I just looked at a current issue. The original movie ended with sirens and vehicles coming down the streets returning from a war drill.
Looks like too many commentators called that ridiculous and they actually changed the reissue. I don't know what to think of this.
Are you sure you have the right movie? I've never heard of any reissues of this film, or any alternate endings. If an original version did end with everyone returning, it's probably a good thing they changed it--it seems pretty impossible that the entire world could be on a war drill for the better part of a year, or that a drill would destroy all plant and animal life for several months.
sharebump
shareIt would have taken a lot of reediting. Coming out from underground he would have been in New York. It would have been all within one day.
That's the way I remember it.
There are various sub-themes in this story. It could be reorganized.
I saw it in the 60s and it always ended the same. You must be confusing it with another film. For a studio film it was incredibly bleak at the time. Several films like The Bad Seed had alternate endings due to studio concerns at the time. Invasion of the Body Snatchers originally began with him arriving in town and ended with him warning people on the bridge. The head and tail wrap arounds were shot because the studio thought it was too bleak. The World The Flesh And The Devil was untouched as far as I know. I think Belafonte would have denounced the film if they gave it an upbeat ending. It is what it needed to be, brilliant!
shareAre you thinking of The Mouse That Roared?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053084/combined
I don't remember how that one ended.
shareAs I read through this thread it also occurred to me that you were thinking of The Mouse That Roared. It was a comedy, made the same year (1959) as TWTFATD, about a small European country called Grand Fenwick that declares war on the United States in order to lose and receive the aid the U.S. always gives its defeated enemies. A small band of men dressed as medieval bowmen land in New York City during an air raid drill when everyone is underground. Eventually Fenwick wins because their "troops" capture a new kind of H-bomb and by keeping it they control the world. This film was shot in color and stars Peter Sellers in three roles. But there's no scene of people suddenly coming up from underground amid sirens and so on (though there are a few official vehicles with sirens shown in one scene).
It's also possible you may be thinking of a 1958 black & white film called The Lost Missile, about a mysterious rocket streaking at such a high speed and low altitude across the Earth that it explodes everything it passes over, and NYC is in its path. The film has lots of scenes (mostly stock footage of an actual air raid drill) of people in the city hiding underground, then emerging at the end after the missile is destroyed, while sirens sound the all-clear.
In any case, the ending you mention is not in The World, the Flesh and the Devil, and never was. No such scene or scenario. Also, I don't understand what you mean when you say:
Coming out from underground he would have been in New York. It would have been all within one day.The film is quite obvious that it takes place over a period of many months, and Harry Belafonte was underground only at the beginning, when he was trapped in the mine in Pennsylvania...which is what saved him.
That's the way I remember it.
You sound like you know what you're talking about.
The mind can play tricks and mislead, and I may not have paid full attention to it at the time, I don't know. This has been in my mind all these decades.
I thought Maltin's review supported me when it writes "ridiculous conclusion".
"Coming out from underground he would have been in New York. It would have been all within one day." means if it had been reedited.
I figured it was simply a trick of memory. This happens to all of us, especially if it's been decades since you saw it. I've confused or conflated some old memories before I realize I'm mistaken.
I don't think any amount of "re-editing" would have been possible to bring about the kind of ending you're talking about. It almost sounds like the "it-was-all-a-dream" cop-out endings we see once in a while, and such a finish would have been terrible in a film like this.
I've just looked up Maltin's review to refresh my memory, and it is indeed a "ridiculous conclusion". The two men go gunning for one another across Manhattan (an absurdly filmed sequence in itself; they repeatedly turn some corner and are suddenly miles away from where they had been), then at the last moment realize they can't kill one another, and all three join hands and walk silently through the streets as the credits read (also absurdly), "The Beginning". (Of what?) The issue of Inger is still unresolved (who gets her, does she rotate between beds, etc.), the racial issue is still there (black man sleeping with white woman), and the whole thing is just one big fizzle.
This movie seems better on first viewing than it really is. Despite some impressive and effective parts (all of them in the early going), the more you watch it, the more of a disjointed, boring and dopey letdown it becomes. They could make it much better today, since filmmakers wouldn't have to compromise the racial and sexual aspects, which ultimately are the root of most the film's weaknesses.
"They could make it much better today, since filmmakers wouldn't have to compromise the racial and sexual aspects, which ultimately are the root of most the film's weaknesses."
Z for Zachariah isn't a remake of this, but it basically is the same essential story, updated and moved to a rural setting. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1598642/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_10
Yes, that incompetent idiot Tiffany Vasquez, whom TCM is now inflicting on its audiences on Saturday afternoons, mentioned Z for Zacariah in her parting remarks yesterday, as though it was a straight remake of TWTFATD. I haven't seen it but have heard that it's very similar, but of course it has nothing to do with this movie.
shareI've just watched it, and it isn't that absurd to me. All along, Sarah kept saying that no one asked what she thought. At the end, we finally see what she thought - the answer is, both of them. And I think that makes perfect sense for a few reasons. One, picking one man to the exclusion of the other REALLY SUCKS for the guy who wasn't picked. I think she felt she would be dooming the 'loser' to a life of extreme loneliness, etc., and she didn't want to do that. Two, if there really are very few humans around, and if their thought is to 'keep humanity going'...then, it makes sense for her to have children from both men. Then if their kids multiply, at least it wouldn't be straight inbreeding, the fathers would be different at least.
