It’s odd film noir rarely addressed mental illness, as it feels like perfect fodder for the genre. 1957’s The Night Runner is an odd film concerning a recently released patient with a violent past. At first, I thought the film would take a sympathetic approach to such people. In the end, it instead suggests people with mental disorders can’t readjust to society.
In the beginning, the institute holding Ray Danton has too many patients and is at a loss for what to do. I’m so relieved no facilities have such a problem nowadays. *cough* Maybe they should consider offloading some patients to that nice Shutter Island facility.
The Board recommends Danton be released, despite protestations from his psychiatrist. Once again, something I’m sure never happens in real life today. *cough* I found it odd we never learn any details about Danton’s rage killing of a stranger just 18 months prior. Can’t help but imagine this hospital had other patients who would be more likely candidates for release.
Still, he ends up on a Greyhound to Los Angeles, where he hopes to be hired as a draughtsman. When the bus pulls away after a pit stop, it’s revealed Danton didn’t bother reboarding. A mechanic (Harry Jackson) working in his garage sees Danton and takes an immediate liking to him. Danton nonetheless keeps walking down the road until a policeman stops him. I guess it’s a crime to be pedestrian there. I know it more or less is in the town I live in.
The road eventually brings him to summer cottages, most of which are currently vacant, as it is the off-season. Willis Bouchey is the owner, and he rents one to Danton despite being immediately suspicious of him.
Colleen Miller plays Bouchey’s daughter, and she and Danton almost immediately become romantically attached. They often go double-dating with Jackson and his very pregnant wife (Merry Anders). Needless to say, Bouchey isn’t having any of this. He learns the truth when he opens a letter the hospital sends to Danton, and orders the man to get out of town before Miller gets home.
It isn’t any surprise Danton kills Bouchey. He also completely bungles the attempt to make it look like a robbery. Very fortunately for him, the police still come to that conclusion.
So it looks like Danton is going to get away with murder. Though grief-stricken, Miller continues her relationship with him. He even landed a sweet gig at a nearby company as a draughtsman. But this is a movie made in the Production Code era, so you know he has to be punished by the end.
How that development unfolds was unbelievable to me while being fully consistent with Danton’s behavior. The problem is, with the exception of the occasional outburst, he doesn’t have much a personality. I was never sure if the acting was subpar or if he was underserved by the script. It very well could be both.
Miller is good in a role without depth. Bouchey probably fares the best of the cast, as he plays with gusto the role of the suspicious asshole. Never mind his character is correct in his suspicions.
The Night Runner is a mediocre noir I can’t imagine revisiting. If there is one element that surprised me is how it seems to foretell Psycho. I challenge anybody to think otherwise when watching an unstable, socially-awkward man fumble around the office of what is essentially a motel, after having just committed a murder.
Dir: Abner Biberman
Starring Ray Danton, Colleen Miller, Willis Bouchey
Watched as part of Kino Lorber’s blu-ray set Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XIII