PodBill Just what I expected

BallWubba Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Brenda The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

mgconlan-1 "Last Woman on Earth" was produced and directed by Roger Corman for American International Pictures in association with his own company, Filmgroup (one word, though an Allied Artists TV reissue spelled it as "Film Group"), and was based on a script by Robert Towne - who was also in it, more on that later. Towne went on to a distinguished career as a writer and a less distinguished one as a director - his best known credit was probably the screenplay for "Chinatown" (though Towne was disgusted when director Roman Polanski changed his ending), and he's one of the many talents both in front of and behind the camera who went from a Corman apprenticeship to a major career. "Last Woman on Earth" was apparently a project Corman threw together because he was already organizing a location trip to Puerto Rico to shoot "Creature from the Haunted Sea" and he wanted to get the most bang for his buck while there by making a second film - the way he would allow Francis Ford Coppola to shoot his first film, "Dementia 13," with the same cast and crew as his own production "The Young Racers;" and why he would squeeze two days' extra work out of Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson by finishing the 1963 version of "The Raven" early so he could make another film with them, The Terror. It helped that Towne's plot features only three on-screen (live) human characters: New York financier Harold Gern (Anthony Carbone), his wife Evelyn (Betsy Jones Moreland) and his tax attorney Martin Joyce. The performance of the actor playing Joyce is credited to "Edward Wain," but that was actually a pseudonym for ... Robert Towne. It seems that he hadn't yet finished the film by the time Corman and his crew were set to leave for Puerto Rico, so Corman had to bring him along so he could finish the script on the spot. Rather than pay for two people to come to Puerto Rico, Corman decided to save plane fare and living expenses for one by drafting Towne to play the part himself. Like Blake Edwards in Frank Wisbar's 1940's "B" "Strangler of the Swamp," Towne's performance proves that his real talent lay in writing, not acting. It also is an early indication of the flaw that would sink a lot of Towne's later major productions: a gift for pseudo-profundity which led him to write things that pretend to intellectual sophistication but really don't achieve it. One suspects that Corman told Towne, "Write me an Ingmar Bergman script - only make sure I can slap an exploitation title on it so I can sell it to the drive-ins." What Towne came up with was a profoundly uninteresting romantic triangle between Harold, Evelyn and Martin that turns into a post-apocalyptic movie when, vacationing on Puerto Rico while Harold's latest IRS investigation gets sorted out, Harold takes Evelyn and Martin deep-sea diving with SCUBA gear - and while they're underwater a sudden interruption in Earth's oxygen supply takes place, just long enough to wipe out all other humans and land-based animal life. They come to life but keep breathing through their diving masks until they realize that whatever happened to the air that annihilated the rest of humanity is over and they can once again breathe safely - and the rest of the plot deals with Harold's attempts to lord it over the other two and insist that Evelyn doesn't have sex with Martin even though she's been clearly restive in her trophy-wife status and genuinely attracted to him. The main problem with this film is that the three people are relentlessly uninteresting and we really don't like any of them. It's possible Corman could have improved this film greatly if he'd been willing to pay salary, expenses and travel for an actual actor to play Martin, and it's pretty clear whom that should have been: the young Jack Nicholson, who was under contract to Corman at the time and could have brought an explosive romantic and sexual intensity to the character that clearly eluded the writer playing him. "Last Woman on Earth" is yet another bad film in which one senses a good film struggling inside it to get out.

kkonrad-29861 This is one lesser known and underappreciated Roger Corman's classic. The ending is kind off silly, but rest of the film is actually good. The story is intriguing - two men and one woman survive mysterious apocalypse. Screenplay is quite well drawn out (if you consider the fact that they started shooting with unfinished script), dialogue quite snappy and interesting, and all the three main characters are actually someone you care about. The characters are multi layered, as none of them are clearly a bad guy, they all have some morals, principles, and very valid points in arguments. Most of this is thanks to the great talents of screenwriter Robert Towne (who also played Martin Joyce as Edward Wain and went on to win an OSCAR for 'Chinatown'). Acting by Betsy Jones-Moreland and Anthony Carbone is fantastic and very naturalistic. Robert Towne (or Edward Wain) on the other hand is not painfully bad, but definitely he's not mach for these two. Occasionally it made me wonder - have Robert Towne ever given acting lessons to Nicolas Cage?Anyway, 'Last Woman on Earth' is much better movie than one can expect from its ratings, and it is much thoughtful movie than one can expect from such low budget B-grade disaster movie.

