He penned some of the best stories of our age and many of my all-time favorites. For print, film and television, the list includes The Legend of Hell House, Somewhere in Time, Nightstalker and the most memorable Twilight Zone episodes, just to name a few. With the rare ability to be compassionate and terrifying at the same time, his work has been instrumental in shaping modern taste for the supernatural. For years I meant to read I Am Legend, Richard Matheson's 1954 novel that spawned the films The Last Man on Earth (1964), Omega Man (1971) and last year's I Am Legend. Finally, I have! And though not one of the adaptations succeeds in capturing the brilliance of the novel, each manages to bring an interesting aspect of the story to the screen, while creating legacies of its own.
In all true horror stories, of which I think Shelley's Frankenstein is one of the most perfect, what the psyche and soul endure in the face of monsters, more than the monsters themselves, is what matters most. I Am Legend was ahead of its time in that it was first to bridge several genres at once in a truly modern tale. It fits perfectly in the mold of post-war literature that explores all that was unleashed by the atom bomb. Like Bradbury, Heinlein, et. al, Matheson considers life in the wake of broken civilization and what that new, rebuilt society might be like. But Matheson's take is groundbreaking by blending horror and sci-fi together into a power punch. The science of vampires? Bacterial infection and blood drinking? The last human going mad in the midst of it all? Fantastic! And for that, generations of readers and writers, such as Stephen King and Dean Koontz are forever grateful. If aspects of Cell, for example, feel very much like I Am Legend, it's no surprise. King dedicated the book to Matheson and George Romero. And if Night of the Living Dead seems old hat, knowing how much earlier Matheson did it, consider that Romero meant it as an "homage" to his predecessor. There would be no infected zombies, no diseased apocalypse, no 28 Days Later, etc., without the very keen and prescient mind of Richard Matheson. There would also not be a little girl who falls into another dimension under her bed, a wing-walking creature to terrorize William Shatner, Duel, or a crazed knife-wielding Zulu doll to cross Karen Black's eyes, just to name a few of Matheson's cultural treasures.
Of the three films, Last Man on Earth (1964) is the most faithful to the book, though it's no surprise that Matheson was disappointed with it. Vincent Price is too fussy and un-he-manly to play the savagely depressed Robert Neville, though not one of the three Nevilles manage to achieve the intensity of the printed character. I haven't been able to find out why Neville's name was changed to Morgan in this version. Reportedly, Fritz Lang was originally attached as director in what was intended as a Hammer Films production titled Night Creatures. Matheson worked for a time in the UK on that version of the story and wrote a second draft of the screenplay when producers assured him that the first would never clear censors. Hammer eventually decided to pass on the project and it went to Robert Lippert, known as the "Quickie King". He shot the film in Italy and had to dub several of the actors' voices. The off synch, a setting that was definitely not anywhere in the U.S.A., low production values, continuity gaffes and odd performances all add up, unintentionally, to a weird horror. Despite its shortcomings, a generation of writers and filmmakers for whom the film meant an introduction to Matheson's story were profoundly affected, and many credit The Last Man on Earth for spawning the entire zombie genre. This is the only one of the three versions that keeps to the book's essential, bitter ending – that the infected nonvampires who survive are profoundly altered by the disease. Their new society, shown in black shirts and lock-step in this film, is not one you'd want to be a part of.
Jeff Stafford, senior editor at TCM.com, has done a great job of compiling behind-the-scenes info about the film. The following quotes are excerpted from his pieces on tcm.com.
"In another interview for Tom Weaver's Return of the B Science Fiction and Horror Heroes, Matheson stated that The Last Man on Earth 'was inept - in fact, I put my pen name, Logan Swanson, on it...they should do it today with, say, George Miller directing it and Harrison Ford playing the lead; it would make a wonderful movie. Of course George Romero has done it so many times now; the first time was Night of the Living Dead. I caught that on television, and I said to myself, 'Wait a minute - did they make another version of I Am Legend that they didn't tell me about?' Later on they told me he did it as an homage to I Am Legend, which means, "He gets it for nothin'." [laughs.]
