Rent CFF Collection: Vol.5: Runaways (1985)

Bairn on the Run - CFF Collection: Vol.5: Runaways review by CH

Any child fortunate enough to see Johnny on the Run(1953) will have a lifetime's memory of a film which carries aloft comedy, suspense and a measure of social commentary. It is an early work by Lewis Gilbert, who was always willing to try something different – and generally find success with it. In this case, with support by the Children's Film Foundation, he tells of a Polish orphan - Eugeniusz Chylek - housed in Edinburgh by a woman (a splendidly contrary Mona Washbourne) who is only in it for the money. His life is miserable, although he is viewed with compassion by her young daughter.

One day he finds a small poster from which he learns that a voyage to his homeland can be had for £17. There is, throughout, an intensity to his face, a sense of purpose (it is the only film in which he appeared). He determines to leave the city and head for the port. Before long he meets two buffoonish thieves (Michael Balfour and Sydney Tafler) who have failed to get through the small window of a smart house. Johnny is prevailed upon to help (he believes the yarn of their having lost the key). Needless to say, the theft of a broach goes wrong, they have to split up, and Johnny is left with Tafler to walk across the hills; this section of the film takes on a Buchanesque turn, complete with a suspicious, rifle-toting character in a remote cottage.

The chase is on, and Johnny goes it alone. Entertaining as all this has been, the film comes into its own when Johnny chances upon a village run for, and by, displaced children from abroad and home.

With guidance from a few adults, they make the decisions about life in a comfortable building beside an idyllic loch. This is equally entertaining, with quite a part played by an ad hoc safe in the Treasurer's care. Although not stated as such, all this owes something and more to the Swiss reformer Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi who was inspired by the work of his contemporary Rousseau to put into practice educational theories that would benefit society as a whole. (In recent times there was just such a school in Seddlescombe in Sussex.) Not that there is any stuffiness or sanctimony about it: much of the action turns around a cross-country paper chase which would not be out of place at Lindley Court, that boarding school at which Anthony Buckeridge's Jennings and Darbishire were forever pupils (and contemporary with this film).

Even if one did not see this film in childhood, there is time to catch up - and be well rewarded.

If one is not in the market for several children's films at once, this film is also one of several extras on the disc of Gilbert's terrific noir Cosh Boy made the year before.

Fantastic - CFF Collection: Vol.5: Runaways review by PE

Most of these films are shot in London and are a wonderful time capsule of how it used to be. I live in Deptford where 'Hide & Seek' was filmed and It's amazing to see how much it's changed and how much it hasn't! London seemed somehow a lot more cosy. Maybe because back before the 1980's it wasn't just the domain of the wealthy.