Girl on the Run is one of those fascinating throwaway B-movies which really define a genre, in this case, the so-called quickie film noir murder mystery. Filmed in an sweaty, intimate style in a stifling, claustrophobic setting, with an abundance of steamy close-ups, the film looks like it could almost be an early television feature, but for the unerring seediness of the whole thing - and Girl on the Run is seedy! Taking place at an unnamed New York-based carnival, the film revels in grotesque and dissolute characters; even the hero and heroine seem twisted and creepy, and they fit into this sorry social setting perfectly. Running a bit over an hour and unraveling in approximately real time, the scenario asks more questions than it answers as our hero and heroine hide for their lives within this most tawdry setting. Carny folk, cops and customers all occupy the same crummy socioeconomic space, and there is not one character who is not above suspicion here. Everyone here is a sinner, a fallen and battered angel, and this weird, inky purgatory stands as the stage of their final judgment.
As the threadbare plot unfolds, characters reveal themselves to be duplicitous, desparate and at times even deranged. Plot points unufold, contradict each other, even turn back on themselves. Everyone is on the take, everyone has their own shameful secret. And throughout all the backstabbing and betrayal, the film returns every few minutes to showacase some exceedingly up-close shots of very lovely, very "real" burlesque dancers cavorting on the midway stage, smiling coyly as they grind their way into the lustful thoughts of the audience, highly symbolic of forbidden dreams of fallen man. In these amazing recurring sequences, the sins of the flesh are accented in high relief, and these narrative detours are one area in which Girl on the RUn really stands out. Indeed, the seedy carnival setting acts as purgatory for lost souls, yet it also has a certain sacred quality, serving as a cleansing void of possible redemption and resurrection.
The hero, in order to avoid the cops and extend his freedom for another minute or so, ends up at one point being a patsy in a fake boxing match, and the brutal scenes of the two men slugging each other acts as a winning counterpoint to the more serene moments of sublime dancing from the carny girls, in effect the yin and yang of fleshly sin. The film's denouement, in which the hero's innocence is explained via hastily telelgraphed exposition, comes across almost as afterthought, as by this time it has become crystal clear that all those involved are haunted, guilty of sinning, overdue some sort of cosmic justice. What is so compelling about the hero and heroine is that throughout their journey towards redemption, they act exceedingly guilty, and one wonders, even at the end, if their hands are really clean after all. The film opens and closes on an ubiquitous feature of the carnival funhouse, the laughing clown-mannequin, its presence eerily sketching its allegorical role as a stand-in for cruel, ironic Fate.
Richard Coogan shines as the utterly haunted hero in this strange little thriller, giving a performance light years away from his stilted turn as the first Captain Video (where he was forced to perform ridicilous scripts on live television, no mean feat for any actor.) Other characters fall into bonafide genre cliche, including the two-timing cop, the old hag with a heart of gold, etc. The abundant skid-row atmosphere magically captures the forlorn atmopshere of the traveling carnival, where life is cheap and tawdry, and sad, forgotten people come and go without warning, without friends, often without even a name. The pacing is swift, and the crackling thriller really moves.
Low budget and stark, even bleak, Girl on the Run creates an unflinchingly morose world of hunted, unpunished sinners; it is in effect the cinematic equivalent of a pulp fiction magazine book cover brought to life, in which gruesome, snarling men drool over and paw a terrified, scatnily-clad, sexually compromised female. The impressive photography and unerringly dreary mise-en-scene, along with the taut if obtuse screenplay, remind us that this genre was really percolating during the mid-1950s, and may encourage us to reassess films such as Stanley Kubrick's Killer's Kiss which - upon closer inspection - may turn out to be not that much more worthy than similar product cranked out at the time by many other, largely unsung artists.
As the threadbare plot unfolds, characters reveal themselves to be duplicitous, desparate and at times even deranged. Plot points unufold, contradict each other, even turn back on themselves. Everyone is on the take, everyone has their own shameful secret. And throughout all the backstabbing and betrayal, the film returns every few minutes to showacase some exceedingly up-close shots of very lovely, very "real" burlesque dancers cavorting on the midway stage, smiling coyly as they grind their way into the lustful thoughts of the audience, highly symbolic of forbidden dreams of fallen man. In these amazing recurring sequences, the sins of the flesh are accented in high relief, and these narrative detours are one area in which Girl on the RUn really stands out. Indeed, the seedy carnival setting acts as purgatory for lost souls, yet it also has a certain sacred quality, serving as a cleansing void of possible redemption and resurrection.
The hero, in order to avoid the cops and extend his freedom for another minute or so, ends up at one point being a patsy in a fake boxing match, and the brutal scenes of the two men slugging each other acts as a winning counterpoint to the more serene moments of sublime dancing from the carny girls, in effect the yin and yang of fleshly sin. The film's denouement, in which the hero's innocence is explained via hastily telelgraphed exposition, comes across almost as afterthought, as by this time it has become crystal clear that all those involved are haunted, guilty of sinning, overdue some sort of cosmic justice. What is so compelling about the hero and heroine is that throughout their journey towards redemption, they act exceedingly guilty, and one wonders, even at the end, if their hands are really clean after all. The film opens and closes on an ubiquitous feature of the carnival funhouse, the laughing clown-mannequin, its presence eerily sketching its allegorical role as a stand-in for cruel, ironic Fate.
Richard Coogan shines as the utterly haunted hero in this strange little thriller, giving a performance light years away from his stilted turn as the first Captain Video (where he was forced to perform ridicilous scripts on live television, no mean feat for any actor.) Other characters fall into bonafide genre cliche, including the two-timing cop, the old hag with a heart of gold, etc. The abundant skid-row atmosphere magically captures the forlorn atmopshere of the traveling carnival, where life is cheap and tawdry, and sad, forgotten people come and go without warning, without friends, often without even a name. The pacing is swift, and the crackling thriller really moves.
Low budget and stark, even bleak, Girl on the Run creates an unflinchingly morose world of hunted, unpunished sinners; it is in effect the cinematic equivalent of a pulp fiction magazine book cover brought to life, in which gruesome, snarling men drool over and paw a terrified, scatnily-clad, sexually compromised female. The impressive photography and unerringly dreary mise-en-scene, along with the taut if obtuse screenplay, remind us that this genre was really percolating during the mid-1950s, and may encourage us to reassess films such as Stanley Kubrick's Killer's Kiss which - upon closer inspection - may turn out to be not that much more worthy than similar product cranked out at the time by many other, largely unsung artists.