The Illustrated Man
The Illustrated Man
PG | 26 March 1969 (USA)
The Illustrated Man Trailers

A man who has a body almost completely covered in tattoos is searching for the woman who cursed him with the "skin illustrations". Each tattoo reveals a bizarre story, which is experienced by staring at the scene depicted. When the illustrated man meets a fellow tramp on the road a strange voyage begins.

Reviews
Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place
Bardlerx Strictly average movie
Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible
filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Wizard-8 After watching "The Illustrated Man", I did a little research on it, and discovered that writer Ray Bradbury - whose work was adapted for this movie - disliked this movie. Although I have not read any Bradbury, I think I can see where his dislike came from. The main problem with this movie is that it is often much too slow and more often than not lacks any serious bite. The first story (The Veldt) certainly suffers from those problems, coming across as really dull and having a so-called twist ending that's no surprise. The second story (The Long Rain) actually gets to a good start, but suffers from some confusing details as well as a frustrating ending. The third story (The Last Night Of The World) has a good idea, but like the first story suffers from a slow pace and a so-called twist ending that you'll predict long before it happens. The linking footage that connects the three stories is also too slow and long. Whether or not you're a Bradbury fan or not, more likely than not you'll be disappointed with this movie... unless you've ever wanted to see Rod Steiger do nudity.
AaronCapenBanner Based on Ray Bradbury's novel about a mysterious tattooed man(played gruffly by Rod Steiger) who meets up with a young wanderer(played by Robert Drivas) who recounts to him the circumstances that led him to be covered in tattoos, and how he is pursuing the mysterious(time-traveling?) woman who did it to him(played by Claire Bloom).The three tales adapted are: 'The Veldt' - Inconclusive and dull. 'The Long Rain' - The best of the three, but anticlimactic, & 'The Last Night Of The World' - Ineffective.Stories work better in the book, but were three of many; why those in particular were chosen is unknown, but film does not do it justice. Despite having a melancholy air, the results are unsatisfying.
ChromiumVortex Science-fiction films in the 1950s and 1960s more often than not were clichés of one another. Any one of us who watched "Creature Feature" on Saturday nights in the Washington, D.C. area back in 1970's and 1980's ought to know. Some of you out there may have picked up a similar program that featured horror and science-fiction movies. "The Illustrated Man" broke away from that overly trite mainstream of science-fiction movies that Gene Roddenberry shoved down the throats of many sci-fi buffs in the 1960's and 1970's. You were always being taken off guard by the next scene. You were not tortured with any egg-headed aliens or men with leprechaun ears or ray guns like on "Star Trek". Not that "Star Trek" was a bad show. It's just been over-plagiarized by movie producers of other science-fiction yarns. Rod Steiger gave this film his all, because although he was obnoxious as the illustrated man himself, he was like this either very charming, very intelligent, very family-oriented, or very caring individual in the stories that came alive whenever the young man drifter observed his body illustrations. Seeing so many different personalities played by one actor shows real talent in my opinion. I first saw "The Illustrated Man" on some local channel on a small black and white TV set my sister gave me for Christmas when I was living out in Los Angeles back in the 1990's. I saw it once again on a big-screen color TV set on the Sci-Fi Channel after I moved back to Northern Virginia and liked it both times I saw it. Nowadays and even in recent years past the sci-fi movie and television entertainment scene has either become inundated with virtual reality in the form of "Spiderman" or "Lost" or systematically sterile scripts in the form of "The X-files" or "Millenium". "The Illustrated Man" had unique qualities that set it apart from all the others. That to me is true science-fiction. Not imitating what the next movie director is doing.
whitesheik The Illustrated Man is now on DVD - it's a reasonably okay transfer (the color is a little off, but not much), but as always people who "review" these things on the IMDb trumpet "misunderstood masterpiece" so often it's laughable. No, this film, which was a critical and box-office disaster, has not become a masterpiece in the intervening years - it's the same bad film it always was. Anyone who says (condescendingly, I might add) "It's for thinkers" clearly knows little about Mr. Bradbury, cinema, or thinking. The film has no sense of rhythm or pace, and it just sits there like a dead herring. Mr. Steiger is fine, so is Claire Bloom and Robert Drivas, but the script is bad, and the normally reliable Jack Smight seems hamstrung by the material.