Short Attention Span Review - Where Have All The People Gone (1974) - With The Dessicated Remains Of Spoilers.

When I was growing up in the 1970s, I looked forward to the Movie of the Week. This was something the major networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) did. While there were various permutations that ran from the 60s into the 90s, the heyday, as far as I'm concerned, was the 1970s. While we have plenty of "made-for-TV' movies now, there was something awesome about being a kid and seeing an ORIGINAL movie on television. I guess I'm getting nostalgic in my advancing decrepitude.

Usually, the film would be some flavor of drama or crime thriller, a longer version of the TV shows that were on. But once in a while you'd get something special. The Night Stalker...Duel...Don't Be Afraid of the Dark...Satan's School for Girls (really)...and, this movie, Where Have All The People Gone?

Peter Graves and his family (including a young Kathleen Quinlan) are in the mountains of central California, looking for fossils as part of the worst family vacation ever. Graves' wife (Jay W. MacIntosh), a biologist, heads home early. While Graves, Kathleen and his son (George O'Hanlon Jr.) are in a cave looking at rocks, the sun flares. This causes a massive EMP and earthquake. Soon, the family Graves finds that most of the people have been reduced to a fine white powder and all the dogs have gone mad, roaming the countryside in feral packs. The family picks up a couple of survivors on the way back home to LA. They find that mom is a pile of white crystals. Before she died she left a note, explaining that the solar flare apparently mutated a virus, which causes the human dessication. The expanded family leaves LA for an uncertain future in the countryside. The end.

Where Have All The People Gone is a pretty good film. The plot is straight-forward - stay alive, get home to mom - and the story addresses the different ways that people cope (or fail to cope) with disasters. Some, like Graves, retain their sense of humanity and want to help. Others are looking out only for themselves. One of the survivors that Graves picks up (Verna Bloom) spends much of the film in a semi-catatonic state, after having seen her children eaten by dogs. The acting is solid and the script develops them enough that they are more than just card-board cutouts. The effects are minimal; but, given the nature of the story, that's all they have to be. A larger budget might have helped once the group gets to LA. We basically see empty streets, even though other survivors describe a city that seems much more devastated by rioting.

While nits could be picked, this really is a well-made, tightly scripted and decently acted "end of the world" film. Plus, it has Peter Graves. How can you gone wrong with him? You can check the entire film out on Youtube, embedded below.

Oh, on a side note, after first seeing this on TV, I would arrange my clothing around the house as if I had disintegrated. My mom always found this amusing...or, at least told me she did. My mom is great.