Vincent Price was questioned about the making of The Last Man on Earth in Rome by Tom Weaver in Attack of the Monster Movie Makers. He recalled, "The problem doing The Last Man on Earth was that it was supposed to be set in Los Angeles, and if there's a city in the world that doesn't look like Los Angeles, it's Rome. We would get up and drive out at five o'clock in the morning, to beat the police, and try to find something that didn't look like Rome. Rome has flat trees, ancient buildings - we had a terrible time! And I never was so cold in my life as I was in that picture. I had a driver and I used to tip him a big sum to keep the car running, so I could change my clothes in the back seat.'"
The Omega Man (1971) is only seven years after the first film version of the story and a world apart. It adapts the vampires into deadly Luddites -- a robed anti-science mob. The Omega Man posits the infected as a controlling mass that burns and destroys all people and ideas that it finds offensive. There is no room for free thought in their clan, which they call "the family", and like the Manson zombies, they follow their leader, Mattias, without a second thought. Though the back-to-nature movement was in full swing by 1971, the Family's love of the primitive is shown to be just that, without a progressive aspect to it. The last woman on Earth in this version is Rosanne Cash, and the mixed-race relationship between she and Neville was rare on film for that time. We know what year it is by the fact that the very last movie Neville has access to is Woodstock. Now that would be apocalyptic!
This is my favorite version of the story so far, straddling sci-fi, blaxsploitation and action genres. Matheson didn't care for it though, as it departed so much from his original story. He comments in Tom Weaver's Return of the B Science Fiction and Horror Heroes: "The first one was poorly done, but it did follow the book. The Omega Man bore no resemblance at all to my book, so I can't comment on it. I had absolutely nothing to do with the screenplay but they did pay me a very small remake fee."
The screenplay for The Omega Man was penned by John and Joyce Corrington and is what I Am Legend (2007) would be based on. In The Omega Man, survivors that Neville's blood will eventually cure begin again in a utopian fashion, a much brighter prognosis than that offered in Matheson's story. As in The Last Man on Earth, Neville's death at the hands of the vampire/Luddites will be seen as a Christ-like sacrifice, quite literally. The (almost) last of his kind, destroyed by the intolerant mob of others.
The newest version of I Am Legend was some 13 years in the making and had, at one point, Ridley Scott attached as director and Arnold Schwarzenegger on as Neville. Producers, directors and actors came and went, and Will Smith was eventually attached around 2002. This version prefers the notion of benign survivors in its ending as well. True, Neville will once again sacrifice himself for the greater good, but the new society is comprised of healthy survivors who will undoubtedly do things right this time round….right?
In this version, the story has been relocated to New York, a great setting for the post apocalypse. The CGI of the city is awesome, but the zombies look as if they escaped from a poorly rendered computer game. As one of only a few live actors in the film, one reviewer noted, this really does make Robert Neville the last man on Earth. Smith is fine as Neville, though again, not nearly as tortured as his print inspiration. He's a truly 21st century update though – well dressed, sound in body and mind (mostly) and fully equipped with the right gear. Shrek replaces Woodstock and Marley stands in for the classical music of the other versions. Interestingly, there is more of a peace/love aspect to this telling than is found in the The Omega Man. God's will also enters into the fray in the character of Anna, who is guided by heavenly voices to Robert Neville. Reportedly, there was an alternate ending to this version in which the vampires show they have retained some humanity and spare Neville's life. It would have given them more dimension to be sure, but an ending in which Neville lives would have been a fatal departure from the original story.
A notable absence from all film versions of I Am Legend is the macabre sexual attraction that Neville feels for the female undead, all of whom taunt him by flashing their wares outside his house. In the book, sexual frustration is a key part of his emotional disintegration and adds a great dimension both to Neville and the vampires.
There are rumors that Matheson has signed off on a sequel to I Am Legend, which would be surprising. I'd rather see, in some years, the original story trotted out for a fourth telling. Some tales are so good they don’t suffer from repeated versions. And besides, no one has gotten it right yet.
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