User reviews

Based on Francis Clifford's novel of the same name, The Naked Runner is an obscure but creditable thriller, and a rarely seen entry in Frank Sinatra's filmography.

To discuss the plot would be to spoil it so I won't do that. Suffice to say, furniture designer Sam Laker is pressured by a friend working for British Intelligence into doing a job in Leipzig to help an old wartime flame... but nothing is as it seems once he reaches East Germany. At that point we are firmly on Le Carre territory, with cross following double cross all the way to the end. And it is the end that is the problem; it cannot carry the weight of everything that has passed before.

The reasons for this are fairly obvious: firstly, in the novel, the reader is as oblivious as Laker as to what is going on and greets every new plot twist with a frustration and incomprehension that Laker shares. This serves to heighten suspense at every level, and Laker's character becomes a fascinating comparison exercise with our own reactions as a reader. The writer of the film, Stanley Mann, chose to place the viewer firmly on the other side of the plot - so we know what is happening to Laker, and why. This serves to undermine him as a character, making him appear hapless, transient, and surly; that Sinatra plays him as such reflects, I think, that he understood as a performer that a narrative mistake had been made. Secondly, the ending is abrupt; indeed Laker's exclusion, you might almost say his quarantine, from the plot is solved by precisely five seconds of hurried dialogue over the end credits of the movie. This is a serious error of judgment that leaves the viewer with a profound sense of disappointment, which is why I've titled this review The Non-Nude Runner: I felt a little robbed.

Apart from the botched ending it is an entertaining yarn. There are excellent performances by Peter Vaughn and Derren Nesbitt. Sinatra is very good too - his performance is low-key and it's obvious he had carefully studied the textbook performance for this kind of role; that of Richard Burton in The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.

Recommended for fans of Sinatra, and followers of cold war thrillers. But make sure you read the book - it's excellent.

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.

A British espionage drama; A story based on a premise that British Intelligence cannot assign one of its own agents to murder a defector to Russia. Frank Sinatra's performance was excellent - the best thing about the film. He gave a convincing portrayal of a middle aged man under duress, forced into completing a dangerous mission. The director's stylish direction and trademark camerawork created a distinct atmosphere as an espionage thriller, though it was hard to keep this consistent when the plot became protracted. The story dullens in the middle and is marred by an abrupt ending. The locations are all interesting, particularly post-war Leipzig.

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.

I have always liked Sinatra's acting, regardless of the pompous know it all critics here and elsewhere. However, the ending, really? Am I the only one that was let down with it? I won't say why, I think if you are a normal male(maybe even females would have the same reaction?) You'll know exactly what I mean without spoiling it for you. Still, I enjoyed the movie, I had missed this one. My favorite is Von Ryans Express, if you never saw it before, give it a try . 7/10 for me. Still worth the time.

I liked the Mauser gun that Sinatra used to kill the unhappy man with glasses. Then, the Romanian Nadia Gray makes a big role from a small part. Peter Vaughan and Derren Nesbitt both steal the film with their special performances. Sinatra is the same as in all his films, it's not bad but not great. Edward Fox has a role too small to show how great he is. Nobody runs naked in this movie, the title was chosen just to attract. In my opinion, the Russians would have boarded Frenzl directly on a plane to Moscow, they would not have traveled all over Europe, only to play the English game, to psychically prepare Laker-Sinatra for assassination.

Frank Sinatra plays Sam Laker, a businessman who lives in England. After fighting in the way, Sam decided to stay in the UK and raise a family. His wife is deceased and he has a young son. One day, Sam is approached by an old acquaintance who works for MI-6 (sort of like the Brit's version of the CIA). He wants Sam to drop off some message to an agent in East Germany and it looks like a very simple job. Surprisingly, he agrees to do it and soon finds himself taken into custody after making this drop. His captors inform him he's got to kill a man or they'll kill his son...the son they've taken captive as well. What's next? Well, a very confusing and round about plot...that's for sure.

Sinatra plays an unusually laconic character. He isn't easy to figure out, nor is the plot which seems a bit over-complicated and depressing. It's not that it's a bad film...but it's also one that is difficult to love. One of Sinatra's rare misses, as making an adequate film is definitely a disappointment given his excellent track record.

