THE ILLUSTRATED MAN (1969)
Label: Warner Archive
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: PG
Duration: 103 Minutes
Audio: English DTS HD-Master Audio 2.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Jack Smight
Cast: Rod Steiger, Claire Bloom, Robert Drivas, Don Dubbins, Jason Evers, Tim Weldon, Christie Matchett
Jack Smight's sci-fi anthology is a collection of three short stories and a wrap-around that are loosely adapted from Ray Bradbury's 1951 collection of short stories, The Illustrated Man. It opens during America's Great Depression in the 30s with a hitchhiker named Willie (Robert Drivas, Cool Hand Luke), who stops off at a scenic lake off the beaten path for a cool swim and to settle in around a fire for the night. He is startled by the arrival of a travelling carnie named Carl (Rod Steiger, The Amityville Horror), a burly man who shows up with his tiny pet dog Peke, which he keeps stuffed away in a burlap bag for some reason.
The two make conversation around the fire, the talk becoming more ominous as Carl becomes increasingly agitated after showing Willie a picture of a house he's been looking for. Revealing that his entire body is covered in elaborate skin illustrations, which were done by a witchy woman named Felicia (Claire Bloom, The Haunting), who may or may not be a time-traveler, whom he says has lived in both the past and the future.
Furthermore, Carl regales Willie with stories of his love affair with Felicia, how he let her tattoo his entire body in hopes of getting laid, and how she suddenly disappeared, along with the whole damn house she lived in, and how he's been searching for her ever since, intent on killing her for cursing him with the skin-illustrations - which he says if you stare too deeply into you will witness the future, including your own death.
Carl and Willie's story is the wrap around story, eventually Willie gazes too deeply into the tattoos and three stories of sci-fi menace unfold before us, beginning with "The Veldt", in which parents (Steiger, Bloom) live in a futuristic house along with their two young and spoiled children, they have a virtual playground room for the kids which allows them to enjoy any environment they can imagine, but for some reason they are addicted to an African Savannah world where lions tear at the flesh of prey, the odd thing is that the African setting is not even programmed into the VR room. The parents along with a family psychologist (Drivas) think that the virtual reality room is not healthy for the children minds, when the parents address the issue with their children the kids go on to do something truly horrendous to ensure they get to keep their virtual world, much to the horror of the psychologist. Bradbury was not a fan of technology, as I recall he felt it was something that would bring a more disconnect to society, and this is right in that vein, a menacing killer kids story with a sci-fi bent, and a nice analog for violence in movies and TV and how that might affect impressionable minds.
Up next we have "The Long Rain", the story of group of Earth astronauts stranded on the planet Venus, lead by the largely disliked commander (Steiger). On Venus it rains heavily and continually, the rhythmic rainfall driving each of the men insane as they seek the shelter of an artificial "sun dome" which offers protection from the environment and the warmth of an artificial sun. The rough and cold commander pushes the men on, almost inhumanly, as his men consider plotting against him, all the while pushing the men to survive, to not give up, even promising them "space whores"! One by one the men reach their breaking point, some driven to suicide by the constant rain while others fall victim to the harsh alien environment. The men's sanity begins to fray when they circle back and find their own crashed spaceship (the same rocket ship from The Planet of the Apes), and when they come upon the first sun dome thinking they've found salvation only to find it has been destroyed.
This one is the most visually impressive of the trio of stories, with a weird alien Venus and a torrential downpour of rain, again we have Drivas as a character, one of the unhappy crew members, and Steiger is an awful, belligerent man, but he may not have been wrong in his survival tactics, as only one man makes it to the sun dome and the promised "space whores", which is rather silly when you think about it, it's supposed to be a shelter on an alien world, why are their whores there, but they had to squeeze in Bloom somehow I guess. I loved the alien flora and rocky landscape of it, it did manage to create a sense of alien foreboding for a bit, and the cast do an admirable job showing the mental breakdown as they each lose their sanity and will to survive, this was my favorite of the shorts.
The last of the three main stories is "The Last Night of the World", the apocalyptic story of an agrarian family, the loving parents and their two young children. It seems that all the adults of Earth have universally experienced an end of the world in a dream, something that has happened before with dire consequences, and it is decided by a council that to lessen the trauma for the unaware children that a particularly drastic action must be taken, but are these loving parents willing to do the unthinkable? There's a very expected twist that did not surprise me, this one doesn't hold up particularly well, and seems more akin to a Night Gallery short than something that should have been adapted for this anthology. The theme is powerful but the execution is ham-fisted and abbreviated.
The strongest story in my opinion is the wrap-around which weaves in and around the three main stories, Steiger comes across as half-mad and mysterious, while Drivas' hitchhiker is naive and bewildered by Carl's tale of a witchy time traveller, eventually seeing his own doom within the skin-illustrations he attempts to desperately change course with an act of violence.
I don't think that The Illustrated Man holds up as a great anthology or Bradbury adaptation, there are many better and deeper collections of sci-fi stories, but I do love the wrap-around story with the travelling carnie and the hitchhiker, and how it resolved. Steiger is great in every story, but the material is not. There's also a poignant sadness to Drivas' characters, brought out by his soulful eyes, it's just too bad that the script and the unimaginative director couldn't bring more substance to the whole affair, it lacks visual style and story punch, it's flat and too dire throughout.
Audio/Video: The Illustrated Man (1969) arrives on Blu-ray from the Warner Archive with a new 2017 HD Master. The image of this film in particular has always been problematic on home video in my opinion, it has a soft and gauzy look, shot with a soft-focus lensing that doesn't make for the most crisp and detailed HD image on Blu-ray. Skin tones tend to look ruddy and fine detail is hampered by the soft cinematography, but this is the best the Bradbury anthology has ever looked on home video, and it probably look authentic to the source, with strong color reproduction, more pronounced details within the limits of the source elements, contrast is also improved. The English DTS-HD MA 2.0 audio sounds crisp, dialogue and effects are nicely balanced, the Jerry Goldsmith (Chinatown) score sounds phenomenal, optional english subtitles are provided.
The Blu-ray has the same extras as the Warner DVD, a 10-minute featurette about the extensive tattooing that Steiger went through and the painstaking process of applying them daily. There's also a 3-minute HD trailer for the film.
Special Features:
- Vintage Featurette "Tattooed Steiger" (10 min)
- Theatrical Trailer (3 min) HD
The Illustrated Man (1969) is not a great science fiction anthology, the stories are a bit too dour and it lacks the imagination of Bradbury's written work, the segments seem more attuned to a TV anthology series (Twilight Zone, Night Gallery) than a truly cinematic endeavor. However, the stories are solid and decently wrought, they're just not astounding and feel like they could have been so much more in the hands of a more skilled director. That said, I do love the deep cuts that Warner Archive have been digging into this past year, I would not have expected The Illustrated Man to pop-up on Blu-ray, but it has and I am pleased to add it to the collection, it's not a stunner but it is an entertaining slice of sci-fi.
This advance copy of the release was provided by Warner Archive for review, and will be released on September 19th 2017 at the usual retail outlets.
