Escape

Rex Harrison is walking in the park after a losing day at the track. He falls into conversation with a young woman sitting on a bench. She hands him a card for her business and Harrison begins to walk off, when a police detective comes up to arrest her for solicitation. Harrison protests. The detective tells him to scarper off. Harrison protests some more and the 'tec takes a swing at him. They tussle and the policeman splatters his head on the bench's ironmongery.

Found guilty of manslaughter, Harrison is sent to Dartmoor. He escapes, is pursued by the police in the form of Inspector William Hartnell, and succored by Peggy Cummins.

It's a remake of the 1930 movie that was the first production of what became Ealing Studios, directed by Joseph Mankiewicz, with John Galsworthy's original script updated by Philip Dunne -- lots more sexual tension between Harrison and Cummins than in the original script. It's certainly a competent remake, and purists will be pleased that the outdoor scenes were shot in Dartmoor; the original used Northamptonshire. Yet I am always confronted by the question of how it is that it's always the good-looking people who are morally superior, and who are believed to be honest. Frederick Piper, who plays the convict to whom Harrison confides his intention to escape.... had he been the one who did so, would Miss Cummins have helped him?

Peggy Cummins (92 at this writing) is probably best known for her portrayal of a gun-happy gal in the classic noir "Gun Crazy" from 1950.

After winning the lead in 1947's Forever Amber over 200 auditioners, she was replaced by Linda Darnell because the producers decided she wasn't famous enough.

Here she is in a programmer, "Escape" from 1948, alongside Rex Harrison. Harrison plays Matt DEnant, convicted of manslaughter after an accident involving a policeman.

It was a just act, defending a woman talking with him in the park; he punched the police officer, who hit his head on the bench and died as a result.

Matt is sentenced to three years in prison which he doesn't want to spend for something he doesn't feel responsible for. He escapes during a thick fog and is caught by a young upper class woman, Dora Winton, as he's stealing her breakfast in her bedroom. She feels sorry for him and gives him a coat and hat, and he takes off as the police search her family's house.

Matt runs into Dora again when a car he stole breaks down, and again, she helps him. Unfortunately, while she helps him, another friend does not, and he nearly walks into a trap.

Matt learns that she's engaged to a man she doesn't love, strictly for money as her family has fallen on hard times. She doesn't think three years is all that long to serve, and points out that if Matt has to run and hide the rest of his life, isn't that prison too?

Good story with good performances. There are a couple of messages here - there are different kinds of prisons, and different kinds of laws. As a priest tells Matt, God's law is infallible. Man's is not.

The end is unexpected, at least it was by me.

Although based on a play,unlike many Mankiewicz' s movies,this one is no "filmed stage production" style .It even sometimes recall Hitchcock's 'the thirty-nine steps " for the bulk of the action is a chase .

A strong performance by Rex Harrison (who would be the star of three other Mankiewicz works :" the ghost and Mrs Muir" " the overlooked "honey pot" and the largely underrated "Cleopatra " in which he was the best Julius Ceasar in the history of cinema),who is sentenced to jail (three years!)for what he considers a just act.Actually what happened to him could happen to anyone .That's why it's so easy to identify with him and to feel he had been treated unfairly.

"Escape" has two meanings :escape from jail for the convict ,escape from a world she does not fit in for Dora:she's going to make a money match ,because "she's tired of being poor" ,but she realizes ,after meeting the fugitive that she would live in a prison too.

This is an offbeat story ;the conclusion is not what the audience is expecting and may be off-putting for some viewers.God himself intervenes ,and ,as the priest says ,only Him can judge man,only his justice is infallible.Besides ,one of the hero's friends betrays him to get Judas' thirty pieces of silver.

The acting of the main characters - Harrison, Cummins and Hartnell - are convincing but generally lack a great deal of passion. Everyone behaves pretty much as one would expect. There are many twists and turns in the plot but these are often fairly predictable; one is rarely surprised. The settings - prison, village, moor, country cottage, are just what they're supposed to be, no more, no less. The dialogue is convincing, and also just what you might expect. There is variety of tone and many moments of humour, darker points, philosophical themes regarding justice, honour and life. Generally, the film takes its time making its points, just so you don't miss them. So it rolls along in an amiable manner and is enjoyable to watch; however, it does lack some of the sparkle of the 1930 version.

Rex Harrison was primarily a stage actor and indeed a first rate one. His films however are very much a mixed bag but he had a very good working relationship with director Joseph L. Mankiewicz for whom he gave excellent performances. This is the second of their four films together, following on from 'The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.'

Harrison is not the first to play the character of former RAF pilot Matt Denant who has escaped from prison after being wrongfully convicted of murder. Notable among previous personifications were Leslie Howard on Broadway, Orson Welles on Radio and Gerald du Maurier in a typically stodgy British film from 1930.

Harrison's polished persona perfectly suits playwright John Galsworthy's concept that a gentleman never ceases to be a gentleman even when he's down. Whilst on the run he is aided by the free-spirited Nora of Peggy Cummins who is herself wanting to escape a life of poverty by marrying a man she does not love. Romance blossoms of course and when Denant finishes his sentence he will very likely marry her, thereby exchanging one kind of servitude for another!

Good support here from a cast of stalwarts, notably William Hartnell as a kind hearted policeman, a wonderfully twitchy Cyril Cusack as a man who cannot back a winner and Norman Wooland as a parson who persuades Denant to do the right thing.

Although the weakest of their four collaborations, with Mankiewicz at the helm there are some effective moments whilst having Freddie Young behind the camera and William Alwyn as composer can only constitute a plus.

This film is also an interesting piece of social history as Galsworthy had a strong belief in English justice and the class system, both of which have since taken a hell of a battering!