Review: The World, the Flesh, and the Devil

 

Miner Harry Belafonte survives and escapes a cave-in only to find when he emerges that the world around him is barren and seemingly unpopulated. Where has everybody gone? What happened?

 

A sorely underrated post-apocalyptic drama with a social message, this 1959 film from writer-director Ranald MacDougall (writer of “We’re No Angels”) needs more love and more eyes on it. Harry Belafonte (a co-producer of the film) gives one of his best performances here, which is important because there’s only three actors in the film. So everybody needed to bring their A-game. Belafonte’s terrific and only has himself for company for a fair chunk of the film. For my money the first act is the film’s best as Belafonte slowly comes to understand that something catastrophic has happened and he may be all alone in the world or at least America. It’s quite bold for an American film from 1959 to basically have only one person on screen for the first act. Impressively shot in B&W by Harold J. Marzorati, the film gives us a believably barren landscape. It’s a seemingly simple thing having scenes of someone traveling through empty, rubbish-littered streets but it’s effectively done here.

 

When we do get other inhabitants, they’re damn good company too. Inger Stevens was a troubled, sad lady who died too young. She’s effectively vulnerable and sensitive here. An underrated actress who should’ve been around a lot longer. After about an hour, Mel Ferrer turns up to bring a bit of Christopher Walken edgy unpredictability. I’ve heard other reviewers refer to the character as racist but I don’t think that’s accurate. Sure, he adopts a tone towards Belafonte’s character that is rather of its time and that time was not overly liberated in its thinking about racial equality. However, the main gripe this guy has is one of territoriality. He’s one of two men in the world and there’s only one woman between them. He wants the girl and he’d adopt the same damn attitude whether his 'competition’ were white, Hispanic, Asian, African-American, whatever. At worst he’s not as liberal-minded on racial issues as he thinks he is. I’d argue that race is more of a factor for Belafonte’s character, he’s bitter and aggrieved and understandably so, likely even before we meet him there’d be reasons for him to feel that way.

 

***** SPOILER WARNING ***** If the film has a flaw it’s in regards to the ending. I’m not saying Ferrer’s character is even a bad guy – to me he’s just too far gone after being on his own before he meets up with the others – but the film’s hand-holding ending simply isn’t earned. After everything he and Belafonte do to one another just mere seconds beforehand, it simply isn’t in the cards for these guys to smoke the peace pipe. I appreciate the film’s anti-violence message, but it isn’t entirely well-handled in the end. It’s a really small issue that easily could’ve been fixed and made the film even better than it is. The film either needed to be a little more drawn out or Ferrer to come across as a bit less unhinged. ***** END SPOILER *****

 

Really interesting, well-acted and well-shot post-apocalyptic message movie. The ending is fumbled a bit, but there’s a lot to like here and it deserves to be more highly regarded and viewed.

 

Rating: B+

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