Run for the Sun
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| Run for the Sun | |
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 |
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| Directed by | Roy Boulting |
| Produced by | Robert Waterfield Harry Tatelman |
| Written by | Dudley Nichols Roy Boulting |
| Starring | Richard Widmark Trevor Howard Jane Greer Peter Van Eyck Juan García José Antonio Carbajal José Chavez Trowe Guillermo Calles Margarito Luna Guillermo Bravo Sosa Enedina Díaz de León |
| Music by | Frederick Steiner |
| Cinematography | Joseph La Shelle |
| Editing by | Frederic Knudtson |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
| Release date(s) | August 1956 (U.S. release) |
| Running time | 99 min. |
| Language | English |
Run for the Sun is a 1956 film released by United Artists and considered the second official remake of Richard Connell's classic suspense story, The Most Dangerous Game. Browne (Howard) is the wealthy reclusive shadow who thrives on hunting down human beings like wild game. In this adaptation, Browne is transformed into a British traitor, hiding in the Mexican jungle with his wartime compatriots, two Nazi criminals. When their plane is forced to land in Browne's domain, Mike Latimer (Widmark) and Katy Conners (Greer) are soon taken into captivity by the insane villians. Browne steadily offers his captives an hour's head-start to freedom, before he embarks his hunting dogs on his new hapless prey.
[edit] Plot
Katy Connors, a reporter for Sight magazine, travels to a remote fishing village in Mexico in search of the Hemingwayesque novelist and adventurer Mike Latimer, who has abandoned writing and chosen to disappear. Katy discovers that Mike is living in the small hotel she is staying at and tells him that she is waiting for friends to arrive on a yacht. Mike invites her to go marlin fishing with him and, over several days, they enjoy each other's company, although Katy does not reveal the true reason for her presence there. Katy realizes that she may be falling in love with Mike and, when her editor phones from New York, tells him that she may not be the best person to write about Mike. One night, Mike explains that he fell apart after his wife had an affair with his best friend while they were all on safari in Africa and that he has been unable to write since then. Confused by her emotions, Katy decides to leave, but Mike refuses to let her journey to Acapulco in the village's dangerous, old taxi and offers to fly her directly to Mexico City in his own small plane.
During the flight, however, a magnetized notebook in Katy's purse affects the compass readings and when Mike descends through the clouds expecting to see Mexico City below, they instead find themselves over a jungle. The plane runs out of fuel forcing Mike to crash-land near a clearing. Mike is knocked out by the impact and, when he wakes up, discovers he is in the main house of a vast, ancient hacienda. Katy introduces him to the current residents, an Englishman named Browne and Dutch archaeologist Van Anders, who welcome him. Although Mike feels that he has met Browne before, he cannot remember where. Anders asks about the single rifle bullet Mike always carries with him and Mike explains that it is a souvenir of the time he covered the Normandy landings as a reporter. Mike and Katy are surprised to learn that Anders keeps a pack of savage dogs on the property to control the local Indians working on his dig. As there is no method of communicating with the outside world, Mike hopes to be able to repair his plane, but it has disappeared. Later, they all hear a commercial radio broadcast announcing that Mike's flight is missing and that a reporter from Sight magazine was accompanying him. As Katy had not revealed her true occupation to him, Mike becomes very angry with her for invading his private life, although she declares that she had decided not to complete her assignment.
That night, when all are asleep, Mike prowls around the large house and finds a storage area filled with hunting rifles. When Mike attempts to go outside the dogs start barking, wakening Browne and Anders, and Mike overhears them talking in German. The next morning, Mike tells Katy that they should work together to try to escape as he feels that Browne and Anders are not what they appear to be. During a walk, Mike and Katy discover that Browne and Anders have a small plane nearby, of which they had made no mention. Later, while listening to Browne speaking, Mike suddenly realizes that he had heard him before when he was in Britain during World War II and Browne, an infamous traitor, was broadcasting Nazi propaganda from Berlin to Britain. When Mike accuses Browne of being a Nazi, the Englishman admits who he is and adds that he was once married to Anders' sister. Mike tries to bargain for Katy's release but to no avail. That night, after Mike establishes that Anders is also a fugitive Nazi war criminal, Katy and he try to take over the plane, but are shot at by guard Jan, forcing them into the jungle. Alerted by the shots, Browne, Anders and the dogs join Jan in chasing after the couple. A friendly Indian gives Mike a machete, which he uses to hack their way through the jungle. After a long, exhausting chase, during which Jan is killed in a trap set by Mike, Katy and Mike double back toward the plane.
Meanwhile, in his pocket, Mike has found an unread slip of paper on which Katy wrote her address at Sight magazine during the plane ride, and realizes that she had tried to tell him about herself. Mike and Katy reach the hacienda and barricade themselves in the chapel. After Browne and Anders discover them there, Anders leaves to bring some Indians to help break down the heavy door. Once Anders has gone, Browne calls to Mike through the door offering to kill Anders if Mike will help him escape to South America. In reply, Mike stuffs his lucky bullet into a small hole in the door and detonates it by hitting it with a rock. The bullet then enters Browne's stomach, killing him. As Mike and Katy run to the plane, Anders returns but is killed when he is hit by the plane as it takes off, carrying Mike and Katy back to civilization.
[edit] Trivia
- Run for the Sun was one of four films produced for United Artists release by a company owned by actress Jane Russell and her then-husband, Robert Waterfield.
- The jungle sequences were shot about fifty miles from Acapulco, Mexico. The location used for "Browne" and "Van Anders'" base was a vast, ruined, 16th century hacienda and sugar plantation/refinery built by Hernán Cortes at Atlacomulco, southeast of Cuernavaca. In the 1980s the principal house and several other buildings were restored and turned into a hotel. The interior and patio of the house used in the film, as well as the interior of the small hotel where "Katy Connors" and "Mike Latimer" meet, were built at Estudios Churubusco in Mexico City. The house interior was reputed to be the largest set yet built in a Mexican studio.
- Richard Connell's short story served as the basis for several films including, most notably, the 1932 RKO Radio Pictures production The Most Dangerous Game, directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack and Irving Pichel and starring Joel McCrea and Fay Wray and the 1945 RKO film A Game of Death, directed by Robert Wise and starring John Loder and Audrey Long. Connell's story and the subsequent film adaptation served as a sociopathic inspiration for the elusive Zodiac Killer.
