Run for the Sun (1956) (2025)

Popular reviews

• Review by Jack Often ★★½ 2

  Roy Boulting's Most Dangerous Game update removes the disturbing class aspects of the manhunt and replaces them with less terrifying nazi fugitives. He manages to inject a good deal of suspense, but I was often frustrated by Jane Greer's manufactured weakness.
  It is Greer's feminine accessory, her purse, that leads them off course even after she has been warned about setting things next to the compass. When they run through the jungle she must be dragged like a wet sack of potatoes over every rock and through every stream. She needs constant rest, which keeps them in peril. When Widmark is attacked by a dog she can only stand and stare until it's over. So many scenes are written to…

• Review by noir1946 ★★★½

  I saw Run for the Sun when it was fresh out of the box and have seen it at least three times since, and it never fails to engage. Loosely adapted from Richard Connell’s highly influential short story “The Most Dangerous Game,” filmed in beautiful black-and-white in 1932, the film finds journalist Katherine Connors (Jane Greer) arriving in a remote Mexican locale looking for reclusive novelist Michael Latimer (Richard Widmark). She hopes to write a magazine article about why he has abandoned writing. Latimer slowly falls for Connors, unaware of her real identity. Feeling guilty for betraying him, she decides to abandon her story. En route to Mexico City in his plane, Latimer crashes in a jungle, and he and…

• Review by daniwiller87 ★★★

  Remake of The Most Dangerous Game.
  The day setting of this Technicolor version, instead of the night one, completely overturns the aspect on which the movie rests. The result is an equatorial adventure under the scorching sun, devoid of that sinister and misty aspect that enriched the first version.
  Taken without comparison, it's great entertainment, with the addition of 50s sentimental story and something certainly aroused fear to the public at the time: ex Nazis hidden in the most remote corner of the Earth.
  To be clear, it seems like one of those good episodes of Mac Gyver, including the not very credible gimmicks (above all the bullet fired without having a rifle). And I think this is a nice compliment.

• Review by Stephen M ★★★ 2

  August 2022: Theme of the Month - Make/Remake
  "The Most Dangerous Game" (1932) vs "Run for the Sun" (1956)

  Similar story to the original but with many changes. PLUS they added Nazis (!) and Technicolor. But it doesn't measure up to the original, largely because the writers dropped the crazed madman who hunts people for sport. This removes the horror element and makes it more of a standard thriller. Nonetheless it's not bad, due to the leads and good production values.

  So here goes: Richard Widmark plays Mike Latimer, an adventure writer who's living the good life in Mexico, a character unmistakably modeled on Ernest Hemingway. Katy Connors, a NY journalist (Jane Greer) shows up and cuddles up to…

• Review by 🥀 e m m é 🇵🇸 ★★★★

  Nothing has ever made me want to visit Mexico more than this film, which might sound odd because it is at least partially The Most Dangerous Game but with Nazis. The cinematography had beautiful depth and texture though.Like if you want a film that genuinely lets you feel like you’re there in the lush landscape, this is it! I also loved the Jane Greer/Richard Widmark pairing. The quality of this film was a pleasant surprise!

• Review by Zoë 🐛 ★★★½ 2

  Clever remake/reworking of The Most Dangerous Game for lovely 50s Technicolor and the postwar psyche. I've seen the fantastic 1932 adaptation of the story, which from my understanding is faithful to the short story, and is very much about class and exploitation, themes that would have been at the forefront of the minds of Depression-era moviegoers. For the comparatively very financially prosperous time of the 1950s, the villain is no longer an ultra rich man on a private island but instead two Nazis hiding out in the Central American jungle. While the general story of a man and a woman being hunted in a jungle is the same, for the Nazis it is not a hunt for sport but instead…

• Review by Niall Urquhart ★★½ 3

  This was okay but it was only really the cast that kept me engaged as the narrative was very contrived. I liked Richard Widmark as the Hemingway-esque writer and Jane Greer as the journalist and Trevor Howard as the traitor. There was potential with the story but it was told messily and had a poor ending. But I doubt a film about cutthroat Brits competing for a package holiday in Spain would have been any better though.

• Review by More_Badass ★★★

  A Technicolor adventure weighed down by clunky melodrama but still offering decent captive suspense, pursuit thrills, and proto-Indy vibes. Run For The Sun is a refreshing Most Dangerous Game riff, loosely reconfiguring the concept into a story of writer Richard Widmark and journalist Jane Greer fleeing from ex-Nazis hiding in the Mexican jungle.

  The original’s pulpy madman menace is sanded down to post-war fears and ‘50s sappiness. Romantic set-up frontloads the first half hour, but the prickly dynamic between Widmark and Greer is enjoyable, as is the dynamic between the duo and their enigmatically welcoming hosts. Ray Boulting’s direction is nothing special, letting his leads, mounting tension, and jungle atmosphere carry the film to its solid finale.

• Review by hayley ★★★★ 2

  My love for Richard Widmark knows no bounds and seeing him technicolour again looking that god damn attractive was a true treat. I need even more open shirt adventure Widmark in my life moving forward. He also worked beautifully with Jane Greer and I loved their chemistry together a lot. Perhaps not as eerie as it’s 1930s counterpart but I loved the reimagine and style of this one a lot too.

• Review by Luke Thorne ★★

  Roy Boulting’s thriller in which an author and a journalist find themselves at the mercy of wanted war criminals in the Mexican jungle. Starring Jane Greer, Richard Widmark and Trevor Howard.

  When their plane has an accident, Mike (Richard Widmark) and Katy (Jane Greer) find themselves stuck in an isolated forest. But, the Nazi conflict criminals existing there, aim to murder Mike and Katy in order to keep their sanctuary confidential, in this adaptation of the novel The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell (which already had been made as movies in 1932, and in 1945 titled A Game of Death).

  Richard Widmark and Jane Greer both give okay performances in their respective parts as the writer and the reporter…

• Review by Chloe

  I always love watching Richard Widmark in full hero mode, and he was rarely so uncomplicatedly heroic as he is here.

  He and Jane Greer have terrific chemistry in the first act, which makes it extra frustrating that during the second, she becomes annoyingly angry at him for precisely no reason (in fact, she's the one that screws him over!) And in the third, she just becomes a beautiful sack of potatoes as Widmark lugs her (albeit, tenderly!) through the jungle, keeping them both safe from the Nazis and the terrifying dogs.

  Almost everything bad that happens in this movie happens because Greer's character is so useless - if she'd been allowed to be helpful a couple of times (there…

• Review by Goodwin ★★★

  Reasonably solid reworking of The Most Dangerous Game with Richard Widmark as a he-man author who finds himself in a predicament with his new romance, Jane Greer, after crash landing in the jungles of Mexico. IMDb tells me it was Widmark’s least liked of his films and he used the threat of forcing them to watch it to keep his children in line. That may reflect more his experience making it than its intrinsic quality. It does have its ration of the requisite cheese of 50’s melodrama, but it’s not that bad and after a slowish and bumpy start it get much better.