Last Woman on Earth ** (1960, Betsy Jones-Moreland, Antony Carbone, Robert Towne) – Classic Movie Review 3872

Producer-director Roger Corman’s weird and intriguing 1960 sci-fi film tells the story of three survivors of a mysterious apocalypse that appears to have wiped out all human life on Earth.

Betsy Jones-Moreland stars as Evelyn Gern with Antony Carbone as Harold Gern. The screenplay is by Robert Towne, who also appears billed as Edward Wain, playing Martin Joyce. The music is composed and conducted by Ronald Stein.

Evelyn (‘Ev’), her husband Harold and their lawyer friend Martin are swimming on vacation in Puerto Rico. They find an unexplained, temporary interruption of oxygen has killed everyone. That makes Ev the Last Woman on Earth.

The film was originally released as a double feature with Corman’s The Little Shop of Horrors. It is in the public domain, mostly copies of black and white 16mm prints for TV, though it was filmed in Eastmancolor. But a faded colour print is in the Internet Archive.

A Retromedia print, transferred from a colour-corrected 35 mm print, was released on DVD featuring introductions by Corman and commentaries by Jones-Moreland and Carbone. It also features Corman’s other so-called Puerto Rico Trilogy films – Creature from the Haunted Sea and Battle of Blood Island – shot back to back with Last Woman on Earth.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3872
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