So much average

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

When I was a LOT younger I remember seeing this film and being fascinated by it. As time passed and I grew older, I forgot the details until all I could remember was an apocalypse movie with some singer in it that my mother had liked. As the years passed I forgot it completely and it was only recently that I came across it again and had the pleasure of watching it as an adult.To watch it now only highlights how far we've come as a society. Sometimes we forget, immersed in our day-to-day troubles, just how much better times are now. We have evolved, as a society, but to those of us who are part of that evolution, the changes happen so slowly we don't notice them. At least, not until something like this movie is revisited to see how things WERE.The story follows the fortunes of a young black engineer after a mysterious apocalyptic event destroys all trace of humanity from the Earth. Man's works are left behind, but of man himself there is, for the early part of the film, only Belafonte's character.With typical stoicism born of the post-war era, Belafonte first digs himself free of a collapsed mine, then sets about making a home for himself in the empty city. Bereft of companionship, his future looks a lonely one as he slowly pieces together what has happened to the world.Of course, he soon discovers a white female survivor and this is where the film really starts to shine. The interplay between the two is electric and both Belafonte and Stevens give dynamic performances as they struggle to come to terms with their growing attraction to one another. Belafonte is particularly adept at getting across how the mindset of non-whites led them to believe they were inferior.Given the time the film was made this in itself would be enough to make a fantastic film, but it's not enough for this movie. After a period where Belafonte and Steven's characters seem to have come to some sort of "truce" between themselves, they discover a third survivor - a white male.Needless to say, the character dynamic undergoes a dramatic change, with Ferrer's white character trying to dominate the trio and taking an interest in Steven's female character.All the usual love-triangle difficulties arise, made all the more intense because of the inter-racial aspect. As tensions mount, the two males eventually come to blows over the female regardless of her wishes in the matter.So, what we have are inter-racials tensions along with (for the time) typical male misogyny.The film is essentially this dynamic played out to an extreme. However, it is in fact the final scenes of the movie that really set it apart as something phenomenal.Having fought and nearly killed each other, it seems set that the men will go their separate ways and the woman must choose one of them. However, with a truly unique twist, she chooses them both and the final scene is the three of them walking off into the distance, hand in hand whilst over the top of the scene appear the words "The beginning.." It may not sound like much, but for 1959 this was a truly epic scene to put on celluloid. The notion that a white woman might have relations with a black man let alone (as hinted strongly here) that there might be a threesome going on, was something that just wasn't done.For those who didn't grow up with any of that racial or sexist nonsense, it might seem bizarre or unrealistic that such things were a big deal. And for you, the best equivalent I could cite in today's world as a similar taboo might involve a brother/sister incest relationship. It really was that big a deal back then.Films like this are often forgotten, or ignored on channel playlists because of their age or content. This is a massive shame, because there are some truly magnificent films out there that are fading almost into myth because of a lack of exposure.It is films like this that show us just how far we've come in fifty odd years. But it is also films like this that show us that, even back then, there were those who hoped for change and expressed that hope and desire through the medium of film.If you like a good, tense character drama, then you'll not find many better than this one.

One of my all-time favorite comedies, THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL starts with crooner Harry Belafonte getting trapped in a cave-in. He settles in for the long haul, calling out for help from time to time before finally lapsing into song. I kid you not: trapped underground and running low on oxygen (one assumes), he starts belting out an acapela number. (Well, if you were a singer and you were mere minutes away from asphyxiation, what would you do...?) Unfortunately, he gets up off his butt and starts digging and- lo and behold- finds daylight. Like the characters on the teleseries GILLIGAN'S ISLAND, he manages to cobble together just about every convenience known to modern man before being stalked by Inger Stevens. There's the "relevant" talk of degrees of separation, et al, before everybody links arms and skips off down the yellow brick road. I give this one four stars because some of the shots of a deserted New York are impressive to see; other than 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.

The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959) is a very good film if only for its thought-provoking plot. Regardless of which side you are on regarding inter-racial marriage and dating, this movie will move you to consider that people are people, regardless of their color and people need people.The other interesting thing about this movie is that Ralph Burton (Bellafonte) is the best man in the film and Ben Thacker (Ferrer) is the evil, self-centered one. In 1959, it must have required very forward thinking to portray the black man as the good and the white man as the evil one. Further, Sarah Crandall (Stevens) is obviously in love with Ralph Burton and wants him to claim her. He loves her, too, but is imprisoned by his prior socialization as a black man and will not allow himself to have the woman he loves.The ending of this movie is a major disappointment. All three are shown walking down a deserted street holding hands with Crandall in the middle. Does this mean that the men are going to share her? Clearly, in this case, one man is going to get the girl and the other one isn't. If love has anything to do with it, Burton should rightly have the woman. But, Ben Thacker's self-serving interests lead him to attempt killing Burton. Burton decides to defend himself and accidentally reads a sculpture with a reference from the Bible about turning your swords to plowshares and is deeply affected. He throws down his weapon and naively places himself at the mercy of Thacker who badly wants to murder him but can't because he would lose his self-respect for shooting an innocent man who won't fight back.This movie does real damage to Harry Bellafonte's image as a man and as an actor. Twice in the movie, he throws down his weapon at times when he needs it most. A beautiful woman is in love with him and stops just short of throwing herself at him but he turns his back and walks out with a sense of martyrdom and literally sends the woman to the other man. There is a time for fighting and a time for making love and Burton fails to rise to either occasion.However, to Burton's credit, he is obviously the most intelligent and capable man. He develops a reputation among the others for being able to fix anything and uses a shortwave radio to contact other apocalypse survivors in far away locales. Burton also saved Thacker's life and was instrumental in nursing him back to health. Interestingly, the man whose life he saved was so willing to take his. My favorite quote of the movie was when Sarah Crandall told Ralph Burton "you're a good and decent man...what else is there to know?" That quote must have come easy to Stevens because she was truly color blind and later married a black man in reality. In summary, this was a very good movie but somewhat far-fetched for its time. New York City was reduced to only three people...hard to believe.My imagination runs toward thinking what comes next for these three. Sooner or later, someone will get the woman because she is definitely ready for "marriage" as she says. In fact, she (Crandall) was the first to raise sexual issues in this film. See it for yourself and tell me what you think.