THE RUNNING MAN
UK, 1963, 103 minutes, Colour.
Laurence Harvey, Lee Remick, Alan Bates, Felix Aylmer, Eleanor Summerfield, Allan Cuthbertson, Noel Purcell, Fernando Rey, Colin Gordon, John Meillon.
Directed by Carol Reed.
The Running Mann is an entertaining thriller, a cat-and-mouse pursuit directed by veteran British director Carol Reed who made his reputation back in the 1930s with such films as The Citadel, the 1940s with Kipps and The Way Ahead as well as his Graham Greene adaptations The Fallen Idol and The Third Man. He also directed Odd Man Out. His films during the 1950s were somewhat more conventional though he did direct A Kid for Two Farthings as well as Our Man in Havana. He was, surprisingly, to win the Oscar for best director in 1968 for Oliver.
Laurence Harvey is at home in this kind of role. Lee Remick is always supportive as his wife. Alan Bates is the finance investigator pursuing the couple because the husband has feigned his own death, taken the insurance money and met up with his wife in Spain.
This is superior popular entertainment.
1. Was this an enjoyable film? A conventional thriller? How did it use its conventions, well? Pursuit of criminal, tricks, climax and chase, deaths? The romantic conventions?
2. How well did the film use its colour and Cinemascope, the locations, photography, the atmosphere of gloss? Was this appropriate for this kind of film?
3. How critical were the characters and the plot situations? Were they meant to be credible and real? Or were audiences meant to respond to their style?
4. Why was Rex Blake a Running Man? What kind of man was he? What motivated him? How was this made clear How greedy was he? Why did he grow greedy? Did he love Stella, did he change? How did he change personalities with Jerome? How did his own personality change? His growing in daring, the picture of the suave style and the harsh style? Why did he grow desperate, fearful? Cruel and trying to murder? The poetic justice of the irony of the death? Was he interesting as a person? As a fiction character?
5. How attractive a woman was Stella? Dominated by Rex? How much did she share his plan, his greed? How ordinary a woman was she, how bewildered by Rex? Her fears, her participating in his plans, her coping with the difficulties? Repelled by him? Repelled by his change? Why was she fascinated by Stephen? The horror of Rex’s trying to kill Stephen? What was she left with at the end?
6. How complex a character was Stephen? How well did the film communicate this ambiguity? As an insurance man, audience presuppositions about him when he reappeared in Spain? Stephen as a menace figure? The irony of the reality? The projection of Rex and Stella’s fears? His ordinariness in sharing the pleasures of a holiday? The unwitting victim? Audience attitude towards him and sympathy? The attempted murder? The end?
7. How well did the film build up its atmosphere of menace? Was it a good thriller?
