1963 - THE RUNNING MAN, disappointing thriller from Carol Reed

After being used and abused by Marlon Brando during the remake of Mutiny on the Bounty, the director Carol Reed signed on for a thriller which was primarily shot in Spain.  This should have been a film that Reed could have made in his sleep. After all he was the director of The Third Man, Odd Man Out and The Fallen Idol.  The Running Man turned out to be a big disappointment.

People on the set of The Running Man spoke about Reed's indecisiveness and for the most part Reed does seem to lose interest in the story.  Most of the film’s running time seems to be spent photographing the Spanish scenery which is stunning.  However taking pretty pictures of the countryside didn't exactly make for much of a story.

Laurence Harvey plays an airplane pilot who stages a plane crash in order for him and his co conspirator wife to cheat the insurance company out of their claim.  Alan Bates is the insurance investigator and Lee Remick is Harvey's wife.  Anyway, while hiding out in Spain and waiting for the insurance payoff, Harvey and Remick travel to much to their surprise run into Bates.  Is Bates on to their scheme or is he just on vacation? 

 

It's a decent enough story but the way Reed tells it he just completely sucks the suspense out of it.  Laurence Harvey does his smarty pants British crook shtick, Lee Remick is gorgeous to look at and she has really blonde hair.  Alan Bates seems to be wandering around in the film with nothing to do.  The film is just completely inert.

 

The Running Man was a big disappointment from Carol Reed whose future films seemed to show a filmmaker who had lost the light and was now bogged down in big, expensive and boring Hollywood films.

John Mortimer wrote the screenplay, the running time is 104 minutes.