Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

How sad is this?

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Skinny-dipping hitch-hiker Robert Drivas (as Willie) meets older, angst-ridden Rod Steiger (as Carl) in the California countryside. Upset because his body is nearly covered with tattoos, Mr. Steiger plans to kill the woman responsible - "skin illustrator" Claire Bloom (as Felicia). If you look at Steiger's tattoos, they tell stories and come alive. But if you look at the bare spot on Steiger's back, you may see a nightmarish future. We meet Ms. Bloom in a flashback, then Mr. Drivas admires Steiger's body art long enough to take us to a possible futures stories. This attempt to tie together a few of Ray Bradbury's original stories seems to be making a universal and penetrating point, then doesn't.**** The Illustrated Man (3/26/69) Jack Smight ~ Rod Steiger, Robert Drivas, Claire Bloom, Don Dubbins

It seems to me that the key to this movie is the mystery of the banked blazing passion of the character of Claire Bloom. It looks like sexual passion, but as the movie unfolds it reveals itself as raging agony.She inscribes scenes of terribly flawed men too willing to sacrifice others, scenes of terrible losses, scenes intended to make the viewer KNOW what rotten hopeless greedy self-centered vicious little apes we really are. This woman is a deeply civilized person who has suffered losses so terrible she is driven to travel in time and torment a surrogate for the man who caused them. She does it with exquisite controlled cruelty--the tattooing. The stories get closer to what really happened to her. She leaves in order to refrain from the culmination of her passion, which would be murder and not sex. She doesn't care that Steiger himself never hurt her because she knows now there are no innocents. And Rod Steiger is perfect--he FEELS like her innocent victim. All he wanted at the beginning was to be with this beautiful woman. It's just that she is incandescently bitter at humanity and he is human. He is no innocent, and by the time we meet him he knows it well. He knows every person who looks at his skin illustrations learns that s/he is no innocent, either, and then hates him. He is now as embittered and vengeful as the woman was, and that's her revenge on humanity.But then there's the stilted, awkward, vacuous non-performance of the other guy. It was as if they grabbed some carpenter's assistant to read through the script with Steiger because the real actor was passed out in his trailer. I thought Rod Steiger got more acting-back from the dog. (Many here seem to respect this actor--maybe in some other movie, but not this one.) This is what prevents it from being a masterpiece.

This movie is just not very good. That's the bottom line, despite Ray Bradbury, former Oscar Winner Steiger, and some good cinematography. The sum total (only "1" star) does not equal the whole of its parts, which should add up to a high rating. I completely agree with the noted critic Roger Ebert's review in the Chicage Sun-Times of August 6, 1969, wherein he gave it 2 stars, noted its many flaws, and generally did not like this movie. His comments are interesting and insightful.This is not the worst movie ever made- the acting is OK but like the rest of the movie the acting is just not good enough to accomplish anything of value.I saw this movie in a theater in 1969 with some of the few people who saw it then. The theater was about 90% empty and was silent as a stone, except for possibly an occasional yawn. No one at the time seemed to care for it, it was not regarded as "artsy" or even notable sci-fi. It came and went quickly and was soon forgotten. I wish I could give it more than a 1 star rating because of the talent involved, but I can't help feeling the same as in 1969: Why? Why was such great talent and ability assembled to produce...this?Try as I might, I still can't make a case for it even now, so many years after I (and Roger Ebert) first viewed it.

The power of a movie is how well it sticks with you. This one I saw at a drive-in back in 1970, and though I only considered it average at the time, one scene stuck with me through the years. The setting in rural depression-era United States helps set the mood of the meeting of a young drifter and a hardened hobo.Recently I acquired a used VHS tape of it and watched it through, and I remember why it stuck with me so well and so long. Not always well done, but yet it has power. The character Carl, well portrayed by the acting of Rod Steiger, starts to tell stories, and they take the young Willie, portrayed by Robert Drivas, on a wild mental ride that changes both their lives. I recommend it highly, and hope one day it will be out on DVD.