Best movie of this year hands down!

Too much of everything

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Run a Crooked Mile was a film made for TV and filmed in England and Europe with a cast mainly of British actors. Although made by Universal's TV branch-which probably explains the two leads are Louis Jourdan and Mary Tyler Moore-it plays as good as a theatrically made film.Jourdan plays a London-based mathematics teacher who, when following a car that sideswiped his, arrives at Buckley Manor, where he stumbles on a group of wealthy financiers manipulating the gold standard. Confronting one of them later, he is struck on the head. When he wakes up he discovers that two years have passed, he's now in Geneva, married, and is in hospital recovering from a fall off his polo pony! Of course he's now called Tony Sutton instead of Richard Stuart. The next step is to make ANYONE believe him, as almost everyone Jourdan comes into contact with is part of the conspiracy. He eventually returns to England and exposes the crooks.This is a film that really should be released commercially by Universal (along with other of their great made for TV films). Other comments call for a remake, but this film is so good that it NEVER should be remade! The photography is great and so are the performances from top to bottom. We sympathize with Jourdan and he's quite good in the film, and also Mary Tyler Moore gives an unusually good performance. Best in the cast is the great Wilfrid Hyde-White as Dr. Ralph Sawyer, and also Stanley Holloway in a smaller part as a caretaker. Also excellent are Alexander Knox as Sir Howard Nettleton, Terence Alexander as Private Eye Peter Martin, Laurence Naismith (Lord Dunsford), Ronald Howard (Inspector Huntington), and Norman Bird (Sergeant Hooper).Trevor Wallace wrote a brilliant script, it's a pity he died so young and wrote so few film scripts. There are many memorable quotes (like Hyde-White to Jourdan: "I had two great vices-poetry and gambling. Poetry enriches the soul; gambling depletes the bank account.") or when Holloway is talking to the police-trying to tell them Jourdan must be crazy: "Maybe you can find some little green men in the drive too!"

When I saw some of the comments the other week about the film not being released on VHS or DVD, I got out my copy of the film on VHS. I taped it back in the late 1980s and have watched it at least once a year! It hasn't been played for ages here in Australia and as I have a new DVD HDD recorder AND a VHS recorder still hooked up, I have copied it on to the disc drive, edited it and included a scene selection and can burn copies any time on to DVD. The quality from the near 20 year old tape is still pretty good and very watchable. I have edited out the old ad breaks but you will see the station logo at the beginning of scenes coming back from the break but there are no watermarks during scenes. There is a little bit of a voice-over on the end credits but it only goes for about 10 seconds. If any one wants a copy, I would be happy to oblige.

Great movie! Intelligent plot and a treasure chest of acting talent in the likes of Holloway, Howard, Naismith, et all. I saw this movie upon its release and it still rivets me to my seat. The magic of this movie whisked me away from the tedium of 1960's mid-America to the beautiful European locations on which it was shot and allowed me to escape into intrigue, suspense and danger for a few hours. This might have been considered a mid-budget level British production, but my biased opinion is that their mid level movies beat most of our A-productions in quality. It is my hope that this fine production is released on DVD very soon.

Excellent thriller,with a twist.Louis Jordan is excellent as the lead character and Mary Tyler Moore shows acting capabilities,rarely seen or associated with her.This film needs to be released on DVD or VHS.It is truly,a classic!