FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.
Listonixio Fresh and Exciting
Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Lee Eisenberg Knowing that Philip Kaufman directed movies like "The Right Stuff", it blows the mind that he once directed the cornball "Fearless Frank". Jon Voight plays a drifter who gets murdered and then reanimated as a superhero. With cartoonish action and speech that sounds like a recording of a recording, it's impossible not to laugh at this. It's going to be hard to find a copy, though. I suspect that Kaufman's too embarrassed about this movie to release it.As for the rest of the cast, Monique van Vooren apparently is best known for appearances in Andy Warhol movies. Severn Darden was a character actor over a number of years (I best remember him from "The President's Analyst" and "Saturday the 14th"). Nelson Algren (Needles) was the author of "The Man with the Golden Arm", and Ken Nordine (the narrator) was a jazz vocalist.
TheExpatriate700 Fearless Frank is a genuinely odd early work by Philip Kaufman, featuring an early performance by Jon Voight as a flawed superhero. It attempts to recreate the feel and atmosphere of a comic book, particularly in its first half. Ultimately, it is a mixed bag that will have difficulty appealing either to children or to fans of experimental film.If you watch only the first half hour, Fearless Frank appears to be intended as a children's film. The characters seem straight out of a Dick Tracy comic, complete with bizarrely disfigured criminals. There is a definite camp element to this section of the film, with comic narration provided by a mysterious, and melodramatic, on screen narrator with a typewriter. Similarly, a scientist's patented evil detector gives the proceedings the feel of a sixties children's matinée. Only the plot line, which revolves around a young farm boy resurrected from the dead to become a superhero suggests anythingHowever, the film gets increasingly odd as it goes along. A clone of the hero is introduced, and the plot shifts from a straight superhero story to one of a character corrupted by success. From here the film becomes increasingly surreal and inaccessible. In the end, it becomes more of a film for Kaufman completists than a film one would watch for enjoyment.
bobby cormier i LOVE this movie. I LOVE it! i saw it in the 1980s, which contradicts other reviewers info here. but i saw it, not in the movie theaters and not on television, but in film school. the school of visual arts had the foresight at that time, to show and old film, at that time, to a bunch of lunatic film students and everyone cheered and went nuts. now, this film isn't for everyone. and i don't think i'm better or worse than anyone else who's seen this. but we'd been trained to recognize "camp" and "campy" production values for their own sake. this's a spirited romp. with an ultimately downbeat message. voight is great. monique van vooren is wonderful (always wonderful to see an underrated actress used so well) and the oddball cameos are... odd. the improvised dialog (hell, improvised shooting in chi-town) make this a must-see for fans of casavettes. think "shadows", comically unhinged. yeah, it's amateurish at times. yeah, those holes show right through. but watch this either in your 'teens or twenties, or if you can't do that, stoned might help. or if you have a non-uptight sense of the daring and outlandish, this should work for you. if you're looking for seamless, state of the art, same-ness by today's eyeball knockout special effects standards, don't even bother. you just won't get it and end up being angry for your wasted time. otherwise, check it out!
jefrodnice One of the most refreshingly unique films I have ever seen. A must-see for those who liked Raising Arizona or the Space Ghost series. Campy and entertaining and a most welcome break from the formulaic drivel. If you like "pop" movies, you will not understand this one. But if you are tired of the same old thing, you need a hero. Fearless Frank is that hero.
