The Last Man on Earth (1964) & I Am Legend (2007)

If one were forced to choose the single best known work from Richard Matheson’s vast bibliography, it would be his 1954 novel I Am Legend. The novel follows Robert Neville, the last survivor of a pandemic in Los Angeles. The disease mimics vampirism, and Neville spends his days going out into the city to forage and to slay the individual vampires at their most vulnerable. The book was adapted into three films, two of which I will recount here. I will not be covering 1971’s Charlton Heston vehicle The Omega Man.

1964’s The Last Man on Earth stars Vincent Price as Robert Morgan, a scientist seeking a cure for the plague. The most significant difference between the movie and the novel is the nature of the infected. While both have the traditional weaknesses, like garlic and mirrors, the vampires in the novel are much more difficult to evade, capable of running and climbing. In the film, they don’t seem to pose much of a threat except in large numbers. They move slowly, have very poor coordination, and with a notable (and honestly, ridiculous) exception, they do not speak. It should come as no surprise that this particular type of “vampire” would reappear in George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead as “ghouls”. These monsters would merge with others from Haitian folklore, and the modern zombie was born.

While I love Vincent Price on principle, I feel The Last Man on Earth falls short. The movie looks cheap, and the corners that were cut to save money are fairly apparent. The film was shot in Italy with an entirely Italian supporting cast. This leads to quite a number of instances of poor dubbing, and moments when the dialogue and the action don’t quite sync. Matheson, who helped on the screenplay, was so dissatisfied with the film that he used an alias for his screen credit. He criticized both the directing and Price’s casting as the lead.

If there were a modern criticism to be leveled at the 1964 film, it would be that it can be very boring in places. Some critics have suggested that this makes it more realistic, as four years living alone, even surrounded by monsters, would become quite tedious. Though this is a valid point, it doesn’t make for engaging cinema, which is a mistake the 2007 I Am Legend is intent on solving.

The most obvious difference in films is in the budget. I Am Legend had $150 million to work with, and it shows in both the size and scope of an abandoned New York City. Will Smith plays Neville, a US Army virologist seeking the solution to a cancer cure that has spiraled out of control. His day is made up of similar minutiae, but he has some company in the form of his German shepherd Sam. The dog is a very minor plot point in the 1964 film, and in 2007, Sam is also essential to the film’s most heartbreaking scene.

Once again, the vampires are closer to zombies, though the “Darkseekers” have more in common with the runners seen in the early 2000s. The only vampiric trait they retain is their sensitivity to sunlight.

The first half of the film is extremely effective, but it sags in the second, when the other survivors are introduced. I Am Legend has become particularly notorious for its theatrical ending, which does away with the central message of the novel and states definitively that Neville is the hero and the monsters are the villains. An alternate ending, included on the DVD, has been largely praised as superior, because it leaves it up to the viewer to decide who has and hasn’t retained their humanity. Returning to The Last Man on Earth, its ending is certainly closer to Matheson’s novel, but like so many other aspects of the 1964 film, it’s entirely incapable of any subtlety.