Regie:
Roger CormanDrehbuch:
Robert TowneKamera:
Jacques R. MarquetteMusik:
Ronald SteinInhalte(1)
A gangster named Harold (Anthony Carbone), his moll, Mary-Belle (Betsy Jones Moreland), and his lawyer, Martin (Robert Towne), are scuba diving in Puerto Rico when H-bombs wipe out the world. Since these three happened to be underwater at the time, they are the sole survivors and get to wander the empty streets and engage in lots of dialogue about humankind's future. Eventually the men fight over who will mate with Mary-Belle and rebuild civilization. Martin is afraid if she spawns with the thuggish Harold, the world will be repopulated with violent people doomed to a future of more bomb building. On Harold's side is the strong-survive theory of Darwinian natural selection. At least the three get to enjoy some crowd-free shopping before the inevitable showdown. (Verleiher-Text)
(mehr)Kritiken (2)
An excellent premise squandered on a mediocre, unimaginative would-be drama, or film school according to Roger Corman in practice. When the master of trash became aware of incentives in Puerto Rico, he immediately churned out three films at once with the same cast and crew. Of this trio, which also includes Creature from the Haunted Sea and Battle of Blood Island, The Last Woman on Earth is the most economical project, as it gets by with three characters and zero extra costs (among other things, it was filmed in the bungalow rented as housing for the crew). The premise, in which an unscrupulous gambler, his wife and his lawyer go scuba diving and, when they emerge, find that oxygen has disappeared from the air, killing everyone but them, first offers a handful of phenomenally absurd scenes and twists, but then settles into an average and predictable would-be drama about infidelity and trust among the last people in the world. The screenwriter, who would later pen Chinatown and The Firm, tries in vain to breathe some life into this dime-store flick with some stimulating ideas, but Corman doesn’t let that distract him from the goal of shooting a bit of consumer-grade drive-in bullshit for little money.
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Es gibt hier eine einfache Handlungsvoraussetzung (von dem Oscar-prämierten Drehbuchautor Robert Towne), aus der hätte mehr gemacht werden können. Zum Beispiel ging The Quiet Earth mit einem ähnlichen Thema viel besser um. Die schauspielerischen Leistungen sind schwach, jedoch innerhalb der frühen Corman-Produktion Standard (eine interessante Tatsache könnte nur die Rolle von Robert Towne sein). Andererseits kann diesem Film keine gut dargestellte postapokalyptische Atmosphäre und auch kein Bestreben nach einer bestimmten Botschaft abgesprochen werden. Ich hatte Schlimmeres erwartet, am Ende sehe ich es als erträglichen Durchschnitt.
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