WiseFilms

Here's another TV movie, like 'Testament' -also very much worth a look. In fact I think I'll give it another look tonight, now that I've found a copy of it:
John Llewelyn Moxey's 'Where Have All the People Gone' , one of his superior TV films of the '70's...
It's probably easy to find on duel-feature DVD , my tape was found on e-bay, and looks okay.
This film by Moxey, is one that has effected many people (just read their recollections of it on IMDb) and is one I truly wish They Still Made'm Like.

ChristineCB

I just watched LAST NIGHT, a Canadian end-of-world film, and was thinking about that film's complete refusal to discuss reasons for The End. This reminded me of Moor's discussion of Educationalizing Films and Discussions of Reasons.

LAST NIGHT has a ring of characters that we spend the last few hours before the planet's demise, and my first reactions to a lot of those characters weren't too favorable but each one had some winning points.

Unlike IN COLD BLOOD's Flash-To-Black ending, LAST NIGHT flashes to white. That's it. The extent of special effects. And it was no less final or chilling than IN COLD BLOOD. Pretty interesting effect. No need to atmospheric lightshows, no need for mushroom clouds or fiery skies. Just flash to white.

For this genre, I'd give it a relatively high "8" on a scale of 10, where "5 and 6" are low- and high-average, although I might degrade it to a "7" because I'm not sure I could sit thru the too-abundant Slow Parts.

WiseFilms

This Thread is fading, fading!...let's update it a little, give it some new juice
several more titles that haven't been mentioned....

Robert Wise's The Andromeda Strain - in the same phase as Sturges's The Satan Bug - mankind faces extinction vis-a-vis a deadly virus.

Wim Wenders's Until the End of the World - try to catch the 5-hour cut if you can!

Jean-Luc Godard's Alphville - "Tarzan versus IBM". The inhabitants of the computer-ruled world are destroyed, whilst two lovers escape in a Ford Galaxy!

Godard's Weekend & George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead - Materialism descends into mass cannibalism, in gorgeous blood-spattered color.

Both WarGames and The Manhattan Project are intelligent '80's byproducts, about teenagers toying with nuclear holocaust.

Burt I. Gordon's Beginning of the End gave us giant grasshoppers, Gordon Douglas's Them! treats us to enormous ants, and, Guillermo Del Toro's Mimic graces the NYC subway tunnels with man-sized killer cockroaches.
Non of these fit the genre to a 'T', but I enjoyed them all --thoroughly.

Alfonso Curion's Children of Men, I found quite courageous and eloquent. A fitting summery of the genre, and a superb companion to Lester's The Bed-Sitting Room. It also provoked me to go back and take a second look at A Handmaid's Tale. That Volker Schlöndorff film is well acted, but doesn't measure up to CoM's excellence.

I've seen two shorts by a director named Heather McAdams: one about a Southern drag queen, called Meet Bradley Harrison Picklesimer, and the other about the end of the world (Orwell-style), boasting the best title of the genre: Fetal Pig Anatomy...as a movie, it's.........okay.

Lastly... you'll probably never see Christopher MacLaine's brilliant The End (1953).. which is a shame. It's one of the best of the genre. An underground classic without a doubt!

ajhooper

You may want to check out EMPTYWORLD:

Apocalyptic and End of the World Fiction, Film and TV at EmptyWorld

ChristineCB

AJ, thanks very much.

It's interesting that I don't care to read this genre nearly as much as I enjoy its films. I suppose it's because I don't enjoy spending days and days with such a topic compared to the relatively brief feature-length depressions!

ChristineCB

I wanted to get these unseen or unknowns listed for my checklisting. Thanks. Fetal Pig - "best name". Holy William Castle, Batman...

I just love hearing Corman talk about throwing out poster titles and then writing scripts around the best-sounding names. I don't think Hollywood, B-Movies and Trashy Films could receive higher praise or more worthy indictments - whatever the case may be!

ajhooper

I forgot to mention that BBC4 recently screened a 3 part documentary series about British Science Fiction, which covered this subject. One of the programs was specifically about the end of the world and the lone survivor, very good too if you can get hold of a copy of the series.

ajhooper

The series was called: The martians and us

ChristineCB

Ah ha! Taunting me with something you know I compulsively need, eh? Ahhh, I see - you're going to be as bad as Moor, Steve, FB and the lot of these crazies! I see-! Sure, go ahead... taunt me! Hmmm... is it time for more stilettos, the rolling pin or maybe the gunnery range practice avatars?!! Hmmm... decisions, decisions...

ChristineCB

Wise (another crazy taunter) brought up Moxey's TV film WHERE HAVE ALL THE PEOPLE GONE.

In hopes that we can have The Expert pitch in on this matter, does he have any knowledge about its formal DVD production? It's one more of the Peter Graves films that aren't released, even though Graves continues to pop up in commercials because he remains a recognizable face, voice and name.

John Llewellyn Moxey

Thank you. John Llewellyn

kelp

Hi Christine, a film that sticks in my mind is the one where in the finale where the lead and his lady open Pandoras Box! The film was in B/W and was a Mike Hammer type film, the "manhatten Project" was talked about in the film.
Do you know the one I mean? The presumption is that when they opened up the box.....Poooooof! End of us all!
kelp.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR...YOU MAY GET IT!

ChristineCB

Yes, that's KISS ME DEADLY, with Ralph Meeker.

Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

One of the strangest film-noir era offerings just because the ending is so, well, sci-fi. I kept thinking if Peter Graves or James Arness had been in the lead role instead of Meeker, the sequel could have been THEM! or BEGINNING OF THE END or maybe a young Steve McQueen could have found nothing but red gooey blobs all over that part of Malibu.

It's such a formulaic LA-Private-Eye film up to that point, and then, wow, "off the deep end" doesn't do it justice!

When Nicole Kidman and George Clooney were running around in Manhattan churches, I coulda told them that Ralph Meeker knew what they were going thru... but no one ever asks me! Boy - PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO coulda made me a star - if only - !

veel03

don't know if this film is one, but just saw a clip of it from a sci-fi series due to be shown on film 4, The Core ?

ChristineCB

Is THE CORE the film about how a group of scientists - without even using Jules Vernes or H G Wells as an excuse - head for the earth's core to kickstart it again?

The Core (2003)

I think, technically, this would probably fit into my collection's definition but when I realized it was a serious film instead of a far-funnier parody (a la LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA or an AIRPLANE big budget film), I never saw more than a clip or two.

I know, I know... it's hard to imagine that even I have limits on some things!! What's that saying - "Consistency is the hobgoblin of... uh..." Well, I'm sure consistency's the hobgoblin of something. Or is it "inconsistency..."?

Or are hobgoblins the consistency of something?