Man on the Run (1949)

Pretty Good

How sad is this?

Great Film overall

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

My pet hate in thrillers is contrivances.For example when Derek Farr is on the run he dashes in to a door and admits to the lady of the house that he is on the run.What does she do,scream,no she takes him in and makes him comfortable.Then later on she goes into a café and there is a man having lunch with part of his finger missing.The film does go on like this.I tend to find that it represents a lack of imagination on the part of the writer and director,in that they cannot find anything original to cover these situations.The second half of this film develops a faster pace and there are a number of eyecatching performances.A very young Laurence Harvey at the start of his career.Also Eleanor Summerfield also at the early stages of her acting career.Competently made but nothing startling or original

Derek Farr (Peter Burden) is an army deserter who is blackmailed by Kenneth More when More wanders into a pub on a coastal town and recognizes him serving drinks behind the bar. Farr goes on the run again and ends up owing rent to his landlord in London, who threatens him with eviction. Farr then goes into a pawnshop with a gun at the exact same time as an armed robbery is taking place. A policeman is killed and the assistant falsely thinks that Farr is one of the armed gang. Once again he's on the run, this time for his implication in the robbery and the killing of a policeman. He teams up with Joan Hopkins (Jean) and sets out to prove his innocence in this latter crime. Chief Inspector Edward Chapman and detective Laurence Harvey are the police trying to solve the case.This is a quick moving film that unfortunately suffers from a poor quality print. However, the story involves the audience despite some of the sliminess of Laurence Harvey and how he speaks. Joan Hopkins also effects a ridiculous Englishness when she talks, eg, the word "actually" becomes "ectually" – that kind of over-pronunciation nonsense.I tend to think that Derek Farr was a pretty lucky chap. Everyone seems to buy his story about being in the pawnshop as a victim. This is never made clear. From what we see, he pulls a gun out which is pointing at the assistant at the time that the burglars burst in. He was about to rob the place himself! Still, the film holds your interest till the conclusion, which has a fair British outcome.

Although I saw this on a very poor DVD transfer it held my attention from beginning to end. Yes, as other reviewers have pointed out, there's nothing new here, but it's expertly done, and it's interesting to know that there were apparently 20,000 deserters on the run in the UK in 1949, and one imagines that many of them were as hard-done-by as our hero, but I won't spoil anything by revealing why he deserted. The film is certainly sympathetic to those 20,000 men who get the blame, by several representative members of the cast, for everything that's wrong with post-war Britain. Derek Farr is excellent in the main role as the deserter who has to raise some money when Kenneth More, who had served in the same outfit, happens into the pub where he's working under an alias and decides to blackmail him. While he's trying to pawn a gun the pawnshop is robbed and a policeman killed making him one of the suspects. Joan Hopkins is the sympathetic woman who helps him. Edward Chapman is the inspector investigating the case with ever-increasing impatience. Laurence Harvey, although billed fourth, has little to do as a sergeant with a soft spot for Hopkins. Plenty of noir atmosphere. Recommended.

Well, I think very hard about it, but I can't find anything very interesting in this a billion times told story of an innocent bystander on the run about a crime he did not commit. I am sick of it. I only say a simple word: PREDICTABLE. The poooor man who tries to save himself and prove his innocence, and of course who finds a girl to help him. I only comment it because this feature has no lines about it. And every film deserves to be talked about. Every one. Larry Huntington made better flicks, for instance UPTURNED GLASS, starring James mason, as far as I can remember. But most of his, I did not see them. The atmosphere is quite effective, a real noir in the film making it self. But the topic, hmmmmmmmmm....Nothing special for my own taste. But a gem although, for many film buffs.