HE RAN ALL THE WAY ***

A B-Movie with A-Movie credentials. "He Ran All the Way" was John Garfield's last film and it has all the makings of a small classic. It was a suitably fatalistic film-noir that benefitted considerably from James Wong Howe's superb cinematography. Garfield plays the small-time hood who, after a botched robbery in which he kills a policeman, finds himself hiding out in Shelley Winter's apartment where he holds her and her family hostage.

It's a claustrophobic little picture, very well directed by the little-known John Berry and if Garfield's performance is something of a mess, (he was too old for the part at 38), it is, nevertheless, suitably intense and Winters is fine as are Wallace Ford and Selena Royle as her parents and there's a nice cameo from Gladys George as Garfield's uncaring mother. Dalton Trumbo was one of the scriptwriters but, being blacklisted, his name didn't appear on the credits. The fine score was by Franz Waxman. It's been unjustly neglected and is well worth seeking out.