Help Ed identify this mystery radio in “The Last Man on Earth”

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ed, who writes:

Recently I’ve been watching some pandemic-themed movies and found “The Last Man on Earth”, a pretty good 1964 post-apocalyptic science fiction horror film (which was remade in 1971 and 2007 with different titles.) In this film, the main character (well played by Vincent
Price) uses an HF transceiver in a fruitless effort to find other survivors of a global plague. It was shot in Italy, and the transceiver doesn’t look like any American radio I’ve ever seen. Perhaps some of your SWLing Post readers can identify it?

BTW: SWLing Post readers might also be interested in knowing this film can be downloaded for free from The Internet Archive.  https://archive.org/details/lastmanonearth-1964

What do you say, SWLing Post Community? Is this radio a fabricated stage prop, or a real model?  Please comment!

In the meantime, I’ll add this post to our ever growing archive of radios in film!

Spread the radio love

10 thoughts on “Help Ed identify this mystery radio in “The Last Man on Earth”

  1. Gordon Cooper

    The movie was filmed in Italy. If it were me, I’d look at Italian radios of the 1920’s through 1965.

    Reply
    1. Andrew

      Probably an “Allocchio Bacchini RF4D” or a similar model from the same brand, they were used by Italian armed forces during WW-2

      Reply
    2. Ed

      Wow! when I searched online for images for “Allocchio Bacchini” as Andrew suggested, it brought up pictures of many very beautiful Italian radios I’ve never seen before!

      And he’s right, that HF transceiver being operated by Vincent Price in “The Last Man On Earth” looks exactly like the “Allocchio Bacchini RF4D” . I’m glad that a real HF radio was used instead of a movie prop. Thanks for solving this mystery, Andrew!

      -Ed

      Reply
      1. Andrew

        You’re welcome, and in case you need more infos about that rig, I sent quite a bunch of links to Thomas; the rig was widely used by italian armed forces during ww-ii and to say it all I recognized it since one of my uncles owned one of those, I think I was 8 at the time 🙂

        Reply

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