Sat 20 Jun 2009
THREE FOR THE SMALL SCREEN, Part 2, by David L. Vineyard: RUN A CROOKED MILE (1969).
Posted by Steve under Columns , Reviews , TV mysteries[5] Comments
Movie Reviews by David L. Vineyard
This is the second in a series of three reviews covering movies that were made for TV in the 1960s and 70s, the heyday of such film-making. Most of them were no more than ordinary, to be sure, but a few were well above average — small gems in terms of casts, plotting and production.
Previously on this blog: How I Spent My Summer Vacation (1967).
RUN A CROOKED MILE. Universal/NBC-TV, 18 November 1969. Louis Jourdan, Mary Tyler Moore, Alexander Knox, Wilfred Hyde Whyte, Stanley Holloway, Alexander Knox, Laurence Naismith, Ronald Howard. Teleplay: Trevor Wallace; director: Gene Leavett.
Richard Stuart (Jourdan) is a tutor who stumbles onto a murder in a remote English mansion. When he comes back with the law, the body is gone and he is ridiculed.
Certain he isn’t mad, he returns to London and hires a private detective, Stanley Holloway. Shortly after that he discovers a key to a room in the mansion, and is knocked unconscious.
When he wakes up, he finds he is on the Cote d’Azur, and his name is Tony Sutton, a wealthy playboy who took a blow to the head while playing polo. He’s married to the beautiful American heiress Elizabeth Sutton (Mary Tyler Moore) and he has lost five years of his life.
Who can he trust? Is his wife part of the conspiracy? Just what nest of snakes did he stumble into five years earlier?
Obsessed with finding out he returns to London to find Holloway now quite well to do and the Yard’s Inspector Huntington (Howard), not interested. Nevertheless he perseveres follows the clues back to the mansion owned by Sir Howard Nettington (Knox) and with Elizabeth’s help solves the mystery, uncovers a conspiracy, and brings down the high placed villains.
I suppose you do have to wonder why he would be so anxious to solve the murder of a stranger and risk a very good life with a rich and beautiful wife who loves him despite the fact he hasn’t been any prize as Tony Sutton, but if people behaved normally in these things, nothing would ever happen.
Run a Crooked Mile is a clever sub-Hitchcock exercise in the Buchan vein with handsome sets, and a fine cast. It moves quickly and relies on the considerable charms of Jourdan and Moore to get through whatever lags in logic that might plague you.
It’s one of those films where almost no one is quite who they seem to be, but it is done with such style and competence that it plays more like a feature than a made-for-TV film. Of the three films that will be reviewed herem it probably most deserves release on DVD.
It’s smart, funny, and suspenseful, attractive to look at, and much more literate and intelligent than it has to be. Howard, Knox, Whyte, Holloway, and Naismith all contribute nicely to the fun. In many ways it plays like a good episode of The Avengers, droll. literate, and full of twists.
Coming soon:
Probe (1969), with Hugh O’Brien and Elke Summer.
June 21st, 2009 at 1:16 pm
RUN A CROOKED MILE is a fascinating movie. Best feature: a briliant plot.
Until this article, I thought I was about the only person who ever saw this…
Adding to the film’s mystery: I’ve been unable to link it to anything else in its writer or director’s careers.
Writer Trevor Wallace only wrote three scripts. CHRISTINA, which he wrote, is a mild oddity. A bit off-trail – but nothing at the level of RUN A CROOKED MILE.
Gene Levitt was a hugely prolific writer and director of American television. The stray works I’ve seen by him so far are at a low level…
June 21st, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Mike, I’m glad to see someone besides me saw this one and remembered it. Like you I haven’t seen much about the writer or the director, though Levitt’s name shows up quite a bit. It may just be this was one of those happy accidents when an exceptional cast elevated a good script and inspired an otherwise uninspired director.
To be fair I don’t know if the plot would seem half so good without the exceptional cast, and in addition to that it benefits from on location shooting (for the most part) and looks more like a feature than a made for television film.
That said, I never did figure out how Jourdan’s character turned out to have a name like Richard Stuart or Tony Sutton. Maybe he was supposed to be French Canadian or from the Channel Islands.
And it doesn’t hurt that it is all done with a light touch. Though there is a good atmosphere of suspense and mystery the light touch helps considerably as does the hint of paranoid conspiracy. For a film with a limited budget it manages some nice Hitchcockian touches on a small scale.
Someone knew their Buchan, Hitchcock, and Fritz Lang. Though on a lesser note it reminded me a little of Lang’s film of Graham Greene’s Ministry of Fear — likely because both have lead actors best known for light romantic comedy and both deal with amnesiac heroes.
I’ve seen it in the last few years thanks to a mediocre dub and was impressed how well it stood up. The whole point of this little series is to point out some of the better films that came out of the made for television craze before they were crowded out by bloated mini series (some good) and ‘important’ dramas. Other than these I can think of at least a dozen good films from this general era that aired as made for television films (sometimes as pilots) that deserve to be released on DVD. Most though, if they ever appeared in VHS or on DVD, only did so in Europe where they were released as theatrical features rather than airing on television.
August 3rd, 2009 at 12:40 pm
I was a kid when i saw it (about 6 or 7) with my Mum, back when we had Saturday afternoon matinees on BBC2. Only saw it that once. Never knew the name of it until I recently googled, ‘sports car’, ‘Louis Jourdan’, and ‘amnesia’, that was my only memory of plot – and there it was ‘Run a crooked mile’. I would love to see it again. Another couple i miss, which I’ve managed to get copies of are ‘The Double man’ (Yul Brenner) and ‘Baffled’ (Leonard Nimoy TV movie) both from around the same period as ‘Run a…’ – when brit film/tv movies were great. I LOVE espionage, double cross, double agents, paranoia, who to trust, type movies… aaaaaaaahhhhhhh
August 3rd, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Oh I also managed to get a copy of ‘Paper Tiger’ (David Niven) but sadly it’s on VHS so haven’t had the pleasure of watching that one again yet 🙁
August 3rd, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Double Man is a theatrical feature (as is Paper Tiger), and both based in good books. Man is based on Legacy of a Spy by Henry Maxwell (I think that’s the name) and Tiger is by Jack Davies, who also wrote the book that became the Roger Moore film ffolkes, and co-wrote the screenplay for Those Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines.
Both are fairly good, though Paper Tiger probably suceeds more on David Niven’s charm than its own strengths.