Powerful

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The naked face is a remarkable film experience. It's not a good film but I recommend it anyway. It's worth seeing the way you see Dracula for Bela Lugosi a performance so filled with conviction that questions of good and bad become meaningless. Saying that Bela Lugosi is campy and over the top is making the assumption that he was trying for something else and landed where he did by accident. No one else in the film other than Dwight Frye as Renfield can even keep up with him. Frye's performance seems far more calculated but he seems to understand that this film is meant to be spooky and fun and that no one is going to stop him from doing exactly what he chooses. He's like the guy in the summer stock theater whose a little bit better than everyone else and inspires the other actors with admiration and envy. Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye know that you've paid money to see them and they are determined to give you what you paid for. Lugosi/Dracula's victims could be moving or charming, the heroes could be dashing and silly, van helsing might be sage and warm and kind but they're not. The brides are creepy and the servants are ridiculous but the rest the living dead of actors. The crazy energy of Lugosi and Dwight Frye seem to sap the rest of the cast of theirs. The Naked Face is like that. It could have been directed by Tod Browning of Dracula fame. It's outdoors but stagey. The incidents in the film are outrageous and unconvincing but no more so than the everyday details. And every actor in the film walks through it like they're on Quaaludes except one. It isn't Roger Moore whose famous for not bringing much energy to wheat he does on screen. He fits into this film as if it were his home. The 007 films are so busy so full of incident and energy this film is like a fish bowl or a gerbil cage everyone is asleep or wandering aimlessly. It isn't Elliot Gould who also fits into the dullness of this film so well he's like a stripe on a dull pattern of wall paper. Why was he put into a film like MASH or it's hard to think of another film of his with much going for it when this is where he has always belonged. Art Carney, Anne Archer, David Hedison all like fish circling around a fish bowl or blobs in a lava lamp we watch them in a stupor. There is one performance that stands out one Lugosi, one Dwight Frye in a crowd David Manners and Everett Van Sloans. It's no surprise who it is, it's Rod Steiger. I want to be clear his performance is not good. He yells and whispers through the whole film like proto Nicholas Cage. He screams at the other actors, bullies them and worries over the turns in the plot as if they mattered to him personally. At times it seems like he's trying to wake the other actors up, trying to rouse them after they fallen asleep or lost interest. There is a crazy wonderful integrity to his performance that goes beyond questions of good or bad. He knows we're out there watching and he wants to give us something. His performance is a critique of dull bad acting. He seems to be seeing if you're going to be bad, if there is no way to be good than go big, don't go down without a fight, struggle against the awfulness. Laurence Olivier and some other highly skilled actors used to get through films like this by underplaying intentionally and quietly kidding and burlesquing the whole enterprise. Steigers performance critiques their approach and calls them cowards. He keeps laying on the energy cowing the other actors until it is not their characters that appeared embarrassed and intimidated but the actors themselves. Rod Steiger shows a crazed integrity. It's possibly the same integrity that allowed him to give so many fine even great performances. Cut loose from quality, artistry even competence, what else could he do?.

Filmmaker Bryan Forbes, who once displayed a light, sardonic touch with beguiling material such as "Whistle Down the Wind" and the original "Stepford Wives", completely bottoms out here. Not only is his direction inept, he also sloppily adapted Sidney Sheldon's early novel; the results are atrocious. Roger Moore plays a psychiatrist framed for the murder of one of his patients; Rod Steiger, chewing the scenery, is a hot-under-the-collar cop (it's easily his most embarrassing performance). The only actor here to exhibit some life is Elliott Gould, who knows a thing or two about enlivening a bum script. Bland, choppy, and produced on the cheap. NO STARS from ****

In fact the only reason to view this is for the fact that the cast, most of them, drag this tepid melodrama above water.Roger Moore, I asked myself, what's he doing in this? It must be for the fact that he had a chance to play a role out of type for him. He does a good turn as the psychiatrist who is over his head in attempts on his life.Elliot Gould is wonderful as the easygoing detective, until he is shown to be a mob sycophant. Then his portrayal becomes routine and hammy. This is typical for Gould, as he always plays serious and laconic characters well, and "yes-men" poorly. It isn't in his nature.Art Carney is memorable as the private detective. Anne Archer and David Hedison do good work if pretty standard for each.However, Rod Steiger is a shame. Where was the director when he needed toning down? He is just too overblown and intense to be believable. The fact is that Rod Steiger is a director's actor, he is able to take direction and create nuances when he is given that direction, and when he is let loose, he is not. Point in case, In the Heat of the Night, a similar character for him, alternating appropriately between outrage and understanding, well-done and well-directed role wins him an Oscar. Or how about his role of the Mexican bandit in Sergio Leone's Fistful of Dynamite? Again, directed well, he turns in a stellar performance.In this movie, it is embarrassing to see, for he's much better than what results are here. Other than the performances, this is a routine cop-mob-murder mystery.

I really liked Elliott Gould's (Stand-In/Double) Richard Slamp. He was excellent and made the movie worth seeing. I would like to see him in more films. Roger Moore is a great actor and I have enjoyed him starting in his early days as "The Saint". Rod Steiger is so intense...he is one of the best actors of his day. It's too bad that this film didn't get the screen coverage it deserved, it would have been a big hit. This film is rather dark and depressing, but the topic of the movie calls for this type of background. There are some very good shots of the beautiful city of Chicago in this movie. This film has several of my favorite actors in it and that in itself makes it a very interesting watch for me. Art Carney (Norton), Elliott Gould (Mash), Roger Moore (The Saint and 007) Rod Steiger (Some like it hot, etc), David Hedison (Voyage under the sea), and Rick Slamp (Elliot's Stand-in and Double) This movie has some negative comments about Gays. This may be one of the reasons it didn't make it. All-in-All it was a pretty good film and I would suggest you pick up a copy and give it a View.