'Run for the Sun' - An unusual outing for the brothers Boulting.

Wow! This is a strange one. If I didn't know that this was a Boulting Brothers movie I would never have guessed. It has all the hallmarks of big budget Hollywood, has an American star bias and is presented in beautiful, richly coloured Superscope 235 - which is way wide and quite different than the monochrome staples of the Boulting's usual fare.

It was adapted by the terribly British twosome from Richard Connell's short story, 'The Most Dangerous Game'.Though full of cliché's, it has all the high spirited adventure of a 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' movie and, whether you favour the genre or not, is a completely gripping 90 minutes. There's frankly nothing here to not like - unless you simply refuse to suspend your disbelief in protest at the film's 'boy's own' approach to the story. Romance, adventure, mystery, intrigue and humour abound. This film quite simply delivers the works.



Actually the third film version of the book, I am in no position to assess how it compares as I haven't seen the previous two. Ever the sultry sophisticate, Jane Greer plays Katie Connors, a street-wise New York magazine journalist who has persuaded her boss to let her track down a missing adventurer and writer, Mike Latimer (played to perfection by a striking Richard Widmark). Once she discovers his whereabouts she travels by plane to a remote, run down Mexican town called San Marcos - which is where the film begins. Latimer, suffering from chronic writers block, has settled down to a life filled with fishing and drinking which makes him extremely popular with the locals who follow this lifestyle too.



Bizarrely, Latimer is completely unsuspecting (she's the only other American in town) and the couple hit it off and a romance grows without Latimer ever suspecting her ulterior motives. He reveals his darkest secrets to her (his wife left him for his best friend) and in return, she decides to abandon the story and return to New York rather than deceive the man she has just fallen in love with.
But of course, all this is as big a red herring as the first half-hour of Hitchcock's Psycho. The real adventure begins when, enroute to Mexico City (Latimer is flying her there himself) they become hopelessly lost and, finally running out of juice, crash land in a remote jungle region inhabited only by local natives. Or so it would seem.



Enter Trevor Howard stage right. Howard, the only obvious 'Brit' in the whole picture, is excellent as a slimy ex-pat who appears to be hiding a dark secret. Taking the two to his home deep in the jungle, the two other guests (both German) are introduced as scientists on an archeological expedition. But if that's the case, why all the side-long glances - and why is the house so heavily guarded by ferocious dogs?



Latimer's suspicions are further aroused when he finds that their damaged plane is now missing, along with a pistol from his personal luggage. A little house snooping reveals that all is not well. He discovers parts of their plane, his pistol and old German weaponry and Nazi Officer uniforms in the locked basement of the house. A further revelation (recognizing his host's British drawl as that of 'Lord Haw Haw' - the traitorous voice that broadcast Nazi propaganda to the UK, making him the most hated man in Britain) convinces Latimer that they need to find a way out before the ruthless trio dispose of them.



What follows is a white-knuckle ride of a chase through the South American jungle that makes up the remainder of the movie, providing plenty of tension and maximum entertainment.

Worth mentioning is that Joseph LaShelle's cinematography is absolutely breath-taking - really maximizing the wide vistas that SuperScope 235 allows. The Mexican location shooting brings a production value and authenticity to the movie that a studio based film of the time could never have achieved. The transfer offered up here is virtually flawless with a superb print and no signs of artefacting.



Though not a typical film from the Boulting Brother's stable, this is nonetheless a very fine movie in its own right and will have enormous appeal for anyone who may have caught this rarely shown movie on TV - and been as pleasantly surprised as I was at its non-stop delivery of top-grade entertainment.