The Omega Man is a 1971 post-apocalyptic science-fiction film directed by Boris Sagal and starring Charlton Heston as Robert Neville, a military doctor who appears to be the last healthy man left in Los Angeles after biological warfare has devastated humanity. Based on Richard Matheson’s novel “I Am Legend”, the film changes the vampire-like threat of the book into a cult of plague-scarred, light-sensitive survivors known as the Family. The result is less a pure horror film than a bleak survival thriller, built around isolation, urban emptiness, religious symbolism and Neville’s increasingly unstable existence in a world where civilisation has collapsed.
The film was shot in Los Angeles, and the city is essential to its identity. Without modern digital effects, the production created its deserted metropolis by filming in downtown Los Angeles early on quiet Sunday mornings, turning empty streets, civic buildings and commercial blocks into a convincing vision of a depopulated city. Locations include the Los Angeles Civic Center area, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power building, the Olympic Theatre on West 8th Street, Dodger Stadium in Chavez Ravine, and freeway material around Interstate 210 in Sylmar. Neville’s fortified home was built on the Warner Bros. Ranch backlot, while the surrounding real locations give the film its strongest visual quality: a familiar Los Angeles drained of everyday life, where broad streets, theatres, public buildings and stadium spaces become eerie evidence of a city that has stopped functioning.
Millennium Biltmore Hotel
The Millennium Biltmore Hotel has appeared in many films, including The Omega Man, Chinatown, Rocky III, Beverly Hills Cop, Ghostbusters and many more.
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