Nobody Runs Forever [The High Commissioner] * (1968, Rod Taylor, Christopher Plummer, Lilli Palmer) – Classic Movie Review 9129

Director Ralph Thomas’s 1968 Nobody Runs Forever [The High Commissioner] stars Rod Taylor as Australian police detective Sergeant Scobie Malone, who is sent to London to investigate the dodgy death of the first wife of the Aussie High Commissioner, Sir James Quentin (Christopher Plummer).

Malone finds Quentin up to his neck in Middle East peace negotiations – and that he may be innocent after all – in this daft Sixties action thriller adventure that lacks the required style and verve.

Wilfred Greatorex’s screenplay, based on Jon Cleary’s novel The High Commissioner, parades cliché after cliché in its desperate search for originality in a well-worn genre. The interesting cast of actors tries hard, but the tired story and naff dialogue offer them little help.

Nobody Runs Forever is inoffensive but more of a time waster than a time passer.

Also in the cast are Lilli Palmer, Camilla Sparv, Daliah Lavi, Clive Revill, Lee Montague, Calvin Lockhart, Derren Nesbitt, Leo McKern, Franchot Tone, Eddric Connor, Burt Kwouk, Russell Napier, Ken Wayne, Charles Tingwell, Leo McKern, Lionel Murton, Tony Selby, Gerald Sim, Gerry Crampton, Keith Bonnard, Peter Clay, Paul Grist and Terence Plummer.

R.I.P. Rod Taylor, dead at 84. Heart attack claims popular leading man of Sixties and Seventies cinema in January 2015.

It is followed by Scobie Malone (1975) with Jack Thompson as Sydney homicide detective Sergeant Scobie Malone.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9129

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