. One can give Matheson some leeway as he
speculates about chemical warfare seventeen years in the future with
apocalyptic proportions. Speculating only four years into the future,
as his film does, simply displays the mindset of Hollywood's
pessimistic fears of the “inevitable,” either from nuclear war or cosmic and environmental chaos.
Charlton Heston could be noteworthy in the right roles, where his stiff upper lip—the envy of all ventriloquist's dummies—a chiseled face or the machismo of bare chest resonate. Coming off his successful Planet of The Apes science fiction film, this post-apocalyptic tale also seems well-suited for him as the only person left on Earth with a sense of humor—and perhaps the only one inoculated. But this film does not readily reveal that there might be those naturally immune to the toxins. It could easily be construed as an absurd reverse scenario for Covid-19: those not vaccinated try to belittle—or eliminate in this case—those who are.
Filming in downtown Los Angeles on a deserted Sunday morning helped pull off the barren authenticity. Less authentic is Heston's driving skills of a modern-day Ford XL—which he crashes almost immediately due to driving inattentively and too fast for conditions. Furthermore, Heston is on record stating that piloting a chariot was easier than that motorcycle in the film. It must be true. Except for closeups of Heston when stopped, it is an obvious stuntman doing all the cycling. There is an amusing “Keystone Cops” moment during the opening—speaking of that Ford convertible—when the film is sped up as Heston stands from the driver's seat to fire his automatic rifle at a mutant in a multi-story building. But I cannot understand why unless Heston made it even more awkward in real-time.
A small group missing out on the vaccine has become a creepy cult of powder-faced “plaguesters” calling themselves the “Family.” These nocturnal albino mutants in Monk robes and matching designer sunglasses represent the biggest credibility gap in the film. Overall, they never seem all that committed to living the night life though torching buildings would appear to be a pleasing pastime. Despite their serious physical ailments, their CEO, Anthony Zerbe, wants no part of modern technology, Heston's vaccine or the serum created from his own blood. Zerbe's plum role is quite understated when compared to so many recent insane villains. His right-hand mutant, Zachary, puts the “kill” in Lincoln Kilpatrick however, and he might have made a more disturbing leader. One thing is for sure, they both hate the “social good life” Heston is living―if one calls living like a prisoner in their own apartment every night. In true anarchist form, a select few destroy Heston’s personal property and all his lab work in a small-scale riot over a disagreement on how one chooses to live.
