Desafio à Morte (1951)

Nick and his partner Al stage a payroll holdup. Al is shot and Nick kills a policeman. Nick hides out at a public pool, where he meets Peg Dobbs. They go back to her apartment and he forces her family to hide him from the police manhunt.

Director:

John Berry

Writers:

Sam Ross (novel), Dalton Trumbo (screenplay)

Stars:

John Garfield, Shelley Winters, Wallace Ford

Cast

Complete credited cast:
John Garfield	...	Nick Robey
Shelley Winters	...	Peg Dobbs
Wallace Ford	...	Fred Dobbs
Selena Royle	...	Mrs. Dobbs
Gladys George	...	Mrs. Robey
Norman Lloyd	...	Al Molin
Robert Hyatt	...	Tommy Dobbs (as Bobby Hyatt)
Clancy Cooper	...	Stan
Vici Raaf	...	Marge
Keith Hetherington	...	Capt. of Detectives
Robert Karnes	...	Police Lieutenant

Storyline

The uptight and dumb small time thief Nick Robey and his partner and only friend Al Molin steal $10,000.00 from a man, but the heist goes wrong. Al Molin is killed by a policeman and Nick shoots him in the spine. He hides out in a public swimming pool and meets the lonely spinster Peggy Dobbs in the water. Nick uses Peggy to lie low. He offers a ride in a taxi to her and she invites him to her apartment, where she introduces her family to him. When Nick discovers that he killed the cop, he decides to use Peggy's apartment as hideout to wait the police manhunt cool down. When Nick finds that Peggy loves him, he invites her to leave town with him and asks her to buy a used car. However, Nick cannot trust anybody and believes Peggy has betrayed him.

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Plot Keywords:

policeman | manhunt | swimming | swimming pool | money | 

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Taglines:

A lonely girl -- a man on the run and 72 hours that shock you with the impact of unleashed emotions!

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Film-Noir | Thriller

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Did You Know?

Trivia

When Liberty Pictures purchased the rights for the film in 1947, George Stevens was announced as producer and director.

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Goofs

The sewing mannequin appears and disappears during the shooting at the dinner table.

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Quotes

Nick Robey: [to Peg] You don't like the way I dance? We won't dance.

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Connections

Featured in Red Hollywood (1996)

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Soundtracks

Sobre las olas (Over the Waves)
(uncredited)
Music by Juventino Rosas
Played when exiting from Plunge

User Reviews

John Garfield Runs All the Way

This strange entry in the noir canon features John Garfield delivering a sweaty, paranoid performance as a small-time crook who shoots a cop during a heist gone bad and then holes up with the family of a girl he meets and desperately latches himself on to (Shelley Winters). He virtually takes the family hostage, threatening to kill whichever member he has with him at the time if any of the other members try to seek help. Meanwhile, a game of patriarchal dominance begins between Garfield and the father, whose sense of masculinity is threatened by his inability to help his family. It all leads to a showdown in the street as Garfield attempts to run away with Winters, who may or may not have genuine feelings for him.

"He Ran All the Way" is more about the dynamics of family than anything else. In the first scene, we see what kind of home life Garfield's character comes from. His blowsy mom (played divinely by Gladys George, who has far too little screen time) verbally and physically abuses him, and then refuses to come to his aid later on when he's in trouble. As a result, Garfield tries to make a sort of surrogate family of the one he's taken hostage, attempting to establish a twisted kind of domestic tranquility, with himself as father figure. The most unsettling scene transpires at a family dinner, when Garfield forces the family at gunpoint to eat the meal he's prepared for them.

Throughout the film, Garfield acts with a desperate intensity you can practically smell. Unlike all of those cooler than cool crooks who populate the worlds of other noir films, Garfield is lousy as a criminal; his own paranoia and panic give him away at moments when he otherwise wouldn't be in any danger. Shelley Winters plays his love interest as a dowdy mope, the second time that year (see "A Place in the Sun") she played a frump who meets a good-looking lad and then regrets it. Wallace Ford and Selena Royle do the honors as mom and dad.

"He Ran All the Way" is not one of the more ambitious entries in the noir cycle, but like so many of the lurid, low-budget films that came out around this fertile period in cinema history, it has fascinating undertones that belie its simple plot.

With crisp photography by James Wong Howe and a propulsive, sensational score by that old pro Franz Waxman.

Grade: A-

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

5 February 1952 (Portugal)

Also Known As:

Desafio à Morte

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Roberts Pictures Inc.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

77 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1