This being Sunday, I’m not going to go to all the trouble of compiling a full Top Five List on this subject. But if I did, I think this one would make the list.
Have you seen the recent Will Smith vehicle, "I Am Legend?" I did, and I suppose it was OK. But having seen it, I recalled that I had not seen the 1971 flick of which it was a remake — "The Omega Man," which in turn was a remake of Vincent Price’s "The Last Man on Earth," which was based on the 1954 Richard Matheson sci-fi novel, I Am Legend.
So in honor of the recently departed Charlton Heston, I ordered "The Omega Man," and watched it last night. It was OK, although it’s cheesy production values were approximately those of the average made-for-TV movie of the period. Overall, the Will Smith version was better, although more maudlin.
But in one respect, "Omega" beat the more recent version all hollow. In term of evoking sheer weirdness, Will Smith watching "Shrek" and maniacally reciting all the line along with the DVD doesn’t accomplish much. To get that full, apocalyptic, world-has-already-come-to-an-end feeling, you have to see the scene in which Charlton Heston goes into a movie theater, cranks up the projector and watches "Woodstock," and recites the dialogue from that. You know at that point that everything that can happen in this world has happened, and then some.
You just haven’t seen "out of character" until you’ve seen the man who was both Moses and head of the NRA channeling a blissed-out flower child asking, "If we can’t all live together and be happy… if you have to be afraid to smile at somebody… what kind of a way is that to go through this life?"
It’s a grabber in the same league as the last scene of "Planet of the Apes." It will leave you muttering, "Charlton, we hardly knew ye."
And if you don’t believe me, here’s the video. You can skip the rest of the flick; this is the good part.
Next, I’m going to order "Touch of Evil."
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Heston did seem out of place in some of his little films — the Planet of the Apes group and Soylent Green — which seemed minuscule though their scope was far-reaching, yet the movies themselves were quite entertaining.
Indulge me in another ADD moment here, honoring the magic of hypertext links… And you don’t even have to leave Wikipedia to do this.
Look up "The Omega Man," and you get a link to the original novel, I Am Legend. Look down to the "Influence" subtopic. There you will find that the maker of "Night of the Living Dead" acknowledged being influenced by the Matheson novel.
Then, you notice that the action in "Night" centers around a Pennsylvania farmhouse…
And so it is that we find that my post above is NOT a descent into pointless trivia, but actually relevant (well, sorta; kinda) to the big news of the week, the Pennsylvania primary!
Y’all know me — I just never stop workin’…
Many, many people love “Touch of Evil” and think it has “great film” — or at the very least, “great noir classic” — stamped all over it from start to finish. I’ll agree it’s certainly entertaining and interesting, but it’s more style than substance, or style compensating for substance. Orson Welles takes every scene and makes it a glorious showcase for technical expertise. The result is a little like watching a virtuouso violinist play “No Room to Rhumba in a Sports Car.” There are parts of it everyone remembers — the great tracking shot at the beginning; Janet Leigh stuck in a seedy motel; the extraordinary camera angle in the final sequence — but it’s more parts than whole. It fills you with admiration, but you don’t really feel anything. There’s no emotional punch to it. But no question, it’s a cinematographer’s dream.