The Final Man on the Run (1959)

D. Frank Howard
B&W


I truly love creaky old British Science Fiction. It’s not just that being a ‘Doctor Who’ fan means that dodgy monsters in grainy black and white comes somewhat with the territory, it’s that alien invasion always feels a lot more poky and provincial in England. In America there are wide open spaces, the world that is being invaded seems so wonderful and worth taking. It’s not like that in Britain. Maybe if – like ‘The Children of The Damned’ – these aliens are choosing to invade the Home Counties you can perhaps see where they’re coming from, but grim and grimy London? Seriously, alien invaders, what’s wrong with your planet that you’d want to come somewhere that still uses powdered egg?


The oddly titled ‘The Final Man on the Run’ is cheap and British and essentially a rip off of ‘The Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ – only with the twist that instead of a quiet and prosperous America town being stolen, it is the seedy environs and backstreets of Soho. This makes it a very interesting set-up, as the aliens are replacing people who are already scary anyway. These aren’t schoolteachers and policemen who are being replicated, but spivs, small time crooks and all round scum. The only one who realises what’s happening is a down on his luck boxer, with a dodgy record himself, but no one will listen to him as nobody really cares for these people anyway – and so the contagion spreads.


This film, despite its cheapness and the rip off of the premise, should be better remembered – not least as one of the early starring roles for Sean Connery.  (There’s also a pre Doctor Who William Hartnell as a tobacconist who is one of the first to be taken. It’s a great moment when Connery peers into his face and sees not a single ounce of emotion). And Connery does well as the boxer in totally over his head. There’s a path to his performance, a joy in seeing the character question more and more before frustration truly overwhelms him. Although unlike Kevin McCarthy in the American version, Connery can never make himself look totally helpless. Even in the bleak conclusion, one gets the impression that this Glaswegian Terry Malloy, will still find a way to save the world.


It’s a tense ride which understands just how scary shadows are, although it feels too rushed at 72 minutes. Much like ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’, which can be interpreted as either anti-communist or anti-witch-hunts, I suppose there are two possible readings here also. Either the film is saying that the salt of the Earth (no matter how coarse a grain) are the most crucial people of all and once we lose them we lose everything; or else this is a bunch of middle class film makers sneering from their pipes and slippers and thinking that the working classes are so common and brutish they are all pretty much aliens anyway, aren’t they?


So perhaps pour yourself a sherry and let the alien takeover begin!