The Illustrated Man (film)

Plot

Set in the backroads of America, the film enacts three of Bradbury's short stories set in the future, with Steiger as a man named Carl telling tales behind some of his tattoos, which he insists are not to be called tattoos, but only ever "skin illustrations." The stories are about virtual reality (The Veldt), a mysterious planet (The Long Rain) and the end of the world (The Last Night of the World). Carl, accompanied by his dog, Peke, tells his tales to Willie, a traveler. The tie-in prologue tells of how Carl came to be tattooed after he encountered a mysterious woman named Felicia (Claire Bloom) in a remote farmhouse.

Story summaries

Cast

Production

The Illustrated Man comprises three science fiction short stories from Ray Bradbury's collection of short stories The Illustrated Man. Howard B. Kreitsek wrote the screenplay that encompassed the stories "The Veldt", "The Long Rain", and "The Last Night of the World", Jack Smight directed the film. Bradbury was not consulted for the adaptation. The author sold story rights to the film in December 1967 for $85,000, but he did not sell the film rights. Since the collection included eighteen short stories, Smight chose three stories and used the carnival sideshow freak who appeared in the collection's prologue and epilogue as the film's primary narrative. As the tattooed man, the director cast Rod Steiger, whom he had known since the 1950s.

Reception

The Illustrated Man was considered a critical and financial failure. Time wrote, "Responsibility for the failure of The Illustrated Man must rest with Director Jack Smight. He has committed every possible error of style and taste, including the inexcusable fault of letting Steiger chew up every piece of scenery in sight."

Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "Mr. Kreitsek's screenplay is unsharp, without focus, working into and out of the hallucinations with great awkwardness." Canby found the film to have "moments of eerie beauty" but believed that the director was limited by the screenplay. The critic said, "Everything remains foetus-like and underdeveloped, although shrouded in misty pretentions of grandeur." Echoing Canby, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote, "Smight's confused, wandering film never does quite come to terms with what it wants to be." Ebert pointed out the film's weaknesses to be of acting and of character but did not find them to be fatal. He believed that film's major flaw was "inadequate attention" to the audience's expectations, distracting it with logic and lack of logic in the film's three stories. He concluded, "And so the film finally doesn't work for the same reason that comic Westerns usually fail: Because it's risky to fool around with a genre unless you know what you're doing."

Ray Bradbury said: "Rod was very good in it, but it wasn't a good film...the script was terrible".

According to John Stanley, "a major disappointment, for producer Howard B. Kreitsek's script fails to capture the poetry or imagination of Ray Bradbury's famous collection. Jack Smight is too conventional a director to give this the technique it screams out for.".

The movie was nominated for the Hugo Award best dramatic presentation, but did not win.

When The Illustrated Man was released on DVD in 2006, a retrospective review of the film wrote that the counterculture of the 1960s was evident in the film and that its depiction of the future did not age well.

Remake

In August 2007, Zack Snyder signed on to direct a remake of The Illustrated Man with Watchmen co-screenwriter Alex Tse as screenwriter.