The Naked Face

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.

I think the entire film is a good film but the ending is a little bit too strange and seems not to be necessary. In my opinion we could cut out the last scene. The characters were played well, all in all a good film.

Roger Moore ("Dr. Stevens") is quite effective in this murder-mystery as an eminent psychiatrist who finds himself at the centre of a police investigation into the killing of his assistant and of one of his patients. Desperate to prove his innocence to police lieutenant "McGreavy" (Rod Steiger) and his sidekick "Angeli" (Elliott Gould), he must work out what exactly is going on. Is he the real target? Why? Who? Despite the efforts of a good cast, the writing is a bit lacklustre and it's fairly easy to spot who's pulling the strings - or, at least, who is helping the puppet master fairly early on, thereby robbing the plot of much jeopardy. As to the "why" element of the story, that proves to be really quite contrived, and in best Agatha Christie traditions there are too many new elements introduced near the end for us to have much of a go at playing detective ourselves on that front. It is entertaining to see these old pros on screen together, and that raises the standard somewhat - but basically, it's just a rather light-weight gangster film that you'll forget very quickly.

Contrary to some reviewers' comments, I thought that Roger Moore acted well enough here, portraying emotion such as when talking about his dead wife.

Rod Steiger and Elliot Gould were both good, though I assume that the former's hairpiece reflected what a police lieutenant, rather than a Hollywood star, could afford.

When the reason for the murders, murder attempts and general mayhem became apparent, it was something of an anticlimax as they didn't seem that necessary. The attempt to run down Dr Stevens in the passageway was particular hamfisted.

I'm tempted to see if I can buy a copy of the book on which the film is based, in the hope that it might fill in the several plot holes.

It was strange how the private detective, Morgens,chose to meet Stevens in a particularly isolated and forbidding area

As others have said, the ending was unsatisfactory and suggested there might be more trouble ahead.

Like other reviewers, I was half-hoping that Moore would switch into his Bond persona when he was being beaten up, but I guess that would have prompted me to complain that his Stevens character was not macho enough to do that.

I'm tempted to see if I can buy a copy of the book on which the film is based, in the hope that it might fill in the several plot holes.

EDIT: I bought a copy of the book, which the film generally followed, though the former did include two meetings at their homes that Dr Judd had with the sex-mad ex-actress and the lover of a gay patient at their homes. But the book did end on a clear and positive note, unlike the film - why did they have to tack on that final scene? One or two plot holes were explained, but not convincingly.

The Naked Face is from the Golam and Globus Israeli production company that for a time was producing films for the US market. As I recall, Shelley Winters stole an emerald ring off of a film set when she wasn't paid for her work.

They were able to attract good casts, and The Naked Face, bad as it was, had one: Roger Moore, Rod Steiger, Art Carney Elliott Gould, and Anne Archer.

The story concerns a psychiatrist (Moore) who is being possibly set up for murder of his secretary and a patient - or, as he suspects, someone is trying to kill him.

Steiger plays a detective holding a grudge due to Moore's testimony in a case where a defendant killed his partner and won an insanity plea.

Absolutely gratuitous scenes of violence and torture, very unpleasant. Also Anne Archer walked in and out of Moore's office for no apparent reason as she never disclosed her problem

The film isn't particularly well photographed. And it's not particularly good.