Sat 13 Mar 2010
“Man on the Run” Films: Four Top Ten Lists by David L. Vineyard.
Posted by Steve under Action Adventure movies , Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists[9] Comments
by David L. Vineyard
This will be very subjective, and off the top of my head. Arguments and additions are welcome. I’ve found these Top Ten lists often end up a Top 100 pretty easily, as every film leads to another.
Unlike my previous Top Twenty list, I am not limiting myself to one film to a director, but I will make do with only two Hitchcock films. I debated whether or not to include I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang and decided to stick to thriller and adventure films.
I’ve also arbitrarily stuck to the “innocent” man on the run theme. And if anyone is wondering I’ve also left out books and films like Day of the Jackal or He Walked by Night because they are more man hunt films than man on the run. Again, I’ve avoided those that are strictly urban based and stuck to the rough country designation, so no Odd Man Out or The Big Clock.
Top Ten Man on the Run Movies:
1. North by Northwest
2. The 39 Steps/The Most Dangerous Game (between the two of them almost every trope of the genre is developed)
3. Man Hunt
4. The Clouded Yellow
5. The Fugitive (Harrison Ford, not the disappointing John Ford film of Graham Greene’s Power and the Glory)
6. The Naked Prey
7. Lonely Are the Brave
8. State Secret/Highly Dangerous (I’m tied on these two British film, the first by Gilliat and Launder with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and the latter a Roy Boulting film with screenplay by Eric Ambler)
9. Death Hunt
10. The Bourne Identity
Top Ten Man on the Run in Wartime Films:
1. The 49th Parallel (aka The Invaders in the US)
2. The Great Escape
3. The Mackenzie Break
4. Man at Large (fine little B film with George Reeves about a Nazi POW escaped and on the run in the US, very much in the 39 Steps vein)
5. Desperate Journey (RAF pilots Errol Flynn, Ronald Reagan, Alan Hale, and Arthur Kennedy play at Dumas Musketeers behind the lines while evading Nazi Raymond Massey)
6. The Pied Piper (Englishman Monty Woolley has to get a band of children out of France as it falls to the Nazi’s)
7. Eye of the Needle
8. Northern Pursuit
9. Ill Met By Moonlight
10. The Seventh Cross
Top Ten Comedic Man on the Run Films:
1. My Favorite Blonde
2. Once Upon a Honeymoon
3. To Be Or Not to Be
4. Arise My Love (pilot Ray Milland and reporter Claudette Colbert romance and try to escape from Europe as WW II breaks out)
5. Silver Streak
6. The President’s Analyst
7. The General
8. The In-Laws (the original, not the remake)
9. It’s a Wonderful World (screwball comedy with fugitive private eye James Stewart and poet Claudette Colbert trying to clear Ernest Truex of murder before his execution)
10. Tight Little Island (aka Whisky Galore!, though admittedly it’s a more booze on the run than man on the run film)
And in for a penny in for a pound:
Top Ten Man on the Run Western Movies:
1. Pursued
2. The Capture
3. Drums Along the Mohawk (turns into a literal man on the run film)
4. Red Mountain
5. The Redhead and the Cowboy
6. The Last of the Mohicans (Randolph Scott or Michael Mann version)
7. Hildalgo (okay, it’s a race, give me one)
8. Waterhole #3 (okay, we’ll relax the ‘innocent’ part)
9. Apache
10. The Last Wagon
Note: I know I’ll get more grief about this, but I don’t think First Blood the movie or the book makes the top ten or twenty of the books or films. I can easily think of twenty better books and films, but that’s subjective, which I grant this is.
Frankly I don’t think anyone would remember the book without the film or either one without Rambo, and while I like the book I think there are better examples. I agree with Leonard Maltin who gives the film only one and a half stars.
David
March 13th, 2010 at 10:12 pm
Thanks, David. Even if these lists were “off the top of your head,” as you say, these are four impressive lists of movies.
I don’t know if it’s true of everyone, but it is for me: I’ve seen a higher percentage of these as films than I did of your Top Twenty list of “Rough Country” Man on the Run thrillers in book form.
But that’s still around only half of them — the films, that is. I have some catching up to do!
— Steve
March 14th, 2010 at 11:51 am
Under “Top Ten Comedic Man on the Run Films” I’d be tempted to put MY FAVORITE BRUNETTE, which I’m guessing is a remake, more or less, of MY FAVORITE BLONDE. The latter seems to be shown infrequently these days, and I remember it only vaguely.
March 14th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
As Dan Stumpf knows, one of my favorite Westerns is FROM HELL TO TEXAS in which Don Murray plays a cowboy who accidentally kills the son of a cattle baron (R. G. Armstrong). When his other two sons try ro kill him by stampeding a herd of cattle at him he manages to turn the herd and kills another of the baron’s sons. From then on Murray is pursued by Armstrong, his youngest son (Dennis Hopper), his foreman (John Larch – an excellent performance) and some of his ranch hands. He is helped by rancher Chill Wills and his tomboy daughter (Diane Varsi) and a peddler (Jay C. Flippen) which leads to the most unusual final shootout I’ve ever seen.
March 14th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Mike:
I also don’t recall all of the details of MY FAVORITE BRUNETTE, but most of it’s a spoof of “Alan Ladd” PI films, isn’t it? I can’t remember that there’s a man on the run in it, but I could easily be wrong.
I also remember it as being very funny, but when I was ten, lots of movies were funnier than they are now, including The Kettles and The Bowery Boys. Laff riots then, they were.
Ray:
Your mini-review has certainly convinced me. I’ll add FROM HELL TO TEXAS to my To Be Seen Soon list, already several yards long, but who minds that?
— Steve
March 14th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
FROM HELL TO TEXAS is certainly a good one. Glad Ray reminded me of it. THE BURNING HILLS with Natalie Wood and Tab Hunter has a similar theme.
BRUNETTE is a bit of a man on the run film, at least to the extent Hope ends up hunted by the law and the bad guys, though not as much a BLONDE which has vaudevillian Hope and British agent Madeline Carroll in a comedic take on THE 39 STEPS. Much of the film even takes place in ‘rough country.’ BRUNETTE is a send up of many noir films including THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE and DOUBLE INDEMNITY while BLONDE is primarily a send up of THE 39 STEPS.
And one note about BRUNETTE, Ladd’s cameo as the private eye, whose office baby photographer Hope shares, is the only time Ladd played a private eye.
March 14th, 2010 at 6:55 pm
Many of these films are new to me too.
And even more of the books.
This has been a fascinating series!
March 15th, 2010 at 6:34 am
Nothing to add to the praise for FROM HELL TO TEXAS except that an outfit called Yammering Magpie advertises a good print for cheap.
You might also check out a nifty little western called ROUGHSHOD.
June 5th, 2010 at 10:35 pm
Unfortunately, Yammering Magpie Cinema has shut down. This is very recent, as they were up and running only a few weeks ago. Their email address is no longer valid, as well.
June 5th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
Yes, I’d noticed that. I don’t know what’s happened. I saw them both at the Windy City pulp and paperback show in April.