Where Have All the People Gone?
Entry updated 16 June 2025. Tagged: Film.
Made-for-tv film (1974). Metromedia/NBC. Directed by John L Moxey. Teleplay by Lewis John Carlino, Sandor Stern, from a story by Carlino. Cast includes Verna Bloom, Peter Graves, George O'Hanlon Jr, Kathleen Quinlan and Ken Sanson. 72 minutes. Colour.
During a camping trip in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, Steven Anders (Graves) and his teenage children Deborah (Quinlan) and David (O'Hanlon Jr) are exploring a cave Underground when a solar flare somehow creates a virus (!) which kills, then reduces to something like sand, almost everybody on Earth. Following this global Disaster the family journeys across California to their seaside home in Malibu, where they hope in vain to find the mother alive. They encounter other Post-Holocaust survivors, some unfriendly (one steals their car at gunpoint), and packs of Dogs running wild; they rescue a woman called Jenny (Bloom). Routine stuff, competently directed; an interesting twist has the teenagers showing initiative while the father is generally passive. Where Have All the People Gone? was reportedly the pilot for a never-made Television series. [JB/DRL]
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