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A hit and miss version of Bradbury's popular book, "The
Illustrated Man" (1969) fails to capture Bradbury's elusvie
poetic style of storytelling. Director Jack Smith ("Frankenstein:
The True Story", "Damnation Alley", "Airport 1975") does
a nice job with the actors but the film borders on incomprehensive
at times. Smith's direction is far from subtle and his heavy
handed take on the material only further cripples a script
that feels incomplete. The script has sliced much of Bradbury's
lyrical storytelling style to the bone leaving nothing but
skeletal narrative with little in the way of the detailed
meat that we need to enjoy the story. ***
The framing device set during the Depression works well
as does the very last story in this set. Carl (Rod Steiger
in a commanding occasionally unhinged performance)plays
a carnival worker who is lured into the parlor of a "Skin
Illustrator" Felicia(Clarie Bloom). She works her magic
with her needles and die using Carl's body for a canvas
to create illustrations that come to life if the viewer
stares at them for too long. Carl borders on madness because
of the experience (he says he can feel them crawl on his
skin literally itching to tell a story I suppose)and because
he's now an outcast is trying to find Felicia so he can
kill her. Carl meets a drifter Willie (the late Robert Drivas
--who looks a bit like Nathan Fillion from "Firefly", "Serenity"
and "Slither"-- in a fine performance where he holds his
own throughout the film against Steiger). Carl unfolds his
story about becoming an illustrated man and Willie finds
himself drawn into three of the "tattoos" that ensnare him
in their stories. ***
WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW ***
The first story "The Veldt" is set in the future. A
holographic playroom figures in this one. Carl and Felicia
(Steiger and Bloom in an inspired bit of creative casting
the major characters are all played by the same trio of
actors that appear in the framing story)discover that their
children's version of an African plain is disturbing. They
contact their mental health worker (Drivas)in hope that
he can help them understand what's going on. In reality
the fantasy atmosphere has turned their two children into
little more than decadent killers. ***
In the second part "The Long Rains" we join a quartet
astronauts stranded on Venus (I only know this from having
read the book)after their ship crashes. They spent their
time in the torrential downpour of rain gradually going
mad as they search the planet for one of 120 "Sundomes"
(essentially an enclosed raft with all the comforts of home).
The story becomes a pointless exercise in dramatic extremes
and the story is driven into incomprehension by the heavy
handed editing of either the sequence, the script or the
story. It's clear that this film was fiddled with in the
editing room how else to explain the major holes in the
plots of some of the stories? ***
The third story is the most powerful and moving. It's
also probably the best outside of the framing story. The
world is about to end in a nuclear holocaust. The parents
(Steiger and Bloom again) debate euthanizing their children.
The last story features moving performances from the cast.
END OF SPOILERS***
An earthbound film all of Bradbury's classic book still
features solid performances. The stories selected for the
film are probably not the best (except the last which is
exceptionally realized)and first time screenwriter Howard
B. Kreitsek's script is heavy handed. The editing doesn't
do the film any favors either--although it was released
in 1969 a quicker cutting style would have improved the
slow pacing of the stories. It's not quite the disaster
that "The Martian Chronicles" was but it fails to live up
to Truffaut's film of "Farenheit 451" or even "Something
Wicked This Way Comes". ***
There's little in the way of visual effects (which is
just as well as they would probably distract from the story)and
the production design is very much of its times. Why is
that when costume designers visualize the future they always
see us dressing in badly designed clothing?
Image & Sound:
Warner has done a terrific job with this release. We
get the original theatrical trailer as well a vintage featurette
on the film. The film receives an exceptional transfer with
nice bold colors during most of the film. Image quality
varies a bit there are some hints of softness to the images
on occasion but that's not a surprise given the age of the
film. ---
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