Le monde, la chair et le diable

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.

When I was in the 3rd grade I stayed home from school one day sick with the flu and watched this on a local TV station and some scenes from it have stuck with me ever since; I will never forget the sight of Harry Belafonte eating dinner with Inger Stevens and then cleaning up by casually throwing the entire contents of the dinner table out the high rise apartment window and calculating that it would be YEARS before the pile of smashed crockery reached his window; who can explain the eerie fascination of empty cities? This film is one of the first to successfully pull off the effect, setting the standard for what followed: The Omega Man, The Day of The Triffids, 28 Days later and especially The Quiet Earth.

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.

I've seen many actors play the "last man on earth," and NO ONE ever played the part as believably as Harry Belafonte. There's his reaction when he's listening to those radio messages ; his shouting at the whole world to come back (I'm paraphrasing this) : "Where did you all go? What did I do?" ; his trying to live alone with the mannequins ; singing to himself ; his reaction when he finds out there's someone else ; his line when Mel Ferrer threatens him : "Is this World War IV ?" And Inger Stevens was extremely good in it, including her big argument with him, telling him she can live alone, with its almost funny little faux pas : "I'm free, white and 21." And Mel Ferrer, whose character (if I'm correct) was more arrogant in a GENERAL way than he was a bigot, seemed very right for that part. People have complained about the faulty science and similar things, but to me, those things pale alongside the actors and characters. One science fiction guidebook had a great line about this "last three people on earth" movie : "Well, at least one of them can sing."

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.