Fearless Frank

Fearless Frank is a genuinely odd early work by Philip Kaufman, featuring an early performance by Jon Voight as a flawed superhero. It attempts to recreate the feel and atmosphere of a comic book, particularly in its first half. Ultimately, it is a mixed bag that will have difficulty appealing either to children or to fans of experimental film.

If you watch only the first half hour, Fearless Frank appears to be intended as a children's film. The characters seem straight out of a Dick Tracy comic, complete with bizarrely disfigured criminals. There is a definite camp element to this section of the film, with comic narration provided by a mysterious, and melodramatic, on screen narrator with a typewriter. Similarly, a scientist's patented evil detector gives the proceedings the feel of a sixties children's matinée. Only the plot line, which revolves around a young farm boy resurrected from the dead to become a superhero suggests anything

However, the film gets increasingly odd as it goes along. A clone of the hero is introduced, and the plot shifts from a straight superhero story to one of a character corrupted by success. From here the film becomes increasingly surreal and inaccessible. In the end, it becomes more of a film for Kaufman completists than a film one would watch for enjoyment.

Starring Jon Voight and chubby comic actor Severin Darden, FEARLESS FRANK is an obscure pop morality play gone wrong. Receiving somewhat limited release, it quickly gravitated to infrequent television showings, via American-International Television.

The story concerns Darden's Doctor, who creates a perfect crimefighter, Frank. Played as immaculately cool, in a slick suit, narrow tie and shades, Frank easily bashes baddies until his ego gains the upper hand and proves his destruction.

In the end, battered and scarred, he's rowed off to quieter climes, no longer able to function as a crimefighter or -- in many ways -- a complete human being.

An interesting watch, though overall it shows largely cut-rate production values and a somewhat depressing atmosphere as Frank begins developing chinks in his armor which first pit him against the Doctor in small ways, and later lead to his falling from grace and into the hands of is enemies. The films seems to have vanished from sight, last showing on regional television in the early 1970s, slightly prior to Filmways' buy-out of AIP and their subsequent selling off of the studio's film library.

I was on board with Fearless Frank for the first 30 minutes or so. It made me laugh a few times and had the sort of anarchic and silly energy that makes The Beatles' Help a lot of fun (it's easier to compare this film to that one, rather than anything else Jon Voight or Philip Kaufman went on to make; both went on to bigger and much better things).

But unfortunately, Fearless Frank is longer than half an hour, and I grew tired of it as it went along. For the sheer weirdness of its existence, I feel like it might be worth a curiosity watch. There were entertaining moments too (the first gag involving Frank's super punching ability made me laugh more than I'd probably be willing to admit), but not quite enough for this to feel like a "good" movie.

But hey, for what it's worth, I've definitely seen inferior superhero movies.

I first saw this film when I was 11 years old (on the KTLA 'Movies Til Dawn' at 2:00 am), and I didn't realize the impact it had on me until I saw it again a few months ago (17 years later). I found two scenes between Frank and False Frank had really affected me, SPOILER WARNING: One was when Frank, after he has fallen from grace, tries to fly and falls to his destruction on the pavement below and fades away. It affected me that the 'hero' of the film should die that way, the hero believing in his own abilities and dying because of his own failings. Second, when the False Frank is crying in the boat at the end of the film. I was again bothered by the image of the new 'hero' losing emotional control like that. Possibly these images don't mean anything to the vast majority of people who saw the film, but they had a profound effect on me. I am surprised at how few people have voted/commented on this film. I feel it is an undiscovered gem of film-making, waiting for a re-appraisal.

Wow. You actually have to wonder how Jon Voight got the Midnight Cowboy gig after being in this one.

I only watched it to see Monique Van Vooren who got top billing and she was in it much. David Steinberg, of all people showed up playing The Rat.

This tells you what a weird movie it is. The effects suck.