Five (1951)

Directed by Arch Oboler
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Sony)

One of the first and one of the best nuclear holocaust films. Five strangers gather in a remote house in the hills, apparently the only survivors of a worldwide nuclear war. It's a microcosm of humanity: greed, ambition and racism all raise their ugly heads in the person of Eric, whose arrival causes tension in the group. He's especially at odds with their presumed leader Michael, an Ivy League student who is content to stay put in their very nice and large house. Roseanne, the only woman, is pregnant by her former husband, though nobody is really sure he is dead. She wanders into the city with Eric one day to find him, the streets littered with skeletons, only to discover his true intentions. Intelligent and insightful screenplay with some truly haunting imagery, though a bit constrained by the mostly rural setting.