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By
WAYNE KLEIN
A poorly drawn and
visualized version of Ray Bradbury's popular book,
"The Illustrated Man" (1969) fails to capture
Bradbury's elusive poetic style of storytelling.
Director Jack Smight ("Frankenstein: The True
Story," "Damnation Alley," "Airport 1975") does a
nice job with the actors but the film borders on
incomprehension at times. Smight'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 the tasty
details that we need to enjoy the story. With each
story we are suddenly thrust into the action
without any background on the characters, their
situation or understanding of what their
motivations are. The actors are the main reason to
watch this film as they all give splendid
performances.
Reportedly Bradbury and Steiger hated th e
finished product. Both felt that it had too much
missing in terms of the story, quality of
Bradbury's work, etc. Interestingly Smight and the
producer got Bradbury to agree to sell them the
rights provided they could get either Paul Newman
or Rod Steiger so star as the title character.
Also, Steiger and his then wife Clarie Bloom
divorced shortly after the film was completed. I
wonder if Steiger insisted on his wife being cast
to help keep their marriage together. Either way
she gives a fine performance in her multiple roles
although many of her parts are underwritten.
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 the m 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
conta ct 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 i s 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."
Smight's leaden, plodding pacing will further
distance audiences from what could have been a
terrific film. Certainly Smight had the right
actors for the parts in the film. Curiously Smight
and his producer/writer Kreitsek chose to trim
parts of the stories that might have given us a
context while leaving in bits and pieces of
dialogue that is repetitive. If this wasn't a
mainstream Hollywood movie I might think that they
were trying to turn Bradbury's book into a fantasy
version of "Waiting for Godot" based on the
repetitious scenes and dialogue that crops up
again and again. If these scenes somehow added to
the overall effect of the story, I might be
willing to excuse them but it seems as if it is
more the remains of sloppy storytelling and
editing on behalf of the duo. As a result "The
Illustrated Man" isn't illustrated enough. While I
don't expect a film to deliver its story on a
silver platter I do expect a film to be consistent
in its tone and storytelling approach and the film
does neither well.
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?
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.
"Tattooed Steiger" gives us a vintage promo piece
that looks behind-the-scenes and allows us to see
some of the make up sessions as well as bits and
pieces of the rehearsals. We also get the original
theatrical trailer and a promo piece for "The
Dukes of Hazza rd"(!) prequel. Why we have the
latter is beyond me it has as much to do with
sci-fi as "Gomer Pyle." Maybe it's the boomer
audience that would buy this that they are aiming
at.
Overall this film may not be everyone's cup of tea
but those who grew up watching it on TV or when it
was originally released will probably still enjoy
it. "The Illustrated Man" is an example of
incoherence masquerading as mystery. The film
comes off as a half-baked fantasy version of
"Waiting for Godot" without the strong dose of
irony that made Beckett's play so memorable.
That's too bad because Bradbury was at his best as
a storyteller with this particular book. |
