You’re sitting there, thinking you have high standards. You want emotional maturity, a stable career, maybe a nice smile. Then you watch John G. Blystone’s The Last Man on Earth (1924), and you realize that if a freak virus wiped out every other guy on the planet, the civilized world would instantly devolve into throwing punches in a boxing ring over a scruffy, unwashed hermit who has spent the last ten years crying in a redwood forest.
The Setup
One mediocre man. Millions of women. A global plague that wipes out every post-pubescent male except him.
That’s it. That’s the whole script.
Blystone takes us into the “future” year of 1940. Elmer Smith gets rejected by his childhood sweetheart, Hattie, with the ultimate cliché: “I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth”. Devastated, Elmer hops into a plane and flies into the wilderness to live like a wild animal. Cut to 1950. A disease called “masculitis” has wiped out all adult males. Women run the world—they’re the senators, the gangsters, the street-sweepers, and the President. Then, a gang of tough female bootleggers stumbles upon Elmer in the woods. The prize of the century has been found, and society immediately loses its mind.
The Experience
There is no dialogue. There are only frantic silent intertitles, chaotic slapstick, and the sight of an entire global matriarchy descending into absolute madness. They don’t just admire Elmer; they commodify him. The government buys him for ten million dollars so scientists can study him. Two female senators climb into a boxing ring, chewing cigars and throwing wild, unhinged hooks at each other’s jaws just to win the legal right to marry him.
It’s 70 minutes of pure, distilled absurdity. It’s a cynical, boisterous circus that takes the near-extinction of half the human race and turns it into a giant gag. The funniest, most pathetic part? While the world burns and women tear each other apart for a piece of him, Elmer doesn’t care. He is still desperately yearning for Hattie—the one girl who rejected him when men were still a dime a dozen. It is the ultimate punchline of male stubbornness.
Why You’ll Watch
You’ll watch because you need a reminder of how quickly dignity dissolves in the face of absolute scarcity.
Blystone didn’t just make a silent sci-fi comedy; he made a bizarre funhouse mirror of gender dynamics. It’s experimental in its world-building and remains a fascinating time capsule of 1920s anxieties about the rising political power of women. It is a slapstick gut-punch that feels like a fever dream. By the time it’s over, you won’t look at dating standards the same way. You’ll look at the last man on Earth, you’ll look at his treehouse, and you’ll wonder what your opening bid would be.
Rating: 4 out of 5 Senate-approved boxing matches.