The racial issue isn't there anymore, not if she is making the choice to accept him. And really, there never should have been a racial issue, because guess what? There is no one left in the city! All of the old prejudices, social mores, can be forgotten and discarded. Who is there to maintain them? No one is there to frown upon their relationship, should they have one. I thought it was a weakness of the film, actually, for Ralph to behave that way. I suppose he was still trapped in his way of thinking, how society had been, but he seemed to forget that there was no more society. He/they were now free to make their own society and their own social norms. I'm not sure why he never realized that.
So, "The Beginning" is supposed to mean, as I took it, mankind starting over. Sort of like the Garden of Eden only there are three of them instead of two. And remember, the two guys didn't join hands, I think it's wrong to conclude that the two of them are now best buddies. She is in-between them. So there is pretty much an uneasy 'truce' between them for their own good. And yes, there seem to be a few other people somewhere in the world, but there is no real way to communicate or even visit them at this point, so it could years, decades or even lifetimes before Americans cross the Atlantic and Pacific again. They are pretty much starting all over.
The ending is a total cop-out. Yes, if Sarah chose one she'd be condemning the other to a life of loneliness, but her decision to choose both is hardly an altruistic move...or if it is, it comes at a pretty high price for her -- in effect, becoming the whore of two men, passed between them, a combination housekeeper, sex partner and baby-making machine for each. That's sensible?
You also assume that the three of them walking off hand-in-hand somehow means they'll all live together peaceably from then on. Even if you dispense with racial issues, these are human beings, subject to jealousy, possessiveness, lust, desire, and a regard for their own needs that would inevitably lead to conflict. Do you really think that sharing Sarah sexually would work without problems for the rest of their lives?
No, the ending is a gutless compromise that makes no sense and completely dodges the issues the film itself raises.
How can you possibly say "the racial issue isn't there anymore"? If that were the case most of the movie's plot would disappear along with all those bodies. It isn't just Ralph but Sarah and (obviously) Ben who continue to behave under the racial concepts of society. Such attitudes are very ingrained and are extremely hard to get past, however pointless or illogical they may seem in a deserted world. This has nothing to do with what "other people" or "society" may think. Yes, there's no one else to judge them, but that's not the point. It isn't others' attitudes they're worried about. It's the prejudices and behavior patterns within each of them that matter. And these go far beyond just racial prejudices.
The film had a chance to make a bold statement and just wussed out completely into meaningless bilge.
Well we just have to disagree. Your solution - choose one man, alienate the other - doesn't make any more sense than choosing both. And from a multiply, 'repopulate the earth' standpoint, it's clearly worse.
They do not show what happens next, but I imagined it to be something along the lines of this: Sarah sitting them down and explaining to them the situation. There are three of them left in the surrounding region. As far as they know. Many months have gone by with no one else surfacing. Ralph saw no one, driving from PA to NY, and Benson said he had been cruising around for six months and saw no one. So, they are it. And they can choose to live as either a couple, with the odd man out (literally), or, they can go the community route. I am not suggesting that Sarah loved this option. And I'm sure she would not want to be considered a whore. And I agree about human nature, jealousies and all that. But the idea of a 'traditional marriage' should be discarded in this scenario. There are three people left in their world. That's it. No one is playing housekeeper, waiting for dad to come home from work at 5pm. They are all in this together, and they are starting from scratch. For their common good, and for the future of humanity, it makes the most sense. At least for now. Added to that, I don't think the first humans/homo sapiens were strictly monogamous. Most animals aren't. That concept developed over time when it was more convenient to be so. They don't have that luxury here.
I did not assume they would live peaceably from that point on. I said she was in-between them and would forge an uneasy truce. Who knows what happens down the line? Seeing Benson's volatility, it would not surprise me if he returned to violence at some point. But they have to start somewhere. In your scenario, if she chose Ralph over Benson, Benson may not take that calmly and kill Ralph right there. At least in her solution she ends the competition (for the moment if not for good). Who's to say they don't eventually encounter another small enclave of humans at some point? If so, then perhaps one of the men can then find a mate among that group. But for the moment, she keeps them all alive and they can at least begin the process of starting over.
Your statement "Such attitudes are very ingrained and are extremely hard to get past, however pointless or illogical they may seem in a deserted world" - I think, is the entire point of this movie. They, all three of them, still clung to these attitudes to one degree or another, and the message that I took from it was, they needed to reject these old notions to survive. Sarah was the first to see it. She wanted to move into Ralph's building but he wouldn't allow it. Benson wanted to make Sarah choose between them. Ralph, remembering the social no-no of race mixing, tries to push Sarah and Benson together, even though he loves her. But in order to survive, and hopefully thrive, all of that has to go. They have to discard their prejudices and behavior patterns of the past, and in its place, forge something new. Sarah comes to realize it first, and at the climax, she is beginning to make them understand that, too. That is not a cop-out to me.