The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959 film)
1959 film by Ranald MacDougall
The World, the Flesh and the Devil is a 1959 American science fiction doomsday film written and directed by Ranald MacDougall. The film stars Harry Belafonte, who was then at the peak of his film career. The film is set in a post-apocalyptic world with very few human survivors. It is based on two sources: the 1901 novel The Purple Cloud by M. P. Shiel and the story "End of the World" by Ferdinand Reyher.
Plot
Black mine inspector Ralph Burton becomes trapped in a cave-in at a Pennsylvania coal mine. He can hear rescuers digging towards him, but after five days they slow down and then stop completely, along with the drainage pumps keeping the shaft from flooding. Ralph frantically digs his own way out, but upon emerging from the mine, he finds a world devoid of any people, living or dead. Discarded newspapers provide an explanation: one proclaims "UN Retaliates For Use Of Atomic Poison", another that "Millions Flee From Cities! End Of The World". Ralph later plays tapes at a radio station and learns that an unknown country had dispersed large quantities of radioactive sodium isotopes into the atmosphere.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3224654. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1959 and 1901.
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This entry incorporates text from “The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959 film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.