A suspense thriller not untypical of a number of adult crime films made in the early 1980s e.g. Cruising, Dressed to Kill, Death Wish II, Tightrope. Tension is taut between Moore and Steiger, the latter, famous by then for his 'scenery chewing' and here proves no exception. Moore convinces as the compassionate Chicago psychoanalyst under suspicion of murder and targeted for assassination. It's a mystery with twists and turns but the third act is a bolt on which creates plot holes. Gould brings his usual jauntiness and there's a nice turn from dear old Art Carney.

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?.

This was awful on so many counts that I don't know where to begin. Roger Moore is James Bond's wimpy brother; Rod Steiger is a shrill one-dimensional nut case; Elliot Gould is a wimpy, shallow robot; Anne Archer is beautiful but, oh, you get the idea. We've seen too many CSIs, perhaps, but from the way the evidence was unceremoniously dumped in Moore's office after the first murder, to the horrible police dialog when the secretary was murdered, we watched as an exercise in observation in how movies have improved. However, the language was much cleaner than if it were made today. Gotta watch a Bond movie now to see the Roger Moore we loved.

This is a truly ugly little movie - from start to finish, it lacks warmth, familiarity. Indeed, it begins and ends in a cemetery. Its look gives it a low budget feel- though the high powered cast must have made it more expensive than it looks. the movie is saved by its choice of actors. This must be one of the most unusual casts assembled: Art Carney, Roger Moore, Anne Archer, Elliott Gould, Rod Steiger, David Hedison (known particularly to Americans for the TV series, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea but I think he also served as Felix Leitner in one of the Bond movies). What a group.The sight of Roger Moore as a pathetic, terrified, weak, indignant psychiatrist is also truly disorienting. As he runs and pushes chairs against doorknobs to stop one man chasing him, trembling in fear, it's VERY hard to not cry out "007, WAKE UP! One karate chop will do it!I think the best of a generation of American actors were Rod Steiger, Jason Robards, Marlon Brando, and George C. Scott. Steiger's role isn't a wonderful one - but he is as usual, fascinating to watch to see the accents, looks, manners, that he will choose to portray the character. I am very fond of Elliott Gould - though he underplays his role here. Anne Archer is lovely - as she is as the wife of Harrison Ford in all the Tom Clancy/Jack Ryan movies, and of course as the wife of Michael Douglas in Fatal Attraction. Art Carney is absolutely extraordinary - very amusing - it's as if his dialogue was written by someone other than the sleepy TV movie of the week folks who wrote the other dialogue. This is worth watching - if you don't expect too much. E.g., if you want to see Roger Moore play another role - and I like Moore very much -it's fine. He's also charming and funny in the comedy, That Lucky Touch with Susannah York.