Os Últimos Cinco

Enjoyed viewing this black and white film from 1951 dealing with a few people who were able to survive a nuclear war which killed millions of Americans. William Phipps, (Michael) lived in New York City and witnessed the entire city's population killed and he traveled to the West and was able to find a town where he could obtain food and shelter. As the film develops he meets up with a young woman named Roseanne Rogers, (Susan Douglas Rubes) who is pregnant and Michael takes her under his wing and tries to comfort her and he begins to fall in love with her. However, Roseanne wants to find her husband in the city and keeps her distance. There is three men and one woman who remain alive in this film and all these people begin to get on each other's nerves and this story takes on some very mysterious twists and turns.

I 'd never heard of this movie, so I was surprised at how good it was, shoestring budget or not. The acting isn't that bad, although James Anderson (Eric) has one of the strangest accents I've ever heard (It's somewhere between London, Bombay and Berlin). One fascinating 6th surivivor in the movie is the house itself that most of the scenes take place in. It is a cliff house designed by the great American Architect , Frank Lloyd Wright. Somehow the house and scenery add an extra sense of elegance to the movie that would have been lost if it was set in another setting. The characters are frequently filmed against the spectacular views from the house's large glass windows, emphasizing their loneliness in a world now so large and unpopulated. The pacing is glacial and seems to dwell on the (frequently depressed) moods of the characters, bringing to mind Bergman films like Persona (although Arch Oboler is no Igmar Bergman). The most likeable character is Charles, played by Charles Lampkin, who would go on to appear in films as varied as 'The Man', 'Islands in the Stream' and 'Coccoon' as well as a semi-regular character 'Ralph' on Mayberry RFD. He has a sweetness and naturalness that makes his paraphrasing of the beginning of Genesis one of the high points of the movie. It's a pity that he wasn't born later, or we would have seen more of him than the string of uncredited appearances in movies throughout the 60s and 70s.

Post-nuclear-war dramas centering on a small group of survivors now constitute an entire genre in science-fiction films. All of them, in some way or another, can be traced back to this seminal film from 1951 in which five people deal with the possibility they are the only human beings left alive on the planet.

While most of the later movies exploited this possibility for B-movie thrills, "Five" adopts a quiet, contemplative tone which some may find dull but which thoughtful viewers are more likely to find, for want of a better word, haunting. There is something about this movie which gets under the skin and which lurks in the corners of the mind long after it's over.

Especially memorable is the trip to the city made by two of the survivors. The images of skeletons sitting in cars and buses still have an impact with their silent, disturbing, even horrifying beauty.

Some of the musical score now seems obtrusive and the dialog tends, at times, toward the pretentious -- perhaps a lingering effect from Arch Oboler's radio background -- but this low-budget, no-name, black-and-white production remains a landmark film which richly deserves to be rediscovered and honored.

This is one of those cases where the flaws of the film in question are undeniable, and yet...there's something about this earnest little effort that gets to me. Perhaps there is something about the 50's look and feel and sound that I find winning; the actors do their best by the overripe but affecting script; and there is also the fact that, however primitively, the movie does attack prejudice and bigotry as the disgusting things they are. The strong background score by Henry Russell is really quite beautiful in spots, terrifying in others -- the slow orchestral buildup in the scene where Roseanne finds her husband gives me the shivers whenever I hear it. Personally, I don't find the film boring; once you ease into its rhythm it plays quite well. And the ending...well, yes, you can see it coming a mile away; but keep a handkerchief ready just in case.

i first saw five on the late show when i was in highschool in the mid-60's and i never forgot it, images from it stayed with me--i saw it again in the late 70's or so and then, the last time, in the early 90's on tnt (and taped it and loaned it to someone and never saw it again)--the last time i watched it i was astonished at how visually perfect it is, in many ways too perfectly staged--often the light is coming directly from the horizon like a maxfield parrish painting and i've often wondered if the actors and crew had day jobs and the whole thing was done early in the morning or late in the evening--leonard maltin likes it and comments negatively on its "purple prose", which is true, but i'm a noir fan and it's fun--i can't believe this isn't available on tape or dvd--obler's frank lloyd wright house is a treat too.