Horror Classic 45 of 50: LAST WOMAN ON EARTH

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Here I am! Boxing Day has come and gone, and now I'm ready to get back to watching old "horror" movies. And now that I've watched Last Woman on Earth from 1960, I only have five movies left!

Faithful "Ryan Watches 50 Movies" reader Grady Roe has been keeping up with this blog since the beginning. He astutely observed some time ago that many of the posters for these movies tend to prominently feature females with varying amounts of their clothing torn or removed. And he's right... apparently the designers of these posters were under the impression that filmgoers' attention would be grabbed by nekkid ladies. Well, take a glance (or a long, lingering, lascivious look) at the poster for Last Woman on Earth:

Wow! That's really something! And, if those figures are to scale, the woman is this movie is ENORMOUS! Towering over shirtless men, she's a BEHEMOTH of epic, exploitative nudity who terrorizes the countryside with her voluptuousness!

Now let's find out if that's true:

Synopsis
As the opening credits roll, the camera takes a slow pan over a still photo of a nude woman. It's sort of a Ken-Burns-meets-Hugh-Hefner thing. Then the director credit comes up: Roger Corman. Well, that explains a lot.

Now the actual movie starts, and we're in Puerto Rico, where a shady guy named Harold takes his wife on a date to see a cockfight. She's not exactly thrilled to be there. His lawyer, Martin, shows up, and the wife introduces herself: "I'm Edd Byrnes." Wait -- what?! This hot chick is the guy who played Kookie on 77 Sunset Strip?!

Oh... I misheard. Her name is Ev Gern, and she's grown disenchanted with her law-not-adiding husband. So the next day, he takes her out on a boat for some man-and-wife time, fishing and swimming, and of course to make it extra-romantic he invites the lawyer too. There's already some tension between Martin the Lawyer and Harold the Shady Guy, as Martin is trying to convince Harold that one of these days all his bad business is going to catch up with him.

They all go scuba-diving for a while, and when they surface they find they can't breathe without their oxygen tanks. Even more shocking, their boat's driver is dead of apparent suffocation. The poor guy didn't even get any lines! They make their way to shore and into the jungle, where they discover that they can breathe safely again, thanks in part to the numerous oxygen-producing plants. Thanks, plants!

A quick trip into town confirms their worst fear: They're in a Roger Corman movie. No, sorry, I meant, their worst fear: Something in the air has killed everyone around. Now, in a situation like this, you might panic. You might mourn the loss of all your family and friends back home. You might even travel to a major city to check for survivors. Not these folks! They decide that everyone is probably dead, so they should go hang out in a beach house for a while and then move to Canada.

So, not only is Ev ostensibly the last woman on Earth and a total hottie, her two companions are the last two men on Earth, and one of them is her husband. So it doesn't take long before the tension grows, as Martin lusts after Ev, Ev starts noticing Martin, and Harold simmers.

Finally, the unbearable stress of hanging out at the beach all day takes its toll. Ev and Martin smooch, which doesn't sit well with Harold. Harold banishes Martin from the house, which would be a pretty lousy development for Martin, except that then Ev decides to go with him. When Harold finds out he gets pretty darn mad. I won't give away the ending except to say that one third of the planets humans die.

Is It Scary?
It's not really meant to make you jump out of your chair or scream blood-curdlingly. It's more designed to make you go, "Whoa. What if everyone on Earth died except me?"

Lessons I Learned
  • If an airborne toxin kills every living creature on Earth, fish, insects and birds won't become extinct. The fish can survive in the water, and the bugs and birds gestating in eggs will still be able to hatch. This movie is educational!
My Favorite Lines
  • Ev, to Martin: "I'm going to take my big toe... and wipe you out!" (It only made a little more sense in context.)
  • Martin, to Harold: "If rotten money smelled like rotten fish, they'd have give you a bank to yourself. Yes, sir, Mr. Gern. The way you made your money STANK! The way you catch fish STINKS! And furthermore, Harold, YOU stink.
Body Count
MILLIONS! Plus one.

Comments
• Well, this movie wasn't as much about exploitation as I expected. It's an interesting idea -- only three humans left and it's a love triangle. It's just hard to get past the part where they react to their predicament by moving into a party house instead of doing something more... active.

• I didn't realize this until I clicked on the IMDb page, but the titular woman in this movie is played by Betsy Jones-Moreland, who also played the gangster's girlfriend in Roger Corman's Creature From the Haunted Sea, which was also included in the "horror classics" DVD set. Further internet research reveals that the two films were shot back to back. Wow!

• The characters keep referring to what's happened as "the end of the world." But the world is still there... it's just that most of its residents have ended.

• And why do they dress so nicely? If I was one of the last three people on the planet, I'd probably stop shaving, and I'd never wear a button-down shirt again. I might even wear the same t-shirt twice without washing it!

• Would plumbing still work if all humans were dead? I mean, doesn't there have to be somebody running the waterworks and sewage facilities and whatnot?

Letter grade for Last Woman on Earth: C
Next film in the 50-movie set: The Bat. A horror movie about baseball?

Comments

Anonymous said…
That poster freaks me out. It looks like the top guy is pulling something long and thin (a knife?) from the woman's vaginal area.
January 8, 2009 at 12:57 PM
Ryan Roe said…
I believe that is a knife, or some other kind of sharp, stabby weapon... but I'm pretty sure the location of it is just a matter of an unfortunate layout.
January 8, 2009 at 1:01 PM
Anonymous said…
This reminds me of another movie where a man and woman are trapped on an island and have a child and the boy grows up and when he hits junior high age since his mom is the only woman around he gets the hots for her....but I can't remember the title.
Enjoyed your write-up as always. Regarding the poster--how impressive that that woman has stayed so fit. WGR
January 14, 2009 at 12:05 AM
Ryan Roe said…
I've never heard of that other movie, but it sounds icky.
January 14, 2009 at 9:10 AM
kochillt said…
That movie sounds like 1974's THE SAVAGE IS LOOSE, directed by George C. Scott as the father, his real life gorgeous wife Trish Van Devere as his on screen spouse, and John David Carson as the growing boy, with growing body parts.
January 28, 2016 at 4:09 AM
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