Scanialara
You won't be disappointed!
KnotMissPriceless
Why so much hype?
Greenes
Please don't spend money on this.
capone666
FiveThe upside to atomic war is finding out if your homemade Hazmat suit works. The folks in this post-apocalyptic drama, however, think it best to avoid ground zone.Wandering the radioactive hillsides looking for her husband in the wake of an atomic bomb that wiped out humanity, the pregnant Roseanne (Susan Douglas Rubes) stumbles upon Michael (William Phipps).Other survivors eventually join the couple on the outskirts: an elderly banker (Earl Lee), his African-American aid (Charles Lampkin) and a racist (James Anderson).As tensions mount between the males, Roseanne sneaks away to the city to continue searching for her newborn's father.A somber yet realistic take on atomic fallout and the struggle that follows, writer, director, producer Arch Oboler brings his radio drama sensibilities to the silver screen resulting in this effective meditation on the human condition.Incidentally, in a post-apocalyptic world store mannequins are your best hope for reproduction. Green Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.ca
Scott LeBrun
Writer / producer / director Arch Oboler conceived this landmark, meagerly budgeted post- apocalypse drama, one of the very earliest of its kind. It brings together five strangers: a poet & philosopher named Michael (William Phipps), a young pregnant woman named Roseanne (Susan Douglas Rubes), a black man named Charles (Charles Lampkin), a bank clerk named Mr. Barnstaple (Earl Lee), and a mountain climber named Eric (James Anderson). After the bombs decimate much of American life, these five people find each other, and spend time at an isolated cliff side house (Obolers' real life, Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home). Various personality conflicts form the basis for the plot as these people struggle to survive, debate methodology, and air grievances.Also utilizing a poem dubbed "Creation" by James Weldon Johnson, Oboler tries his hardest to create something fairly profound. Stark b & w photography by Sid Lubow and Louis Clyde Stoumen is an asset, and the tale is enacted with sensitivity by its well chosen cast of actors who were, at the time, relative unknowns. The biggest sparks fly when Eric is revealed as a racist, and also somebody who will question things and be certain that there have to be other "immune" survivors living out there somewhere. On the other hand, Michael isn't sure that the cities will be safe. Roseanne is understandably distraught not knowing the fate of her husband.As one can imagine, this is a pretty intimate story, and it attempts to show how human flaws can still manifest themselves under extreme circumstances. It's at its most chilling when showing how truly alone our characters seem to be, with shots of forlorn streets and buildings and skeletons that are the grim reminders of the devastation wrought by the atomic explosions."Five" earns points for good intentions and ambitions, and it stands in contrast to more action-oriented giant monster features of the Atomic Age.Seven out of 10.
Woodyanders
A quintet of people have to work together to stay alive and persevere in the wake of a nuclear holocaust that has killed off everyone else on the planet. Writer/director Arch Oboler relates the engrossing story at a steady pace, creates and sustains a properly bleak and sober tone throughout, puts a firm emphasis on interaction between the well-drawn characters over cheap melodrama or heavy-handed moralizing, and ably crafts a strong mood of despair and hopelessness. The fine acting by the capable cast holds the picture together: Susan Douglas as the pregnant, shell-shocked Roseanne Rogers, William Phipps as kindly intellectual Michael, Charles Lampkin as the genial, soft-spoken Charles, James Anderson as arrogant troublemaker Eric, and Earl Lee as polite old gentleman Mr. Barnstaple. Moreover, this movie gains considerable strength and impact from its low-key and unsentimental evenly balanced portrait of a dismal and distressful situation that brings out both the best and worst in humanity. The sharp black and white cinematography by Sid Lubow and Louis Clyde Stoumen provides a stark film noirish look (the shots of empty streets littered with skeletons are especially striking). Henry Russell's moody score does the brooding trick. Worth a watch for fans of end-of-the-world cinema.
Jerry A. McCoy
I thought this was a fascinating and gutsy film made only six years after the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Its almost documentary feel made it most realistic and the script was very intelligently written (per Oboler's radio background). Having toured the structures depicted in the movie that were designed in 1940 by world famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright (those were Wright's actual blueprints and architectural model for the house that appeared in the scene of the office that belonged to "Steven Rogers A.I.A." - American Institute of Architects). A suspenseful little movie that one has to wonder how it would have looked had it been directed by the likes of Hitchcock or Welles.
