THE OMEGA MAN (1971)
Charlton Heston drives a convertible contentedly down a
deserted city street in the day-time. He sees a flash of movement from a
building, stops the car and opens fire at the upper window with a machine-gun.
And so begins the nightmare tale of the future: THE OMEGA MAN…
Directed by Boris Sagal for Warner Brothers, the film was
based on the novella ‘I Am Legend’ by Richard Matheson. In the story, the world
is ravaged by a plague spread by vampirism, but as the co-adapter Joyce Corrington
(with partner John William) had a scientist’s background, she elected to have disease
be disseminated by the more chillingly possible germ warfare following war
between Russia and China.
Heston is Colonel Robert Neville, a military scientist, with
slightly more improbably lantern-jawed heroic capabilities using weapons and
his fists. This is no nerdy lab guy. He makes a likeable hero though, which is
vital as for the entire first act he is pretty much the last healthy human
alive and must plough a lonely furrow in his daily life of driving around,
looting the stores of supplies and going to the cinema to screen himself
WOODSTOCK for the umpteenth time. He recites dialogue along with the band
members interviewed on screen and mutters “They sure don’t make pictures like
that any more”. He realises on leaving that it is nearly dark and races back
home to his secure bolt-hole just as he faces attack from fire-bombs and
physical violence from a curious collection of foes.
The world’s predilection for conflict left an infected
population that has mutated through three stages, the worst symptoms of which
are albinism and a form of blindness in the eyes. The victim develops
cataracts, an awful grey pallor to the skin and over-sensitivity to the light,
which is why Neville’s plague-ridden enemies come out at night. They dress in
monks’ ceremonial robes, wear shades and call themselves the Family, a sect lead
by the urbane Anthony Zerbe as Matthias. Intriguingly, the film gives them a
positive spin on their condition. They have turned their curse into a radical
luddite philosophy, shunning all who serve ‘the Wheel’ of contemporary science
and technology, the elements that created this post-apocalyptic living hell
with “The tools that destroyed the world”. They taunt Neville nightly outside
his apartment, determined to eliminate the last symbol of the old world in
human form with torches of fire. “Nothing cleanses quite like fire”, declares
Matthias with messianic fervour.
I’m pretty sure in the late 70s the comic 2000 AD ‘paid
homage’ to the Family in one of its Judge Dredd stories - (the Brotherhood of
the Light?)
Anyway, fortunately for Neville, his dull solitary existence
of soliloquising and playing chess against an inanimate bust of Caesar is soon
enlivened by the discovery of other humans in the area, unknown to him and the
Family. This comes after a flashback
where we see him survive an impossibly fatal helicopter explosion that he walks
away from – the indestructibility of El Cid almost knows no bounds.
The band of other healthy survivors are led by the
personable Rosalind Cash as Lisa, her friend Dutch (Paul Koslo) and a band of
children in their care. Cash was a very conscious timely choice by Joyce
Corrington, an element of ‘racial pizzazz’ as she called it. In an era that saw
the rise of the Black Power movement they wanted a bold black heroine who
embodied resourceful qualities and made an attractive developing love interest
for Heston’s character.
Since Neville knows he is immune to the plague bacilli he is
able to concoct an antidote using his own blood, which he firstly uses successfully
on Lisa’s brother Richie (Eric Laneuville). However, he cannot save everyone
and in a shocking twist Lisa becomes infected and one of the Family. She
subsequently sells Neville out and joins them. In a climactic battle, Neville
is symbolically speared crucifixion-style outside by Matthias as he tries to
take Lisa away. His final act as he dies is to give the bottle of the remaining
serum to Dutch.
THE OMEGA MAN is entertaining and imaginative. The germ
warfare thread hasn’t dated in the intervening decades; In fact it’s increased
if one recalls not only the global threat of WMDs but more isolated cases such
as Japan’s Aum cult and their Sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway. It also
posits a credible thoughtful possibility of how parts of a society adapt to
necessary re-birth. Equally, the movie has a flavour of the 1970s present,
reflecting the emerging Blaxploitation genre in its casting of Cash, Laneuville,
and the albino black Family actors as well as Ron Grainer’s lush score which
combines romantic yearnings with a hip funk edge, very much an early 70s soul
vibe in places.
THE OMEGA MAN is regarded by some as part of the Black Cinema
trend of that time.
Heston’s old-school Hollywood leading-man appeal is neatly
reminiscent of the values of the pre-ravaged world but still with an impressive
energy and vitality. In the vintage featurette made by Warner Brothers, Heston
brought Dr Ashley Montague, a famous anthropologist, to the set and discussed
the film’s themes of individual and tribal survival with him. At one point,
Heston picks up a machine-gun and offers his own take on man’s methods of
achieving/re-establishing this dominance. Fittingly for someone who would
become so identified with the pro-gun NRA movement, he describes the modern weapon
of his character as “The ultimate extension of man as a killer ape”, a knowing
reference to his recent famous central role in the similar future-shock PLANET
OF THE APES.
It’s interesting to note that within a period of just a few
years (all within my blog’s focus), Heston appeared in three different
dystopian science-fiction future movies. As well as the aforementioned two,
there was the frightening SOYLENT GREEN with its moving scene of him and Edward
G Robinson being shown a film montage of the natural beauty of old-world Earth.
For an actor who espoused controversial traditional ‘frontier’ values, he was also
very willing to be involved with pacifist projects that warned of the
consequences of our increasingly warmongering ways. (He marched alongside
Martin Luther King on the day Dr King made his immortal ‘I have a dream
speech’). Being allied to the unforced peace message of THE OMEGA MAN is to his
credit.
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