Cinema: Moses Meets the Humanoids

In The Omega Man, Charlton Heston, barely recovered from a couple of rough bouts on the planet of the apes, appears in Los Angeles as one of the last survivors of a biochemical disaster. Heston passes his days ferreting out evil humanoids transformed by the holocaust. He spends his nights fighting them off with an infra-red machine gun. The creatures—albinos decked out in cassocks and opaque shades—look like a weird rock group. Led by a crazed television newscaster named Mathias (Anthony Zerbe), they assault Heston only after nightfall, when there is no light to pierce their tender pupils.

Despite all this frenetic activity, Heston finds time to fall in love, not with himself—although he takes his shirt off rather more than necessary—but with a sassy black fox (Rosalind Cash) who pulls him out of an especially nasty scrape with Mathias and the Cassocks. She also makes a point of taking Heston home and introducing him to some plain folks who survived the pestilence. Protected by an experimental vaccine and buoyed by the love of a good woman, Heston sets out to save what is left of the world. If anyone can do it, he’s the man. After all, as Moses he parted the waters of the Red Sea, and as Judah Ben-Hur he beat the wicked Messala in a chariot race. But the power of pharaohs and Romans are as nothing compared to the wrath of a humanoid TV newsman. Heston should have thought better of meddling with the media.

J.C.