Who? (film)

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Who?
Who%3F film Theatrical release poster (1974).png
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Jack Gold
Written byJohn Gould
Based on Who? by Algis Budrys
Produced by Barry Levinson
Kurt Berthold (co-producer)
Starring Elliott Gould
Trevor Howard
Joseph Bova
CinematographyPetrus R. Schlömp
Edited by Norman Wanstall
Music by John Cameron
Production
companies
Lion International
Hemisphere
Distributed by British Lion Films
Release dates
  • 19 April 1974 (1974-04-19)(United Kingdom)
  • August 1975 (1975-08)(United States)
Running time
93 minutes
CountriesUnited Kingdom
United States
West Germany
LanguageEnglish

Who? (Also known as The Man in the Steel Mask, Roboman, Robo Man and Prisoner of the Skull) is a 1974 British science fiction film directed by Jack Gold and starring Elliott Gould, Trevor Howard and Joseph Bova. [1] It was based on the 1958 novel of the same name by Algis Budrys.

Contents

Plot

An enigmatic individual with a metal face is returned from East Germany and claims to be Lucas Martino, an American scientist who was working on a top-secret project but was severely injured and scarred in a car crash. American authorities hold him in custody while they try to establish whether the man is the real Martino or an impostor looking for secret information about the ultimate rocket project developed in the West.

Cast

Release

Although one 1983 British source stated that the film was shelved for five years after its completion in 1974, [2] contemporary sources indicate the film was screened theatrically in the U.S. in 1975, [3] [4] and broadcast on British television in 1976. [5]

Critical reception

Where Gold has clearly found congenial material in Trevor Howard as the Russian spymaster, he is less successful with Elliott Gould, whose hectoring phrases and exaggerated scowls appear the more mannered beside the expressionless little victim of his aggression. Like Martino himself, Who? finally gives the impression of something quite out of the ordinary that has lost the struggle to make itself heard. And like Martino, it survives as a patchwork of disparate material for which nobody, sadly, could find much usable epilogue. While there are clear signs of haste and penny-pinching in its lapses of continuity, and sets that are more symbolic than sumptuous, it has a no-nonsense directness in telling its story which, in the form of Algis Budrys' original novel, had the distinction of being superbly constructed in the first place.

The Iowa Gazette described it as "distinctly average but better than mediocre". [3] The Kentucky Courier-Journal dismissed it as a "clinker", calling it an "inane... funereal mess". [4]

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References

  1. ↑ "Who?". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 1 March 2024.
  2. ↑ Selway, Jennifer (6 February 1983). "The Week in View". The Observer. p. 40 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. 1 2 Halliday, Doc (12 June 1975). "Who? Conventional Spy Plot, but its Ending is Imaginative". The Gazette. Cedar Rapids: Iowa – via Newspapers.com.
  4. 1 2 Dietrich, Jean (27 September 1975). "After watching 'Who?' you start wondering why". The Courier-Journal. Louisville, Kentucky. p. A11 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ↑ "Weekend Television/Radio: BBC1". The Guardian. 24 July 1976. p. 16 – via Newspapers.com.
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