The Naked and the Dead

Aldo Ray

Raoul Walsh's The Naked and the Dead is a heavily compromised version of Norman Mailer's novel that, nonetheless, is effective entertainment. The clash of Walsh's adventurism with Mailer's anti-authoritarianism makes this a fugless kluge that is neither fish nor fowl. However, Walsh's pictorial gifts fill the widescreen with colorful and abstract energy. He never winks at the audience by treating the action campily and the film's flashback sequences are as stylistically audacious as Tashlin and Ray's work from that same period. Aldo Ray, Cliff Robertson, and Raymond Massey are a solid march up the chain of command. It is also fun to see Richard Jaeckel and L. Q. Jones in their youth.