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Apocalypse
Double Feature
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U.S.A.,
Italy / 1962, 1964
Directors: Ray Milland, Sidney Salkow
Starring
Ray Milland, Jean Hagen
Frankie Avalon, Vincent Price
Franca Bettoia, Giacomo Rossi-Stuart
B&W / Not Rated
PANIC
IN YEAR ZERO!:
92 Min.
THE LAST MAN ON EARTH:
87 Min.
Format:
DVD
Double Feature Disc / R1 - NTSC
MGM
Home Entertainment
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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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Panic
in Year Zero!
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5 |
Last
Man on Earth
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6 |
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8 |
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SNEAK
PREVIEW
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DVD Release Date: Sept.
20, 2005 |
Six
months ago, back in March, MGM Home Entertainment
released its slate of Midnite Movie titles
for 2005 — but for some inexplicable reason they
were available only in Canada!
Copies of the discs that had accidentally found
themselves onto U.S. store shelves were quickly
and unceremoniously yanked. On September 20 these
DVDs will finally be rolled out for American consumers.
Perhaps the best of the lot is a double bill pairing
apocalyptic sci-fi thrillers Panic
in Year Zero!*
(1962) and
The Last Man on Earth
(1964). To
date Last Man on
Earth has been released on DVD a number
of times by various companies, using beat-to-hell
fullscreen 16mm prints or by 'borrowing' from
the long OOP laserdisc edition. With its Midnite
Movie edition, MGM —
owner of the original AIP vault materials —
now unleashes the definitive DVD version of the
film. Panic is
making its digital debut here, and will thus be
the main focus of this review.
Having just left their Los
Angeles home for a camping vacation in the Sierras,
the Baldwin family is puzzled by bright flashes
of light on the horizon behind them. All the L.A.
radio stations have suddenly gone off the air.
But the giant mushroom cloud rising over what
used to be the city leaves no doubt —
America is under nuclear attack. As throngs of
refugees flee the blast zone, the family patriarch,
Harry (The Thing with
Two Heads' Ray Milland), devises a plan for
his brood's survival. They will continue on into
the mountains and make for Shibes Meadow, a hopefully
safe, secure place to wait out whatever comes
next. Supplies they never thought they'd need
for their vacation (large quantities of extra
food, firearms, etc.) must be procured quickly
—
and by any means necessary. The atomic war raging
between the United States and an unnamed enemy
poses less danger to the Baldwins than the desperate,
ignorant or just plain ruthless people they encounter
along the way, be they price-gouging merchants
(3 bucks a gallon for gas???), fearful townspeople
blocking the roads, or dangerous young hoodlums
in a hot rod on the prowl for easy prey. Harry,
the very model of the conservative, law-abiding,
middle class citizen, will have to set ethics
aside as he leads his loved ones through the collapse
of civilization as they know it.
The next
to last of five theatrical films helmed by Milland,
Panic shows him to
be as talented behind the camera as he was in
front of it, with a good sense of pacing and framing
and a realistic, economical approach to the limited
budget at hand. (Perhaps he should have considered
a full-time directorial career in his later years
rather than appearing in a host of mostly crappy
schlock flicks.) The small cast is uniformly good.
Fortunately, teen idol Frankie Avalon —
a year before embarking on his string of 'Beach'
comedies —
is not required to sing. The first half of the
film, as the Baldwins learn of the disaster and
Dad figures out his safety plan amid the chaos
of pell-mell evacuation, works much better than
the second. It's the most suspenseful part of
the story; anyone watching could easily imagine
how they would react, and the lengths to which
they'd go, in such a situation. Once the family
arrives at Shibes Meadow and takes up residence
in a cave, however, the movie begins to bog down,
becoming a dry 'Survivalist 101' guide requiring
the reappearance of the hot-rodding thugs to liven
things up a little. Of course, this is the Ozzie
and Harriet version of atomic holocaust so
its truly nasty effects —
flash burns, radiation poisoning —
are barely mentioned, much less shown. (The word
"fallout" is heard only twice. It's a bit easier
to survive the apocalypse when streams remain
uncontaminated and you don't have to worry about
nuclear winter.) Apart from losing its sense of
urgency in the second half, Panic's
main misstep is the jarringly inappropriate jazz
score by AIP house composer Les Baxter. The swanky,
upbeat tempos don't fit the film's tone at all.
Panic
in Year Zero! is
a black and white movie for a distinctly black
and white era.
Even its supposedly nuanced (for its time) examination
of the morality of survival is pretty much black
and white, as you can guarantee that if Dad shoots
down a unarmed man in cold blood it's because
the victim really and truly had it comin'. His
more ethically troubling actions —
robbing a merchant at gunpoint, causing an innocent
man's car to catch on fire —
luckily don't have negative repercussions. Just
how are we to know that they guy whose car burned
up (seen bailing out in the nick of time, naturally),
didn't end up dying because he lost his transportation?
What if there'd been a baby alseep in the back
seat? Oh well... All-American Dad just doesn't
goof up like that. You're either with us or against
us.
The Side
B feature, Last
Man on Earth, has
been covered twice before here in the pages of
EC, in reviews of DVDs issued by public domain
specialists Diamond
(on a double feature disc pairing it with 1958's
House on Haunted Hill)
and Madacy.
Therefore I won't waste much space treading yet
again over previously reconnoitered ground. Suffice
it to say it's a good movie despite a host of
flaws, chiefly an inadequate budget and some unsuccessful
attempts to pass Italian locations off as an American
city. Vincent Price delivers a fine performance,
elevating the film above your typical foreign-made
sci-fi/horror cheapie of its day. The grim, haunting
story is lifted 80% intact from Richard Matheson's
classic novel I Am Legend.
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The title used in the film itself (and in the trailer)
has an exclamation point; the DVD packaging does
not. |
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With this latest Midnite Movie offering
MGM maintains its high standards of quality at
a very affordable price. Both Panic
and Last Man look
terrific, with crisp and clean anamorphic widescreen
(2.35:1) transfers. Clear, strong mono audio tracks
complement each title.
The only extra accompanying Panic
is the original theatrical trailer, which sensationalizes
the film almost beyond all recognition. No trailer
for Last Man, though;
instead there's a 6-minute interview featurette
with author Richard Matheson. It's easy to see
now why the movie stays relatively faithful to
his novel —
Matheson reveals that he himself wrote the bulk
of the screenplay. Unhappy with changes made by
the producers, he insisted a nom de plume
("Logan Swanson") be used in the screenwriting
credits rather than his own.
9/12/05
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