Philip Kaufman is best known now for making art films for the masses but this early slice of madness is unlike any of his other films I've seen. Although looking very low-budget with shaky camerawork and bad on-location sound recording, this is a frenetic satire of comic book heroes with Voight as Fearless Frank and the bad False Frank. The bad guys look like they stepped out of a Dick Tracy comic with names like Screwnose and The Rat with cheap-looking makeup jobs to match. The anything-goes approach to the story seems like it was shot in an improvisational style which makes for a very disjointed film. I think Kaufman was trying to make an American pop culture satire in the style of self-indulgent European art movie directors like Jean-Luc Godard. This does not make it a good film, only an interesting one.
Review of Fearless Frank
