The World, the Flesh and the Devil

The World, the Flesh and the Devil

i'm happy to say this movie is a gem because Harry Belafonte is in a Sci Fi. He plays the last man left alive after a nuclear war he is saved because he is a coal miner and happend to be in a cave in that turns out to save his life. Of course like most Sci Fi's haoolywood has to screw up a good storyline by injecting "formula". In this case it's the standard sex thing And of course since she's a blond, they play the race thing as well. But because Harry is in the movie and because around him in those days the race issue was approached with some wisdom,this film comes off with dignity and entertains with genuine class.

I remembered this film when watching "Save last Dance" (2001) because "World, the Flesh and the Devil" was one of the first films to touch the prejudice of a black man and a white woman. The fact is that the war killed nearly everyone and two survivors were left the black man (Harry Belafonte) and a white woman (Inger Stevens or the Flesh), they were very closed when a third survivor (Mel Ferrer or the Devil) is coming and obviously wanted to have the woman for him because at the end he was also white. So once they three are acting, complications start. The fact is that the end of the film does not show any real solution to the problem of the woman, i.e. with whom she will stay. The plot is interesting, and it is difficult to understand why the film has no video no DVD reproduced, may be the prejudice is still among the producers of such items???

This movie is not just an ugly movie. It is a sad evidence of the general ignorance about nuclear weapons. I wonder how little US people knows about the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 1945 bombings. What did they know about 1954 Bikini "Operation Castle", thermonuclear bombs test. Anyway the screenplay is brutally absurd. Starting from the newspapers the man finds in the mine's bureau. The aftermath of the atomic war is: people vanished and streets a little dirtier than usual. How could filmmakers imagine an important target like New York hit by intercontinental missiles which make people disappear but leave all buildings intact and all those brand new cars stuck in the streets: where have the people gone? Where are the corpses? Tell a story of abduction by the aliens: it's more believable than this. 2/10

A 32 year old Harry Belafonte is Ralph Burton, survivor of a nuclear holocaust, where humanity has been wiped out. we watch the inter-racial relations in a post-apocalypse world with one woman and two men left alive. Co-stars Mel Ferrer and Inger Stevens. For a long time, Burton runs around New York, trying to find other survivors. We experience the echoes and loneliness that he feels. So many empty streets, papers blowing around. It's forty minutes in before Ralph and Sarah even meet up. Stevens would die real young at 35, by suicide. Theoretically, after several initial attempts. Ferrer had been married to Audrey Hepburn at one point. Directed by Ranald MacDougall, who had directed and written screenplays for some AMAZING films... mildred pierce, we're no angels, but sadly, MacDougall died quite young at 58, of a heart attack, according to wikipedia. He had been president of the Writers Guild. Story by Matthew Phipps Shiel. Pretty good stuff. Race relations were still a pretty big deal in the 1950s, and in some places, they still are a pretty big deal. In so many areas, we take one step forward and two steps back. Film is good! end of the world story, with some racial lessons thrown in.

Like a trashy coffee table book you just can't put down. Hard to say why, but I keep going back and watching this film again and again. The irresistible notion of a single man roaming the empty streets of the big city, holds my attention every time. However, the execution of such a powerful idea gets muddled in this particular telling. For example, the city is clean -- there are no dead bodies, and any force powerful enough to disintegrate the bodies would have left traces, of which there are none. Despite the significant problems I had with this picture, I rushed out to buy the DVD first chance I got. And I bought Miklos Rozsa's score, too.

This flick is about as "B Movie" as it gets, so why MGM attached its name to the thing, I'll never know. The acting is horrible, and the premise ridiculous. A nuclear mishap with only a five-day period of radiation exposure?? No bodies in NYC.....anywhere?? Scene after scene of HB running through an "empty" cityscape - the first THIRD of the movie?? Yes, the racial approach was daring for the time period, I suppose. But that hardly qualifies the glowing reviews posted by several users on this site. SKIP THIS FILM. And being that IMDb requires ten lines of text, I will type this sentence.

Harry Belafonte is a coal miner trapped in a cave-in. He hears the drilling of the rescue crew which abruptly stops. Belafonte claws his own way to the surface and finds everything abandoned. I mean really abandoned. An Armageddon has occurred when some nation decided to forego the bomb and all that destruction and just use the radioactive byproducts. It gets out of control and wipes out everybody. Well, almost everybody. Harry hot wires a car and travels to New York City in search of life in the largest population center. After a while he finds it in Inger Stevens. It looks like another Adam and Eve ready to begin again when Mel Ferrer also shows up. By that time Belafonte has established some kind of contact with some unknown foreign survivors somewhere in the post apocalypse world? Of course with two men, two races, and only one woman, things start to look like business as usual for mankind. I was reminded of Neil Patrick Harris's line from Starship Troopers about how we're in it for the species. Will all three of them and anyone else they contact decide we're in it for the species in The World, the Flesh and the Devil? Director Ranald McDougall got three good performances out of his small cast. The World, The Flesh And The Devil does ask some thought provoking questions as to whether man is capable of screwing up once again. What kind of culture will they establish and will a Supreme Creator/Deity need to intervene?

I've seen many actors play the "last man on earth," and NO ONE ever played the part as believably as Harry Belafonte. There's his reaction when he's listening to those radio messages ; his shouting at the whole world to come back (I'm paraphrasing this) : "Where did you all go? What did I do?" ; his trying to live alone with the mannequins ; singing to himself ; his reaction when he finds out there's someone else ; his line when Mel Ferrer threatens him : "Is this World War IV ?" And Inger Stevens was extremely good in it, including her big argument with him, telling him she can live alone, with its almost funny little faux pas : "I'm free, white and 21." And Mel Ferrer, whose character (if I'm correct) was more arrogant in a GENERAL way than he was a bigot, seemed very right for that part. People have complained about the faulty science and similar things, but to me, those things pale alongside the actors and characters. One science fiction guidebook had a great line about this "last three people on earth" movie : "Well, at least one of them can sing."

It is a movie at a time when a comfortable 50's America was 'asleep' re: the possibilities of a nuclear war......a sort of 'mass denial'. This movie started a trend re: the nuclear issue and 'the end of the world'; for later on that year (1959) there was "On the Beach", and in the early 60's, there was "Alas Babylon", etc. The movie "The World, the Flesh" and the Devil" was in startling black and white in both the filming and the actors. I was only in the 6th grade, so it made an enormous impact on me. The images of New York City completely EMPTY was shocking and too real to be believed! I was a bit disappointed when it succumbed to a romantic and sexual attraction level --- but now as an adult, I feel that those situations could very well happen as well....and after all , the movie had to make money! I am glad that this movie will be released on April 10, 2006.