Country
U.S.A.

Production Companies
WALTER SELTZER

Distributors
DEAR

Year
1971

Genre
SCIENCE FICTION

Director
SAGAL, BORIS

Cast
ARIES, ANNA
BOOKWALTER, DE VEREN
CASH, ROSALIND
DIERKES, JOHN
GIRALDI, JILL
HENREID, MONIKA
HESTON, CHARLTON
KILPATRICK, LINCOLN
KOSLO, PAUL
LANEUVILLE, ERIC
ZERBE, ANTHONY

Story based on
STORY "I AM LEGEND" BY RICHARD MATHESON

Screenwriter
CORRINGTON, JOYCE H.
WILLIAM, JOHN

Cinematographer
METTY, RUSSELL

Art director/Production designer
SIMONDS, WALTER M

Film editor
ZIEGLER, WILLIAM

Original music by

Non-original music by
COOTIE WILLIAMS ("ROUND MIDNIGHT")

Color
C

Rated
14

Plot synopsis

In this second film adaptation of Richard Matheson's science-fiction novel ( the first version being The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price ), Charlton Heston is Robert Neville, the sole normal survivor in a Los Angeles of a blighted future world of 1976, following germ warfare between Russia and China. Neville lives in a fancy L.A. penthouse, preserving a more-valuable-that-life-itself serum. During the day, he roams through the decimated city. At night, he fends off a bloodthirsty horde of mutant scavengers garbed in Spanish inquisition robes and Ray Ban shades, led by Matthias ( Anthony Zerbe ), a former television newscaster in his good ol' pre-mutant days. Matthias and his half-human vampires want to get at the serum that Neville has so preciously squirreled away. Neville's last man on earth status is shattered when he comes across a group of young people, presided over by the sexy and cynical Lisa ( Rosalind Cash ). Neville begins to form an interest in her, but Matthias' minions keep both peace and love at bay. — Paul Brenner ( www.allmovie.com )

Entertainingly cheesy, The Omega Man is another entry in Charlton Heston's toothy last-man-standing science fiction phase, à la Planet of the Apes ( 1968 ) and Soylent Green ( 1973 ). Adapted from Richard Matheson's I Am Legend with key 1970s differences, the dystopian story of one man's fight to save humanity features intentionally and unintentionally striking images of arch-conservative Heston tooling around an uninhabited Los Angeles in convertibles and mistily taking in a screening of Woodstock ( 1970 ) when not battling monkish Ray Ban-wearing zombies. While the near-complete elimination of the population via germ warfare serves as a still-timely warning regarding technology and its abuses, the Luddite albino mutants with their Charles Manson-esque murderous allegiance to "the Family" become a reverse lesson in technophobia. As the one survivor blessed with immune blood, Heston trades Biblical role models on his way to a fate and final image audacious in its hubris. Though this second screen version of Matheson's novel was hardly a blockbuster, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ridley Scott were set to shoot a third until it was deemed too expensive. — Lucia Bozzola ( www.allmovie.com )

Bibliography
Author / Online source: CINEMATOGRAFO.IT
Edition year: 2004
Type: WEB SITE
Title / web address: http://www.cinematografo.it

Autore/Fonte Web: ALLMOVIE.COM
Edition year: 2005
Type: WEB SITE
Title / web address: http://www.allmovie.com