The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Ranald MacDougall

Writers:

M.P. Shiel (novel)
Ferdinand Reyher (story)

Release Date:

20 May 1959 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

The Most Unusual Story Ever Told!

Plot:

Ralph Burton is a miner who is trapped for several days as a result of a cave-in. When he finally manages to dig himself out...

Plot Keywords:

Male Female Relationship | Post Nuclear | Minimal Cast | New York City | Based On Short Story

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Harry Belafonte	...	Ralph Burton
Inger Stevens	...	Sarah Crandall
Mel Ferrer	...	Benson Thacker

Also Known As:

The End of the World (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

USA

Language:

French | English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo | Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

UK:A (1959) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

HarBel Productions

Trivia:

To film the striking images of a deserted New York City, the cast and crew had to start filming at dawn in order to capture the city before the early morning rush. This gave them no more than an hour or two per day in which to film the sequence.

Goofs:

Continuity: The rifles carried by Ben and Ralph change. Ben is initially shown shooting at Ralph with a bolt action rifle. Later, he is armed with a Remington pump action. Ralph grabs a tube fed Winchester lever action from the sporting goods store, but when he throws his rifle down, it has changed into a Winchester 1895 with a box magazine.

Quotes:

Benson Thacker: I have nothing against negroes, Ralph.
Ralph Burton: That's white of you.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in I Am Legend (2007)

Soundtrack:

FIFTEEN

Belafonte on Ferrer's possible racial bias: No, the only thing he has against me is that I'm younger than he is. I can understand that.

In the '50s the nuclear holocaust was never far from the popular imagination. This picture is one of many fictional efforts to show what might have happened.

By being trapped in a Pennsylvania mine, Belafonte is one of the very few people on earth (as far as we know from the film, only three) to escape annihilation. He manages to get out of the mine on his own (the first of many plot contrivances), goes to New York City and finds it depopulated, except for Inger Stevens, who eventually comes out of hiding. It's mostly a picture about loneliness. As much as we may resent the jostling masses in our midst, what if they were gone?

Actually, it spurs a fantasy, too. Imagine that you had the pickings of all of New York to yourself, and imagine that you were a handyman who could rig up generators and the like, and imagine that you found a comely woman to keep you company. Could be worse.

But we are asked to ignore too much in the picture, the fact that only one person in all of the city survived, the fact that not a single rotting body is shown on the streets, the fact that the shortwave transmissions Belafonte regularly monitors show that the rest of the world is empty, too (except, eventually, for Mel Ferrer, who was sailing during the nuclear blasts)-- all a bit too much. The film tries too hard to be an allegory when it should have been good, logical science fantasy.

Nevertheless, TWTF&TD is well worth a watch.