Le monde, la chair et le diable

Isn't it interesting that it's often science fiction that presents groundbreaking topics so relevant to the real world? What starts as a dystopian film, where Harry Belafonte's character finds himself alone in a world destroyed by WWIII while he was buried in a mine shaft, quickly introduces racial themes when he finds a white woman played by Inger Stevens. The two of them turn in strong performances, both beautiful and expressive, with great scenes including her returning from a 'shopping trip' (quipping "the service was terrible, but I got a few bargains"), him cutting her hair at her insistence (though she grows concern with each hack he takes), and him setting up service for her on her birthday at a supper club. The racial undertones start with Belafonte concerned about the two of them living together because "people will talk" (what people?!), and then Stevens exclaiming "I'm free, white, and 21, and I'll do what I please" while flustered, that ultimate assertion of white privilege at that time. I love how Belafonte calls her on it later, saying that while it's just an expression to her, "to me it's an arrow in my guts!" You know then that the film is actually saying something. Things get even more complicated when Mel Ferrer shows up, and immediately, even with only three people in the world, we feel the basis for so much of mankind's problems – sexual jealousy, and racial divisions – captured in a nutshell.

Stevens is more attracted to Belafonte, who is charming, sings, takes interest in preserving books and paintings, fixes things like the electricity, phones, and radio, and who loves her too – but he's black. Ferrer, on the other hand, is a chauvinist who literally says "Me man, you girl, how about it?" The film tried to toe the line with what would be acceptable in 1959, and doesn't include an interracial kiss (despite the cast's wish that it would have), because producers deemed that America was not ready for that – and indeed it wasn't, given the reaction to the film in the South. There are fantastic scenes of the two men hunting each other in the deserted New York, including a scene at Ralph Bunche Park with the phrase from Isaiah ("They shall beat their swords into plowshares…") on the wall in the background. I loved the ending ("The Beginning") as well, campy as it might have been.

If you watch and find the beginning dragging a bit, give it a chance. I think one of the main problems is we've seen this "last man on the earth" type scenery copied so many times in films over the years. Belafonte was a huge star at the time, but I personally could have done without his songs, not because they're bad or anything, but because I think they defocus things. Inger Stevens, who others know as the "Farmer's Daughter", but who I remember fondly from the 1967 movie "A Guide for the Married Man" with Walter Matthau, is a good match for him. Overall, the film seems to capture so many elements of the 1950's – the fear of nuclear war, a little bit of the 'B movie' camp (I mean, check out that title), and the racial unease, with a hint of the progress that would follow. It may feel a bit like an extended Twilight Zone episode with a bigger budget, and it's very well done.

In the '50s the nuclear holocaust was never far from the popular imagination. This picture is one of many fictional efforts to show what might have happened.

By being trapped in a Pennsylvania mine, Belafonte is one of the very few people on earth (as far as we know from the film, only three) to escape annihilation. He manages to get out of the mine on his own (the first of many plot contrivances), goes to New York City and finds it depopulated, except for Inger Stevens, who eventually comes out of hiding. It's mostly a picture about loneliness. As much as we may resent the jostling masses in our midst, what if they were gone?

Actually, it spurs a fantasy, too. Imagine that you had the pickings of all of New York to yourself, and imagine that you were a handyman who could rig up generators and the like, and imagine that you found a comely woman to keep you company. Could be worse.

But we are asked to ignore too much in the picture, the fact that only one person in all of the city survived, the fact that not a single rotting body is shown on the streets, the fact that the shortwave transmissions Belafonte regularly monitors show that the rest of the world is empty, too (except, eventually, for Mel Ferrer, who was sailing during the nuclear blasts)-- all a bit too much. The film tries too hard to be an allegory when it should have been good, logical science fantasy.

Nevertheless, TWTF&TD is well worth a watch.

Harry Belafonte emerges from a mine after an accident and discovers that the world is deserted, except for Inger Stevens and Mel Ferrer.

Some kind of nuclear war has taken place and there are few survivors. No dead bodies, no rotting corpses. No physical body traces of any kind.

Some people have said that Ferrer played a bigot in this film, but I didn't see much of that at all since the main conflict between Belafonte and Ferrer is based more on lust than anything else.

But since this is 1959, we can't show interracial love onscreen because many parts of the country would wind up banning the film, so MGM and Belafonte keep the lust toned down and mostly implied. The viewer should just look at it in the context of the times that it was made in, and not try to apply 2003 standards to something filmed over 40 years ago.

The deserted lower Manhattan streets including Times Square look pretty cool. They must have filmed them on an early Sunday morning in order to keep any traffic disruption to a minimum.

And the ending resorts to a preachy "The Beginning" stamped across the screen as the three of them walk down a deserted Manhattan street. I guess only goodwill comes next, huh?

If you want to see a better "end of the world" flick from the same period, then check out the Arch Oboler's rarely-seen FIVE (1951) or Stanley Kramer's ON THE BEACH, made during the same year as this one. I thought they were done better.

5 out of 10 for clearing out New York in time.

A very thought provoking movie that was not accepted at the time, but in retrospect, way way ahead of its time. In a racially charged world it put forth the premise that race, in the final analysis, is superficial and meaningless. Once you strip away the layers of conditioning and socialization, you find, at the core, good and evil and the age old struggle as to which will prevail. A simple story, told directly and honestly. On a scale of 1 to 10, its an 11.

Like a trashy coffee table book you just can't put down. Hard to say why, but I keep going back and watching this film again and again. The irresistible notion of a single man roaming the empty streets of the big city, holds my attention every time. However, the execution of such a powerful idea gets muddled in this particular telling. For example, the city is clean -- there are no dead bodies, and any force powerful enough to disintegrate the bodies would have left traces, of which there are none. Despite the significant problems I had with this picture, I rushed out to buy the DVD first chance I got. And I bought Miklos Rozsa's score, too.