The Runaway

Father Flannagan said there was no such thing as a bad boy and founded Boys Town to prove his theory. With only one test case, but a real hard case, priest Cesar Romero has that particular theory tested by young Roger Mobley.

Mobley was 14 at the time he made The Runaway and he had done a similar role as a Mexican street kid in Dime With A Halo. Here he's an orphan urchin who sleeps in a room in a barn and hustles for whatever money he can make. All the time he's looking for his father.

He stows away in a truck driven by Father Cesar Romero, but gets stopped at the border crossing. The officials of both sides of the border give him over in custody to Romero.

Oh, there was another stowaway on the truck, a young puppy that Mobley took with him that turns out to be a greyhound. One fast greyhound to boot. The dog turns out to be Mobley's salvation.

The Runaway is a heartwarming boy and his dog story shot completely on location in Tijuana, San Diego and many points in between in the USA and Mexico. On the shelf for 45 years, it just made its debut on television on TCM.

I wonder what Roger Mobley must be thinking, 45 years to see what could be his best performance as a juvenile.

TCM claims that the film was never released because the producer couldn't find a distributor for it in 1963, and that it languished in film vaults for years, unseen and on the shelf.

Well, as it turns out, THE RUNAWAY isn't anything special. In fact it's a rather dreary story of a runaway boy (ROGER MOBLEY) and his Greyhound dog befriended by a Mexican priest (CESAR ROMERO) who has to reform the boy's life style of cheating and stealing before the final reel.

It's the sort of tale that has been done countless times before, nothing new in the way of material. Unfortunately, the print shown on TCM did not meet the standards for cinematography that Robert Osborne spoke of when he mentioned that it was photographed by award winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler, lacking contrast in shades of B&W that merely gave the film a washed out look.

Nice to report that Cesar Romero is fine as the well-intentioned priest who has to contend with the rambunctious youth and that the film ends on a satisfactory note with a nice reunion between boy and dog.

Claudio Guzman directed, but there's nothing much to recommend here except for Romero's convincing performance in a serious role. Robley, in the main role, is not exactly star material.

This film was never shown publicly till tonight and its clear why. Hammy acting, with the exception of Romero plaque every scene. The score is too heavy with violins kicking in frequently. The cinematography seems quite good and along with Romero, keep the viewer involved. The child actor is so so and the story-line with dog is lame. I guess this filmed before animal rights groups monitored film-making as there are some scenes that come close to animal endangerment. The film does end fairly well with some great action scenes. If you like Disney films from the fifties and sixties, you probably will find this film entertaining.

The plot and acting aren't anything special, but as an adopter of a retired racing greyhound, I'm always interested in depictions of the racing industry and, of course, these beautiful dogs. So I'll skip comments on the people and focus on the greyhound.

While I have to give props to the movie for the three or four lovely sequences of greyhounds running at top speed, my main problem is there aren't more. C'mon, these creatures are gorgeous runners! The human story is vapid enough, so we need some great action shots of the greys in motion to take up the slack. Decent movies about race horses always have scene after scene of the horses at full gallop, after all.

I did enjoy the scenes at the race track. I've never had the occasion to visit a track, and I'm not sure I'd want to give the industry my money anyway. So I content myself with anything I can get from TV, movies, or You Tube.

My other complaint, albeit a minor one, is about the unnecessary insertions of whining and barking sound effects in an apparent attempt to make the greyhound emote in a more dramatic fashion. Greyhounds are exceptionally quiet dogs that rarely bark or vocalize. Some do whine or make a "rooing" noise, but they rarely bark and certainly don't while running at 35 miles per hour! Their capacious lungs are working too hard for that. The sound engineer, if there was one, didn't even bother playing a variety of whines or barks; they were the same every time. I guess Hollywood thought dogs had to bark in order to be charming.

I'll close by saying again that the movie itself wasn't anything to scream over, but any dog or greyhound lover will find it worth a look. I'm even wishing I could find a DVD of it somewhere so it won't have to sit on my DVR forever.