nitestar95 Seems like every sentence uttered begins with the other person's name. Real people don't speak like that. At least, no one I know does. So it sort of doesn't allow you to see the movie as real. Which is fine, as long as you don't mind that. But for me, it ruins the movie experience. That said, it is watchable, unlike many other horrible films. Good as a 'B' movie for your saturday matinee double feature. At only an hour long, you won't get sick of the crappy dialogue before it ends.

MARIO GAUCI While not officially listed (on IMDb) as having been worked on by cult director Monte Hellman, he confirmed his involvement on this Corman cheapie during Criterion's Audio Commentary for his own TWO-LANE BLACKTOP (1971). In fact, it was one of four (3 originally helmed by Corman and another by himself) which he was commissioned to extend for TV showings: ironically, these alternate versions have since virtually become the official ones! I do not know which scenes Hellman devised for the film but it was interesting to note the cockfight in the very opening sequence, given that he would make the screen's best depiction of this violent sport with COCKFIGHTER (1974) – which Corman himself would produce! Incidentally, when I acquired the film under review, I was unaware that it was supposed to be in color (though, by all accounts, this had faded anyway in surviving prints): had I known, however, I would have made it a point to check out the version recently broadcast – in the original language – on late-night Italian TV!Anyway, though the title had always struck me as intriguing (preceding THE LAST MAN ON EARTH by 4 years), the film was slapped with an unflattering – but, in retrospect, undeserving – BOMB rating by the "Leonard Maltin Movie Guide". Curiously enough, the picture it was shot back-to-back with i.e. the recently-viewed CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA (1961) – another Corman effort 'doctored' by Hellman and with which this shares its three leads – rates *1/2 in Maltin's book but it is a much less rewarding experience in my opinion! Yet one more picture made during this time and using the same locations was the war movie BATTLE OF BLOOD ISLAND (1960; which, however, Corman only produced) – collectively, the films would come to be known as "The Puerto Rican Trilogy" (and they were released as such on DVD as well).To get back to the matter at hand, the plot of this one is pretty spare: a crooked businessman (Bogie look-alike Anthony Carbone), his girl (Betsy Jones-Moreland) and his lawyer (Edward Wain aka renowned scriptwriter Robert Towne, who also penned this) convene in the South American town to discuss his latest indictment However, while taking some time off deep-sea diving, the entire world population apparently expires from radioactive fall-out (hence the title)! Needless to say, Carbone is not the easiest guy to live with, so Moreland finds solace in the younger and more genteel Wain. This, of course, does not sit well with his 'boss', so we are treated to the usual eternal triangle dilemma albeit set against an apocalyptic back-drop – this idea in itself would have been great, had it not been already dealt with the previous year in THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL (which actually added a racial issue to the fray and is a film I also own but have yet to watch) but, then, Corman was well-known for his shrewd commercial sense in concocting a quick cash-in to the next big thing (notably the reincarnation-themed THE UNDEAD {1957} following hot on the heels of the critically-lauded THE SEARCH FOR BRIDEY MURPHY {1956})! Unfortunately, the narrative sticks to this one (rather drab) situation and, perhaps in view of the limited setting as well, does not develop further when Corman and Towne could pretty much have gone in any direction imaginable: given Carbone's self-confidence and ruthlessness, would it not have been logical for him to turn megalomaniacal rather than merely jealous! The latter stages, in fact, have him banishing Wain from the hotel they were living in but the latter and Moreland double-cross him by leaving together. He sets out in pursuit and finally confronts his romantic rival in a fortress (a good set-piece), with the unexpected – and strangely moral – ending then relocating to the inside of a church (as would THE LAST MAN ON EARTH itself oddly enough!), where the hero/interloper dies (soon after going blind from having received numerous blows throughout in the region of his eyes!) and the 'blessed' couple can have a go at saving their marriage!