The Naked Runner
Encyclopedia
The Naked Runner is a 1967 British espionage film directed by Sidney J. Furie
and starring Frank Sinatra
, Peter Vaughan
, Edward Fox
. It was the last film Sinatra made with Warner Bros.
and is largely viewed as being a fairly disastrous end to his association with the studio.
(OSS) operative who is recruited by his former commanding officer to do a mission whilst he attends a business conference in Leipzig
. To insure his cooperation, his son his kidnapped.
and Assault on a Queen
having flopped badly in the two previous years. He put trusted aide Brad Dexter
in charge of finding a suitable vehicle and after negotiations for him to star in Harper
fell through, The Naked Runner was plan B. Sinatra had been impressed with 1965's The IPCRESS File
and recruited its director Sidney J. Furie
to give a similar feel to proceedings. Among the films co-stars were the sterling Peter Vaughan
, Derren Nesbitt
and Edward Fox
. Sinatra's fee was an at the time massive $1 million plus box-office participation.
Reports are of a troubled shoot with Sinatra playing the spoiled superstar. Two weeks into filming he temporarily closed down the shoot and flew to Las Vegas
to marry Mia Farrow
. He returned with the intention of combining their honeymoon with his filming and took regular weekend trips to the south of France
. This restless approach annoyed Dexter who had been looking to arrest what he saw as increasing laziness in Sinatra's on-screen performances. After one incident where Sinatra's helicopter (the star demanded a helicopter for all but the shortest journeys) got lost in the London fog and he arrived late, Sinatra threw a tantrum and demanded production be shut down and moved to Palm Springs
. Furie threatened to quit the picture rather than put up with Sinatra's behavior and had to be persuaded by Dexter to return. Sinatra was placated for the time being and shooting went without incident. However in Copenhagen
Sinatra left to perform at a rally for California's Democrat governor Pat Brown
(running against Republican Ronald Reagan
). Word arrived from the States that Sinatra was not going to return to Europe and wanted his outstanding scenes to be filmed at a soundstage in Los Angeles
.
Dexter and Furie decided to take the maverick action of finishing the film with a stand-in for Sinatra's remaining scenes, editing in close-ups from earlier shots in postproduction and over-dubbing the dialogue. However, the main problems were a lifeless depiction of spy-games, listless - if at times stylised - execution, heavy-handed plotting and little real characterisation. There are however some interesting locations - among them a still blitzed Leipzig
and a rare view inside Centre Point
.
, however, gave Frank Sinatra fair notice, commenting that "Sinatra, whose personal magnetism and acting ability are unquestioned, is shot down by script. Peter Vaughan overacts part as the British agent." The reviews of the film weren't enough to keep away audiences who made the film Sinatra's first hit - albeit a minor one - since the massive success of Von Ryan's Express
two years prior.
(pseudonym of Arthur Leonard Bell Thompson). The title comes from a quote from Arthur Symons
' In the wood of Finvava "A naked runner lost in a storm of spears" that begins the book. Furie's film follows the novel but makes the lead character an American based in London and also eliminates the suspense of the book.
Sidney J. Furie
Sidney J. Furie is a Canadian film director. Furie is perhaps best known for directing American Soldiers, The IPCRESS File, The Entity, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Lady Sings the Blues, The Boys, Gable and Lombard, Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York and the Iron Eagle films.Also...
and starring Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Peter Vaughan
Peter Vaughan
Peter Vaughan is an English character actor, known for many supporting roles in a variety of British film and television productions. He has worked extensively on the stage, becoming known for roles such as police inspectors, Soviet agents and similar parts...
, Edward Fox
Edward Fox (actor)
Edward Charles Morice Fox, OBE is an English stage, film and television actor.He is generally associated with portraying the role of the upper-class Englishman, such as the title character in the film The Day of the Jackal and King Edward VIII in the serial Edward & Mrs...
. It was the last film Sinatra made with Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
and is largely viewed as being a fairly disastrous end to his association with the studio.
Plot
Sam Laker (Sinatra) is a former World War II Office of Strategic ServicesOffice of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...
(OSS) operative who is recruited by his former commanding officer to do a mission whilst he attends a business conference in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
. To insure his cooperation, his son his kidnapped.
Production
Made in 1967, Sinatra was desperately in need of a hit - Marriage on the RocksMarriage on the Rocks
Marriage on the Rocks is a 1965 film comedy with Frank Sinatra, Deborah Kerr, and Dean Martin about a businessman's wife who ends up divorced by mistake and then married to his best friend by an even bigger mistake. The film was written by Cy Howard and directed by Jack Donohue.Marriage on the...
and Assault on a Queen
Assault on a Queen
Assault on a Queen is a 1966 American action-adventure film, directed by Jack Donohue, starring Frank Sinatra and Italian beauty Virna Lisi. Based on a 1959 novel by Jack Finney, it was adapted for the screen by Rod Serling and released by Paramount Pictures on June 15, 1966.-Plot summary:A World...
having flopped badly in the two previous years. He put trusted aide Brad Dexter
Brad Dexter
Brad Dexter , was an American actor.-Life and career:Dexter was born Boris Malanovich , in Goldfield, Nevada, of Serbian parentage. He spoke Serbian as his first language. Burly, dark and handsome, Brad Dexter was usually given supporting roles of a rugged character...
in charge of finding a suitable vehicle and after negotiations for him to star in Harper
Harper (film)
Harper is a 1966 film written by William Goldman from a novel by Ross Macdonald. The movie starred Paul Newman as the eponymous Lew Harper . The original music score was composed by Johnny Mandel. Goldman received a 1967 Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay...
