Run for the Sun *** (1956, Richard Widmark, Trevor Howard, Jane Greer, Peter van Eyck, Juan García) – Classic Movie Review 3521

Co-writer/director Roy Boulting’s 1956 adventure thriller Run for the Sun is the third version of Richard Connell’s prize-winning short story The Most Dangerous Game. Though it is one of the most anthologised stories of all time in book form, it is most famous now from its many movie versions, especially the original classic The Most Dangerous Game (1932).

Run for the Sun stars Richard Widmark and Jane Greer as action-adventure writer Mike Latimer and magazine reporter Katie Connors. Working for Sight Magazine, Katie has tracked down Hemingway-style novelist Mike to get a major scoop. Now both plane passengers on a flight to Mexico City, Mike and Katie are forced to make a bumpy touch down when their plane crashes near a remote hideaway of Nazi war criminals.

There they find themselves hunted down by English traitor Browne (Trevor Howard) and wounded fellow Nazi war criminal Dr Van Anders (Peter van Eyck). All too soon it turns out that they are at the total mercy of the crazed Nazi war criminals and that Dr Van Anders is really Colonel Wilham Von Andre.

Though thriller momentum is lost in footage squandered on a tepidly handled and delivered love affair between Mike and Katie, Connell’s old classic suspense tale still stands up powerfully in this movie.

The acting is way more than merely capable, with noir experts Widmark and Greer well paired and giving haunting performances, and Howard and van Eyck suitably chilly and creepy, while Boulting’s direction is expert too.

Also in the cast are Carlos Hennings, Juan García, Margarito Luna, José Chavez Trowe, José Antonio Carbajal, Guillermo Calles, Guillermo Bravo Sosa and Enedina Diaz de Leon, but it is all about the four main stars.

With the movies trying to combat the lure of TV with widescreen productions the Fifties public could not see at home, it was advertised as ‘The first motion picture to be exhibited in SuperScope-235! Full CinemaScope Screen.’

In 1954, Jane Russell formed the production company Russ-Field Corporation with her husband Bob Waterfield, signing a six-picture deal with United Artists. Run for the Sun (1956) and The King and Four Queens (1957) starring Clark Gable were the most successful and both made a profit.

Greer got a tropical virus on location which eventually led her to have a heart operation. Howard stepped in at short notice when the original cast member Leo Genn dropped out late in pre-production. Robert Wilder’s original script was rewritten and Genn did not like the result when he arrived in Mexico to start filming and pulled out. Genn sued Waterfield, who had to pay Genn his complete salary.

Run for the Sun is directed by Roy Boulting, runs 99 minutes, is made by Boulting and Russ-Field Corporation, is released by United Artists, is written by Roy Boulting and Dudley Nichols, based on Richard Connell’s short story The Most Dangerous Game, is shot in Technicolor and SuperScope-235 by Joseph LaShelle, is produced by Jane Russell, Robert Waterfield and Harry Tatelman, is scored by Frederick Steiner, and is designed by Alfred C Ybarra

Richard Connell’s prize-winning short story The Most Dangerous Game was first published in Collier’s on 19 January 1924 and has often been filmed, including The Most Dangerous Game (1932), A Game of Death (1945), Run for the Sun (1956), John Woo and Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Hard Target (1993) and Surviving the Game (1994) with Rutger Hauer.

While the 1932 hit The Most Dangerous Game was filmed entirely on the studio backlot using sets that later appeared in the 1933 King Kong, Run for the Sun was shot mostly on location in Mexico, though sets were also built for studio shooting at Estudios Churubusco in Mexico City. The jungle sequences were shot about 50 miles from Acapulco, Mexico. The villain in the 1932 film was a madman, but this time English traitor Browne is a former Nazi.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3521

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