Don't you wish there were a movie called THE NAKED FACE? And what if it starred your favorite acting team? That's right: Roger Moore,
Rod Steiger, and Art Carney! And like any movie starring Roger Moore, Rod Steiger, and Art Carney, our theoretical movie should have come out in
1985 - often known as "The Year of Roger Moore, Rod Steiger, and Art Carney." Dear friends, it's not a dream. It's real!
I watched it last night when I couldn't sleep. Well, some of it. I should state right away that the title is misleading: Roger Moore's face is not naked at all. In fact, in many scenes he wears
glasses as large as Louis Jordan's in SWAMP THING. Maybe they're the same glasses! And maybe my brain was a little hazy in the wee hours when I flipped on THE NAKED FACE, but I could swear it features an assassin who turns his wheelchair into a motorcycle, just like those Transformers all you kids love! Next there was a scene of Rod Steiger ranting and screaming the way he does sometimes. He was ACTING. He was a ranting, screaming police detective with his eyes popping out of his head, and his partner was
Elliott Gould, which was a surprise. Elliott Gould just stood there against a wall in that laid-back, slightly slack-jawed way of his while Rod Steiger stomped around looking for any remaining bits of scenery to devour. I'll tell you one thing I learned last night: Roger Moore, Elliott Gould, and Rod Steiger went to very different acting schools. You should see them together. It's like watching three entirely different movies at once! What a bargain. So some other dudes are trying to kill Roger Moore and he runs into his little bedroom and props a chair under the doorknob! It seemed so quaint, and not at all like
James Bond. The killers were thwarted by the doorknob, which they kept rattling in vain. Next Rod Steiger comes back to investigate and this time he decides to whisper. He's still very tense, but he just whispers everything for a change of pace. Like, "I really think my character would whisper everything in this scene." And
the director was like, "Whatever you say, Rod Steiger." Then Rod Steiger goes to
a diner with Elliott Gould and whispers some more but Elliott Gould gets on his nerves and all of a sudden he's screaming again. What a roller coaster ride! And all this time I'm thinking, "Must make it to Art Carney... Must make it to Art Carney..." He was third-billed in the
capsule description after all. But friends, I didn't make it to Art Carney. It gradually seemed preferable to lie in bed staring at the ceiling and contemplating the terrible abyss, which is exactly what I did. The end.
