Frank Sinatra plays an American industrialist and widower based in London who is contacted by an old war buddy who needs his friend to deliver a message to a woman they were both acquainted with, now working in East Germany. After passing a microfilm to her hidden in his watchband, Sinatra is caught and then blackmailed into committing murder. Icy, depressing adaptation of an espionage novel, written under the pseudonym Francis Clifford, with a narrative so murky we are never sure how much of a dupe the Sinatra character is, or if indeed he was conned at all. Sidney J. Furie is responsible for the mechanical direction, usually filming the action in scenes from as far away as possible. Sinatra is either delivering a very low-keyed performance or is completely indifferent to the material--with nary a wink to the audience to tell us he knows this is junk and that he's just cashing a paycheck. *1/2 from ****

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.

This is an excellent spy thriller. The plot gets tangled at times, like what was that all about at the airport and the rifle? Sinatra is great and a well chosen international cast. It may be a B grade movie but you will certainly be entertained. The director uses a plethora of different camera angles which I thought were very good. It is too bad they didn't know how to end it.

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.