The Illustrated Man

1969 "Don't dare stare at the illustrated man."
5.8| 1h43m| PG| en| More Info
Released: 26 March 1969 Released
Producted By: SKM
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

A man who has a body almost completely covered in tattoos is searching for the woman who cursed him with the "skin illustrations". Each tattoo reveals a bizarre story, which is experienced by staring at the scene depicted. When the illustrated man meets a fellow tramp on the road a strange voyage begins.

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Director

Jack Smight

Production Companies

SKM

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The Illustrated Man Audience Reviews

Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
VividSimon Simply Perfect
SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped
NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!
AaronCapenBanner Based on Ray Bradbury's novel about a mysterious tattooed man(played gruffly by Rod Steiger) who meets up with a young wanderer(played by Robert Drivas) who recounts to him the circumstances that led him to be covered in tattoos, and how he is pursuing the mysterious(time-traveling?) woman who did it to him(played by Claire Bloom).The three tales adapted are: 'The Veldt' - Inconclusive and dull. 'The Long Rain' - The best of the three, but anticlimactic, & 'The Last Night Of The World' - Ineffective.Stories work better in the book, but were three of many; why those in particular were chosen is unknown, but film does not do it justice. Despite having a melancholy air, the results are unsatisfying.
fedor8 It seems a lot of people hated this film, which isn't surprising at all. After all, the movie is unique, interesting, visually terrific, the story is a little disjointed, the title character is not a charismatic hero, the dog is kept in a bag, the music score doesn't have any Bon Jovi songs in it, and there is a definite lack of Tom Cruise - or any kind of tomocruisiness or leodecapricity.TIM is definitely not for the average movie-going Joe Schmoe. It is a very stylish take on one of Bradbury's LESSER anthologies. He is a good writer, but his TIM collection of stories is not as well-written as some of his other material. Hence if it's true that Bradbury hates this movie, he should actually be glad they made something out of very little. By far the best movie version of anything he's ever written.Someone also mentions that Rod Serling hated this film. Who cares what Serling liked or hated? He had nothing to do with this film, and besides: all his post early-60s screen efforts were crap anyway.One person even complained that only 3 stories were included in the movie. I guess he would have preferred to have fifteen 4-minute stories instead.Oh yeah... On the message board a person under the name of "viggolicious_x" refers to this as the "worst movie ever". If a person by that name (probably a teeny-bopper in love with 50 years older Viggo Mortensen) says TIM is an awful film then that is the highest recommendation any movie can get, methinks...
Muldwych 'The Illustrated Man' shows how good a writer Ray Bradbury was, not to mention how his head was full of fascinating ideas. It shows this because the film is incredibly dated today, from the acting styles to the visions of the future we witness. And yet I remained engrossed throughout, because beneath the anachronisms and barmy notions lie the same powerful film that resonated with me as a child.A lot of the film has little to do with the title character, although Rod Steiger's menacing performance will never let you forget the man with all-over body tattoos that come to life if you stare too hard. Also, Steiger himself has multiple roles throughout, and he delivers them with a mix of the theatrical bellow and long-faced stoicism of the period, but they still have their impact. Meanwhile of greater interest are the short stories each tattoo reveals. Like Bradbury's 'The Martian Chronicles', this film is a collection of tales woven around a central premise. We view his fears about where human society is heading, thanks to the all-pervading intrusion of technology into our lives.I'm reminded of a Poe line - "without music or an intriguing idea, colour becomes pallor, man becomes carcass, home becomes catacomb, and the dead are but for a moment motionless". What becomes of the human soul when the machines take over? Add the all-embracing pallor and single-chrome fashion of a typical 1960s vision of the future, and you have a very bleak picture indeed. Yet that's how people saw things then (our guesses on things to come will look just as ridiculous soon enough), and the central theme, given how far we've progressed technologically in the interim, cannot be any less relevant. I'm glad our modern perspective yearns for more colour though - never mind technology killing our souls - the achromatic architecture would make anyone suicidal enough already.Sojourns into futurity do of course suggest sci-fi trappings. Even putting aside the fact that predictions of the future quickly become dated, Ray Bradbury was never scientifically accurate at the time he wrote his stories. In 'The Martian Chronicles' for example, it is possible to breathe on Mars, water flows through canals, and a few blasts from a rocket's engines can terraform the atmosphere. 'The Illustrated Man' takes the same liberties with reality. Yet to dismiss it because of nonsensical scientific premises is to miss the point. The settings are not more than fabulous window dressing - fantasy masquerading as sci-fi. It is the exploration of the human condition in each tale that Bradbury is concerned with, and they are timeless.As such, while time has not been entirely kind to this screen adaption of 'The Illustrated Man', its emotional core remains intact. The Bradbury flair for the weird and the wonderful is untarnished, and his thoughts still clear. You just need to take a good long look at a rainbow afterwards.
Psalm 52 I saw this recently and it appeared muddled in its story-telling. There were parts I re-watched, and the ending just didn't deliver. Then I spoke w/ a female friend who knows Bradbury's writing style and she explained sections of the story that made me re-evaluate this film and arrive at the conclusion that this is a worthwhile adaptation. The Illustrated Man's body art tells stories that happened and that are-about-to-happen, hence the ending in which the young male traveler eyes the one non-inked area and foresees his own fate. My favorite sequence is when the Illustrated Man is in the woman's house after she's finished putting art on his body and she is no where in sight so he goes outside and when he turns to re-enter the house ... well, watch it yourself ... the image of what happens to said house is way kewl!