Frank Sinatra's previous two films had flopped and he was sufficiently impressed with 'The Ipcress File' to work with Sidney J. Furie in this adaptation of Frances Clifford's novel. Although it fared pretty well at the box office as a film it must be accounted a failure. A defector has to be assassinated and British Intelligence is running out of time to find a suitable killer. He has to be sufficiently motivated and a crack shot. Agent Slattery sees a photograph in the paper of former wartime friend Sam Laker and realises that he has found the perfect candidate.......So far so good but thereafter the film falls down. Rather than letting the film speak for itself we are subjected to endless scenes of psycho-babble between a psychiatrist, Slattery and a cabinet minister describing the means employed to get Laker to do the job. Screenwriter Stanley Mann and director Furie have obviously decided to aim their film at the slowest-witted person watching and thereby robbed it of its impact. Also the ending is too abrupt to be satisfying. This is a pity because Sinatra is excellent as Laker and possesses the quality that great stars have of making you care what happens to them. Peter Vaughan and Derren Nesbitt give good support and there is a very nice performance from Toby Robins. Otto Heller is the cinematographer and there is a haunting theme tune by Harry Sukman which Sinatra later recorded as 'You are there' with lyrics by Paul Francis Webster. Critic Philip French coined the phrase 'Sidney J. Furie, signifying nothing'. A harsh judgement but regarding this film it certainly holds true.

One of the later Cold War thrillers to come out of the 60s, with the twist here being that this one enmeshes both Britain and America as co-protagonists against the dread Reds of Russia.

More than that, it's a starring vehicle for Frank Sinatra, heading up a largely British cast, who features as a long-retired top ranking US soldier corralled into assisting British intelligence in their top-secret plan to assassinate a double-agent who's been picked up by their Russian counterparts and is being shipped off presumably to Siberia. I say shipped off but luckily a good portion of his journey will apparently be by road, giving our guys every chance to take him out en route before he can do the dirty.

So surely this is a job you would think, for Jimmy Bond or even Harry Palmer, but it seems they're too famous so the high-level decision is made to recruit Sinatra's Sam Laker civilian character who since becoming a widower years before now lives in London apparently designing furniture.

How he's nefariously drawn into the secret service net who'll and forced by fits and starts into being a reluctant killer on civvy street is then played out tensely, if somewhat painstakingly, over the rest of the movie.

Sinatra is about the only American actor in the cast of this very British feature with a host of experienced faces well known to Brits (like me) of a certain vintage, such as Peter Vaughan, Derren Nesbitt and Edward Fox.

Ol' Blue Eyes doesn't quite convince me he fits in with the Brits in all this but director Sidney J Furie knows how to keep the ingredients simmering in what could have been a mere potboiler into something a bit more heated, even if the ending seemed a bit sudden and straightforward.

The film opens with a man's emotionless face in close up, enormously loud classical piano music and a phone ringing in the background. Is he listening to the music or is overlaid title music? This combination of intrusiveness and unclear purpose at the very opening of the film bodes badly for what follows. Sinatra, the world's finest singer of his time, was not a good actor but starry company and stirring plot buoyed up his performances. Here though he was with an unstarry made-for-TV cast with a convoluted plot and uninvolving characters where the task of carrying the film proved too much.

Tribute should be paid to the career of its director Sydney J. Furie who appears to be still directing at the age of 85 following a career of 50 years including the brilliant Ipcress File, Lady Sings the Blues and a string of Cliff Richard vehicles early on. Slack deserves to be cut for him on The Naked Runner. As he acknowledged in his personal quote - not every film was a winner. Some definitely were, sadly not this one.

This is definitely a typical B-type 1960's European spy thriller, but certainly not bad. Convoluted plot, but the use of extreme close-ups, tasteful melancholy score, and an excellent performance by Sinatra make it worthwhile viewing for fans of Sinatra dramas. His performance is very intense and believable. While the plot is needlessly tangled and premise is farfetched, the film is not at all corny - its presentation is perhaps more difnified than the plot and payoff deserve. Sinatra's performance is the best thing about it. A lengthier, better plot and bigger payoff would have lifted the film up into something near "The Iprcess File" league. The other good aspects of that film are in place here, but this remains a B-level spy thriller despite an obvious attempt to make an A-level thriller. Still, a must-see for Sinatra fans - but perhaps on cable or rental.

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.

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!!

Who doesn' t miss the Cold War as a dramatic device? No matter how convoluted the story, I find myself relaxing into the general atmosphere of spy games with the old Soviet satellites. To have Frank Sinatra as a man enjoying some success in the conventional business world enlisted to an espionage plot because of past wartime activities sets up an intriguing situation that you won't get from, say, a Tom Cruise.

