La farina del diavolo

Actor Robert Culp wakes groggily when the phone rings. It's kidnappers telling him they have his daughter and want $50,000 in small bills. Don't contact the police. He tells wife Angie Dickinson, and they are confused. They're broke and they don't have a daughter. The kidnapper called him Doctor and another name. He checks the phone exchange and are connected to Eddie Albert, whose wife, June Allyson, grows hysterical. They are cut off. Culp starts to phone back, then a thought strikes him: suppose they tell Albert it's $150,000, pay the kidnappers their ransom, and keep the rest. But the best laid plans of mice and men aft gang agley.

It's a TV movie from Universal, and you can tell by the visuals. It looks like a TV movie. But the script is a fine one, the performers are old pros, and Corey Allen directs with a firm hand, from Culp and Miss Dickinson waking with morning hair through a fine twist ending.

That's not me as 'Dex'.

9 for good to great tragedy or noir with a moral. But 10s for good to great uplifting movie with a moral.

Culp and Dickinson were superb. Very well done. Twist ending.

Straight off the bat, I have to say that production values and the quality of cinematography and editing are below par, and that the copy I watched carried sync problems from beginning to end, meaning that the movement of actors' lips did not tally up with the words I heard (lips always moved a fraction of a second early). Though that proved both annoying and distracting, the story itself kept me riveted, as did Angie Dickinson's beautiful face and Robert Culp's high quality acting - the absence of sync and some feeble dialogue notwithstanding. Eddie Albert and June Allyson also stand out as the couple whose daughter is abducted.

SEE THAT MAN RUN's greatest asset, however, is the clever double twist ending. Truth to tell, but for the aforesaid technical hiccups I would have rated this TV film higher than 7/10.

And I really mean that. This film, a Movie of the Week special, has a quietness about it, yet beneath everything there's a sense of foreboding that lurks, with a twist ending that is memorable and certainly had folks talking about it at the dinner table that evening and even beyond, one of the best thrillers I've seen in a while. The late Robert Culp plays this role with so much skill, that I for a split second during a conversation with the kidnappers, I'd thought he was actually the doctor. There are several moments of comedy here--entirely unintentional, I suppose--which to me were a delicious bonus to this most entertaining film. Just a good old- fashion thriller, which will undoubtedly remind lovers of how good the storytelling in the past often could be. I give it a 10 all the way.

The plot to "See the Man Run" is an odd one. Ben Taylor (Robert Culp) is awakened by a phone call from a crook...telling him his daughter has been kidnapped! The problem is that Ben doesn't have a daughter and the callers were actually trying to call some doctor (Eddie Albert)! So, Ben tries to call the doctor and tell him what's happened...and the doc and his wife overreact and think Ben has kidnapped her. However, at the urging of Ben's wife (Angie Dickinson), he decides to pretend to be the kidnapper. That way, he'll just ask for MORE money than the kidnappers and pay them off himself...and keep the difference!! Considering Ben's an out of work actor, this plan, though very illegal, seems to make sense. But will it work?!

There are many reasons to see this film....not the least is to get a load of Robert Culp in a silly wig. The script is great, the relationship between Ben and his wife strange and weirdly kinky and the ending is just terrific. This is one of the better made for TV films of the era...and holds up great today. It can be found on YouTube by the way.