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Sunday, September 23, 2012

The Last Woman On Earth – Another Corman Quickie!



By Steve D. Stones

Actress Betsy Jones-Moreland gets caught in a love triangle in The Last Woman On Earth. She, her crooked husband obsessed with money and a young lawyer go scuba diving off the coast of Puerto Rico. When they surface from the waters of the ocean, they discover that the oxygen has been pulled out of the earth’s air, causing everyone to die. They survive by drawing air from their scuba tanks. Soon, the earth’s air returns, and the three are left to a world of dead bodies and decay. Jones-Moreland decides she has an attraction for the young lawyer (Edward Wain), and a battle to win her heart ensues between the husband and the lawyer.

Director Roger Corman had the reputation of quickly creating several films back to back to save time and money. He often employed many of the same actors and crew from film to film. He filmed The Last Woman On Earth back to back with Creature From The Haunted Sea. That film also featured beauty Betsy Jones-Moreland, Edward Wain (aka Robert Towne) and Anthony Carbone. Edward Wain is actually screenwriter Robert Towne, who went on to write the screenplay for Academy Award winning – Chinatown, starring another Corman stock actor – Jack Nicholson. Four years later in 1964, an Italian production crew created – The Last Man On Earth, starring Vincent Price, based on Richard Matheson’s book - I am Legend.

Sinister Cinema in Medford, Ore., sells a color print of The Last Woman On Earth in which at least two scenes are missing that can be seen in the black and white print, of which a YouTube print is shown above. These missing scenes show Betsy Jones-Moreland with much darker hair. I suspect the two missing scenes were edited from the color print because the change in hair color was apparent to viewers. Enjoy!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You seriously don't know the story behind those two scenes? Try doing a little more research before posting.

The two black and white scenes were shot a few years after the original movie, to lengthen the film for TV syndication; the movie was originally 64 minutes long and in full color.

This is mentioned everywhere, from the Internet Archive to the IMDb to any reference book on Corman's films.