Theme Song: Some violins, some funky drums, but nothing of note.
Interesting Dated References: Having to physically travel to stalk the people who abandoned you, as opposed to just stalking them online for a few hours while drunk and forgetting about it the next day.
Best Line: None.
Social Context: Released during his run as Kolchak the Night Stalker, Darren McGavin (A Christmas Story, Dead Heat) decided to direct a script written by an action director on the cusp of fame (Robert Clouse, Enter The Dragon, Game of Death, The Ultimate Warrior). The script really makes no sense. Tied up somewhere in the psychosexual subgenre of the ‘70s/’80s (To Kill A Clown and Night Warning come to mind), Run Stranger, Run is basically a lot of mood without much follow-through. Confusing the issue, for the majority of its theatrical run it was titled, Happy Mother’s Day, Love George.
Summary: Quaint New England scenery abounds, and I’m sure you could waste hours reading through IMDb comments telling you it was actually filmed elsewhere, but I really don’t care to invest the effort. It looks quaint, and that’s that.
A young drifter arrives in town and wanders into a diner where he sheepishly stares at the waitress, Ronda (Cloris Leechman, The Last Picture Show, Young Frankenstein, Dancing with the Stars). It’s all too obvious through the clunky zooms and droll dialogue that the drifter, named Johnny (played by Ron Howard, brother of Clint Howard, End of the Line), thinks he’s the long-lost son of Ronda, and she also inexplicably knows who he is and has apparently sat terrified waiting for this day to come.
Then Bobby Darin shows up as Ronda’s boyfriend and scares off Johnny, who immediately knows to go wandering around his estranged aunt’s house. While snooping about, he runs into his female cousin, whom promptly begins coming on to him.
So Johnny continues to try to find out who his dad is, but nobody will tell him. Then a bunch of crusty fishermen and other townspeople are found dead, and it’s supposed to be a huge surprise when it’s revealed that Johnny’s dad is actually his uncle who died, and Johnny’s cousin-horny cousin, now revealed to be his brother-horny sister, is crazy and had killed everyone.
This movie was not very enjoyable.
Worth Mentioning:
– Johnny’s horny and psychotic cousin-sister is played by Tessa Dahl, daughter of English author Roald Dahl and American actress Patricia Neal, the latter playing her mother in this very movie. Tessa went on to become an author and this is one of only a handful of movies she appeared in. She puts in a good performance.
– This was Bobby Darin’s final screen role before his death later in 1973.
Poster and Box Art: Pre-Happy Days the poster art really only consisted of this excellent treatment for its previous title (Happy Mother’s Day, Love, George), which is disorienting and totally-in-your-face in the best possible of ways:
Post-Happy Days, we’re subjected to a blank-stare Howard and some scribbly script:
Photo collage/airbrush definitely seems like a poor treatment, but kudos for shoe-horning in some New England-style homes so everyone knows the movie takes place there, although it’s basically rendered irrelevant in the plot.
Availability: Not available streaming as of mid-2020, but there’s a fairly good print on YouTube. There’s also a really terrible print on YouTube featuring all that distortion/motion correction stuff that makes you feel like you’re on acid.