After what happened to him in real life, I'm surprised Frank Sinatra agreed to make the movie The Naked Runner. He plays a man whose son gets kidnapped; didn't that hit too close to home? His child gets lured away by strangers at an airport, and Frank follows mysterious clues and ransom notes to get him back. Along the way, he meets up with a woman from his past and has to face his demons.

This European indie flick doesn't really go anywhere, even though it promises to. Frankie looks both bored, depressed, and sorry that he agreed to make the movie in the first place. There aren't any other actors you'll recognize, and the plot isn't nearly as riveting as other kidnapping movies. Unless it's your mission to watch every Frank Sinatra movie ever made, you can skip it. For a better late-60s drama, check him out in The Detective.

Frank Sinatra plays a US 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. She's now in East Germany and, after passing a microfilm to her hidden in his watchband, Sinatra is caught and then blackmailed into committing a murder. Icy, depressing adaptation of the espionage novel written by Francis Clifford (a pseudonym for Arthur Leonard Bell Thompson) featuring a narrative so murky, we are never sure how much of a dupe the Sinatra character is--or, indeed, if he was conned at all! Sidney J. Furie is responsible for the mechanical direction; for some unwarranted reason, he usually keeps the camera a great distance from the action. As for the star, Sinatra is either delivering a very low-keyed performance here or he's completely indifferent to the material--with nary a wink to the audience that he knows this is junky stuff and he's only here for the paycheck. *1/2 from ****

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.

I caught this twice when I was a mere lad, remembering the physically beautiful Derren Nesbitt if nothing else ("Neizer voz I, Mr. Laker"). Reading Kitty Kelley's bio of Frank made me want to revisit it, but it's not available on any legit platforms. So this is from memory ; )

Frank Sinatra plays an award-winning US chair designer (?) who used to be a top sniper in Special Ops. (Kitty Kelley snarks: nothing like Frank's actual service record. Or his chair design record).

The main driver of the plot is how MI6 manage to coerce Sam Laker (Frank) into pulling off the assassination, after 20-odd years in the chair business, of an escaped Russian agent.

For the rest of it, the usual British film industry stalwarts (Peter Vaughan, etc) play the usual British cold war stooges. All the exposition and plot development is done through dialogue, unfortunately - The Naked Runner really would work better on radio. Or just as badly.

Some interesting shots of 1967 London, Leipzig and Copenhagen. Some very uninteresting shots of actors explaining the plot. Frank's long-barrel Mauser makes Napoleon Solo's packaway gun look like a water pistol and you might have fun spotting James Payne standing in for Frank who apparently declined to return from the US to finish his scenes. James Fox has a bit part as a posh bloke called Jackson.

The music is stirring, Frank is cool. The script, however, is less cold war than cold turkey. I never rated the same director's Ipcress File much, either, tbh.

I had pretty high expectations from this movie.

I really liked The Ipcress File, The Boys in Company C, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Ladybugs from director Sidney J. Furie.

I also liked many other movies from Frank Sinatra, even togh he's not really an actor.

But this one was a complete mess form start to end.

The plot / plan / scheme was so convoluted sometimes, it made my head spin. Yes, I understand it was a spy movie, some of the plot twists were really intriguing, but also very infuriating at the same time. Some of them made no sense, even after finding out the exact nature of the plot twist. Some of them were so easy, so hack, it made me wonder who wrote the script, a 5 year old with a passion for Scooby Doo mysteries?

The ending was so abrupt and so meaningless and so anticlimactic, it made me curse for about 45 seconds.

The best thing about this film is the music by Harry Sukman, a name I have never seen before. It is romantic and moody and very remindful of "Dangerous Moonlight" and the Warsaw Concerto, like being almost an effort to reach the same kind of Rachmaninov passion, but there is no passion in this film, Frank Sinatra's wife is long since dead, and his son's adventure in Leipzig leads to some passion on Sinatra's part but rather of murder and fury than anything else. The plot is overdone and rather screwed up, and Peter Vaughan on the screen always has a capacity of giving you the creeps - his vibrations are always thoroughly unpleasant, and here he is the director of the murder plot. A very young Edward Fox is seen as a minor character, perhaps preparing to make the jackal. There is something of the same stylishness here as in Sidney J. Furie's earlier film "The Ipcress File", but here the script is poorer. In Ipcress you had no chance of getting any idea of what really was going on until the last moment, but here everything is nakedly clear from the beginning - to everyone, except to poor Frank Sinatra, who is amazingly unaware of how he is being manipulated. He makes a good performance as usual, but the script and plot here were not really worthy of him - most of his films are much better.