fell through, The Naked Runner was plan B. Sinatra had been impressed with 1965's The IPCRESS File
The Ipcress File (film)
The Ipcress File is a 1965 British espionage film directed by Sidney J. Furie and starring Michael Caine, Guy Doleman, and Nigel Green. The screenplay by Bill Canaway and James Doran was based on Len Deighton's 1962 novel, The IPCRESS File. It has won critical acclaim and a BAFTA award for best...
and recruited its director Sidney J. Furie
Sidney J. Furie
Sidney J. Furie is a Canadian film director. Furie is perhaps best known for directing American Soldiers, The IPCRESS File, The Entity, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Lady Sings the Blues, The Boys, Gable and Lombard, Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York and the Iron Eagle films.Also...
to give a similar feel to proceedings. Among the films co-stars were the sterling Peter Vaughan
Peter Vaughan
Peter Vaughan is an English character actor, known for many supporting roles in a variety of British film and television productions. He has worked extensively on the stage, becoming known for roles such as police inspectors, Soviet agents and similar parts...
, Derren Nesbitt
Derren Nesbitt
Derren Nesbitt is an English actor. Possibly his best known role was as SS Major von Hapen in Where Eagles Dare.In 2008 he was writing a book on "biblical myths and falsehoods".-Acting career:...
and Edward Fox
Edward Fox (actor)
Edward Charles Morice Fox, OBE is an English stage, film and television actor.He is generally associated with portraying the role of the upper-class Englishman, such as the title character in the film The Day of the Jackal and King Edward VIII in the serial Edward & Mrs...
. Sinatra's fee was an at the time massive $1 million plus box-office participation.
Reports are of a troubled shoot with Sinatra playing the spoiled superstar. Two weeks into filming he temporarily closed down the shoot and flew to Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...
to marry Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow is an American actress, singer, humanitarian, and fashion model.Farrow first gained wide acclaim for her role as Allison Mackenzie in the soap opera Peyton Place, and for her subsequent short-lived marriage to Frank Sinatra...
. He returned with the intention of combining their honeymoon with his filming and took regular weekend trips to the south of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. This restless approach annoyed Dexter who had been looking to arrest what he saw as increasing laziness in Sinatra's on-screen performances. After one incident where Sinatra's helicopter (the star demanded a helicopter for all but the shortest journeys) got lost in the London fog and he arrived late, Sinatra threw a tantrum and demanded production be shut down and moved to Palm Springs
Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs is a desert city in Riverside County, California, within the Coachella Valley. It is located approximately 37 miles east of San Bernardino, 111 miles east of Los Angeles and 136 miles northeast of San Diego...
. Furie threatened to quit the picture rather than put up with Sinatra's behavior and had to be persuaded by Dexter to return. Sinatra was placated for the time being and shooting went without incident. However in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
Sinatra left to perform at a rally for California's Democrat governor Pat Brown
Pat Brown
Edmund Gerald "Pat" Brown, Sr. was the 32nd Governor of California, serving from 1959 to 1967, and the father of current Governor of California Jerry Brown.-Background:...
(running against Republican Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
). Word arrived from the States that Sinatra was not going to return to Europe and wanted his outstanding scenes to be filmed at a soundstage in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
.
Dexter and Furie decided to take the maverick action of finishing the film with a stand-in for Sinatra's remaining scenes, editing in close-ups from earlier shots in postproduction and over-dubbing the dialogue. However, the main problems were a lifeless depiction of spy-games, listless - if at times stylised - execution, heavy-handed plotting and little real characterisation. There are however some interesting locations - among them a still blitzed Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
and a rare view inside Centre Point
Centre Point
Centre Point is a substantial concrete and glass office building in central London, England, occupying 101-103 New Oxford Street, WC1, close to St Giles Circus and almost directly above Tottenham Court Road tube station. The site was once occupied by a gallows...
.
Critical reception
Opening to mostly poor reviews on July 19, 1967, The Naked Runner was criticised for its slow pace, camera work and plotting. VarietyVariety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
, however, gave Frank Sinatra fair notice, commenting that "Sinatra, whose personal magnetism and acting ability are unquestioned, is shot down by script. Peter Vaughan overacts part as the British agent." The reviews of the film weren't enough to keep away audiences who made the film Sinatra's first hit - albeit a minor one - since the massive success of Von Ryan's Express
Von Ryan's Express
Von Ryan's Express is a 1965 World War II adventure film starring Frank Sinatra and Trevor Howard, based on a novel by David Westheimer, and directed by Mark Robson.-Plot:...
two years prior.
Literary sources
The film is based on the 1965 novel by Francis CliffordFrancis Clifford (author)
Francis Clifford is a pen name of Arthur Leonard Bell Thompson, a British writer of crime and thriller novels. He was born in Bristol, served with great distinction in the Second World War, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order.-Novels:*Honour the Shrine *The Trembling Earth *Overdue...
(pseudonym of Arthur Leonard Bell Thompson). The title comes from a quote from Arthur Symons
Arthur Symons
Arthur William Symons , was a British poet, critic and magazine editor.-Life:Born in Milford Haven, Wales, of Cornish parents, Symons was educated privately, spending much of his time in France and Italy...
' In the wood of Finvava "A naked runner lost in a storm of spears" that begins the book. Furie's film follows the novel but makes the lead character an American based in London and also eliminates the suspense of the book.
External links
- Variety's Review: http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117793409.html?categoryid=31&cs=1&p=0