Interesteg What makes it different from others?

Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Jemima It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

bkoganbing I remember seeing The Naked Runner in theater when it came out and it holds a unique place in the annals of Frank Sinatra's career. Frank had been in some bad films before and would be again. But The Naked Runner is the only one I can say is downright dull. That's something I never thought possible.Sinatra plays an American industrialist and widower with a son, Michael Newport in school in the United Kingdom. During the war he was an intelligence man and British intelligence thinks he'd just be ideal for an assassination they have in mind. To insure his cooperation Newport is kidnapped and the rest of the film is will Frank or won't he do the mission thrust upon him.The Naked Runner is a dull actionless film devoid of any kind of interest. Sinatra is just not good at cerebral type acting. But I guess he made one effort more to show he could do a film without the Sinatra hipster like persona.In the just published book the second of James Kaplan's massive two volume biography of Frank Sinatra, we learn that Sinatra who left location shooting in Copenhagen to help out with Pat Brown's unsuccessful re-election campaign in California left word to close down production in Denmark and that he would shoot whatever else was needed in California. Instead producer Brad Dexter opted to shoot around Sinatra and send the product on to the studio. This is most likely the reason why at times it's incomprehensible.Dexter had become part of Sinatra's entourage a few years back saving him from drowning in Hawaii where they were shooting None But The Brave. This act of independence ended his Sinatra association which Dexter didn't regret. But the film became a sorry mess.Not even the most devoted Sinatra fan will like this one.

dbdumonteil There were harsh words written of that movie on the site and I think it's a bit unfair.Sure the screenplay looks like a cross between " The man who knew too much" and "the Mandchourian candidate".Sure the symbolism is somewhat ponderous: the lady and her puppets,the tunnel and daylight again.But it's an entertaining thriller,ideal for a rainy day :the screenplay is certainly smarter than that of the average thriller of today;Frank Sinatra does a good job,supported by a good cast ,particularly Darren Nesbitt as Colonel Hartmann .Not a masterpiece but not a dud either.People who like the movies I have mentioned can have a look.

MARIO GAUCI Frank Sinatra seemed to be in a thriller mood during the mid-to-late 1960s: in fact, he did five such genre efforts in quick succession – beginning with the caper ASSAULT ON A QUEEN (1966; which I’ve lost more times on Italian TV than I care to remember!) and concluding with LADY IN CEMENT (1968; with which I’ll be ending my Sinatra marathon in tribute to the 10th anniversary of his passing).THE NAKED RUNNER (needless to say, the title is metaphorical) was different in that it was a British production and dealt in espionage (a heavy-going brand of thriller prevalent during the Cold War); in that respect, the film’s humorlessness is matched by the bleakness of its locations…but, unfortunately, the plot itself doesn’t ignite great involvement from the viewer either – so that director Furie’s trademark stylistics largely fall flat! Furie had just had a hit with the similar THE IPCRESS FILE (1965) – which started off Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer series of spy thrillers; that character was noted for being the antithesis of James Bond (obviously, the prototype of the secret agent) – being pretty much a normal ‘bloke’ as opposed to an invincible stud (incidentally, I’ve just acquired a couple of Matt Helm titles which actually follow the Bond mould and, curiously enough, star Sinatra’s old chum Dean Martin)! This one, then, goes even further by making its hero a complete outsider – not only having been out of practice for over twenty years but he’s also a foreigner (and a family man to boot!); thrust into a situation he can’t really grasp, rather than emerge as some kind of victor by the end of it, he realizes he’s been duped all along…and, just as cynically, the director cuts things off abruptly without so much as an explanation or an apology from his ‘employers’ or even a proper coda! Some have singled out this finale as being responsible for the film’s lack of popularity; however, as I said, it never really takes off and Sinatra himself seems uncomfortable within this environment – despite expert cinematography by Otto Heller (who lensed a good many films of this type) and a suitably melancholic score from Harry Sukman. Perhaps it needed a stronger female role than Nadia Gray, the Sinatra character’s old flame from the war years, who disappears after only a couple of brief scenes – and his son, too, is treated more than anything like a prop! That said, the supporting cast includes a number of dependable British actors who all pull their weight – even if their characters aren’t always clearly defined (another deliberate attitude common to spy stuff from this era): Peter Vaughn, Derren Nesbitt, Cyril Luckham and a young Edward Fox.Incidentally, the producer of this film was actor Brad Dexter, the least-known member of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960); he was a personal friend of Sinatra’s whom he actually saved from drowning while filming Sinatra’s sole directorial stint, NONE BUT THE BRAVE (1965). I’ve recently come across conflicting reports on the reason why Sinatra severed his friendship with Dexter i.e. Sinatra didn’t want to be reminded of his indebtedness to Dexter or because Dexter tried to talk Sinatra out of marrying the much-younger Mia Farrow. Well, another valid reason could well have been because Dexter had saddled Sinatra with this lame thriller!!

gridoon Largely underrated by the critics and ignored by the movie-watching public, "The Naked Runner" is a film that definitely deserves your attention. The director, Sidney Furie, who had made the excellent "Ipcress File" two years earlier, shows (again) an instinctive feel for this genre, using many clever camera angles to inject a unique visual style into the picture. Maybe his style is a little too controlled at times (the movie is stiffly paced), but it's also unusually grim and thoughtful. And he also knows how to keep the story comprehensible - which is a relief for anyone who has seen such monstrosities as "The Kremlin Letter". Overall, this is an engrossing thriller, with an ending that's perhaps a little too abrupt, but also with a great, mature performance by Frank Sinatra.