The Lost 'Novelization' of The Omega Man Discovered!

by John Scoleri

Mort Kunstler's The Omega Man/I Am Legend cover painting

This is not appearing as another "In Search of..." entry on bare•bones, since before it arrived in my mailbox I had no idea that it even existed. And I should start off by clarifying that no, you didn't somehow miss it—a novelization of the John William Corrington and Joyce H. Corrington screenplay to The Omega Man was never published.

In August of 1971, coinciding with the release of The Omega Man, Berkley-Medallion released Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend in a movie tie-in edition featuring both titles and a nice painting by Mort Kunstler (reproduced above, from mortkunstler.com). This particular edition would go on to be reprinted at least five times. Those familiar with both the novel and the film know that a reader coming to the book by way of the film will be very surprised just how different they are. But the same was not true for moviegoers who happened to pick up the latest issue of Screen Stories magazine in October of 1971.

I recently came across an auction listing for Screen Stories magazine noting that The Omega Man was covered in this particular issue. I assumed it most likely contained a PR puff piece on the film, but I decided to add a copy to my I Am Legend Archive anyway. As you can see, there's nothing on the cover to suggest that The Omega Man is even featured inside.

When I received it, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it contained an adaptation of the film story (along with similar story adaptations of See No Evil, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and Camille). While I wasn't aware of the fact when I ordered it, Screen Stories (which had been published since the late 1920s—originally as Screen Romances) regularly contained complete story adaptations of first-run films.

The adaptation of The Omega Man is illustrated with ten stills from the film, as seen in the shots below (I've included the full versions of the stills for six of the included images).

 

 

The adaptation was written by Jean Francis Webb, who had published several articles and stories in pulp magazines, and authored a number of gothic novels.

 

Webb's adaptation provides a reasonable, albeit abridged, retelling of the film story. Of particular interest is the inclusion of a scene that didn't make the final cut. After Richie shows improvement from Neville's blood transfusion, Lisa goes to visit the gravesite where she and her brother had buried their parents. In a nearby cemetery crypt, she finds a 'turned' woman weeping over her stillborn child. The scene was shot, yet ultimately cut from the film, leaving an orphaned end credit for Anna Aries (Invasion of the Bee Girls), who portrayed the "Woman in Cemetery Crypt."

The inclusion of that scene, along with dialog lifted directly from the screenplay that does not appear in the film, confirms that Webb was actually working from a copy of the Corrington's script.

While there wasn't an official novelization of The Omega Man published to coincide with the release of the film, this particular issue of Screen Stories magazine offers up the next best thing. At the very least, it's an interesting curiosity that has been hiding (at least from this fan) for the past 47 years!

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I'm sure that die-hard fans of The Omega Man have already hit up eBay in search of the October 1971 issue of Screen Stories, but for the rest of you, I've included the adaptation in its entirety below. Enjoy!

In Search of The Omega (Wo)Man!

by John Scoleri

In the opening scenes of The Omega Man (the second film adaptation of Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend), Robert Neville (Charlton Heston) walks into a Ford dealership to help himself to a brand new Mustang. His eyes catch something off screen and he stops dead in his tracks.

From his POV, we see a calendar on the wall, establishing a future date to this 1971 film. The camera pans up from the March 1975 calendar...

...across the legs of a pin-up illustration...

...ultimately pausing on the woman's face.

Neville approaches the calendar, pausing momentarily...

...before grabbing it...

...and tearing it down.

As a fan of The Omega Man, I've often wondered about the calendar that appears in the film. It wasn't an off the shelf calendar, as they needed a prop with a future date. But it also seemed unlikely that the set decorator would commission a piece of original art for the calendar, so I thought I might be able to identify the artwork used and find a copy for my collection.

Last month, I finally set out to see if I could track down the art and artist responsible for the pin-up. With a couple of screenshots at my disposal, my first stop was reaching out to a couple of pin-up fan groups to see if anyone was familiar with the piece. Though I had no luck finding anyone familiar with the specific pin-up, I was contacted by someone who, while unfamiliar with the specific piece, was quite certain it was the work of artist Fritz Willis.

According to Wikipedia, Willis got his start painting pin-ups for Esquire magazine in 1946. And beginning in 1961, Willis was responsible for what appears to have been a popular Artist's Sketchbook pin-up calendar.

Fortunately, once I had a name to search on, the woman I was looking for was a mere Google search away. May I introduce, "The Wheeler Girl."

Once I had identified the piece, it wasn't difficult to locate a period print of the artwork. I was quite pleased with my discovery, and couldn't wait to receive the print I found online.

Once it arrived, I realized that upon closer inspection, while very similar to the pin-up seen in the film, the two pieces of art are not identical. The artwork used in the film is rougher, and lacks some of the detail in the finished painting.
You can see numerous discrepancies in the woman's face, flowers, outfit and feet.

The differences lead me to wonder if the piece used in the film was perhaps an early comp for Willis' "The Wheeler Girl" painting, or a wholesale knock-off produced by another artist specifically for use in the film.

I've put out some feelers to see I can find out more about Willis' process to determine if the artwork seen in the film is in fact his, but in the mean time, my search for the actual Omega Woman continues...