Dirk Bogarde is superb as Chris, a man who has killed his wife's lover in a crime of passion yet is clearly a decent, sensitive guy at heart -- just one caught up in unfortunate and grim circumstances. Six-year-old John Whiteley plays Robbie, a kid who is terrified he has set his family's flat on fire (in fact, he just started a minor kitchen fire). Running away from home, Robbie stumbles into the basement of a derelict house and happens upon Chris -- and the dead body -- making him a witness Chris cannot set free. But we soon learn that Robbie has abusive foster parents and that he is right to be terrified of their potential reaction to discovering the remains of his accidental fire.
Chris and Robbie set out on the run, first to retrieve money from Chris' apartment, which results in an expert set-piece of suspense filmmaking, and then eventually on the road (and rails) to northern England and Scotland. They exist in a world of almost existential bleakness, with policemen at seemingly every corner, and the world out to get them. Along the way, a truly touching bond develops between these two damaged souls. It may seem miraculous that Hunted never becomes cloying, but it's no miracle -- it's the result of spare, to-the-point screenwriting by Jack Whittingham, lean direction by Charles Crichton, and two great performances.
Bogarde called Hunted one of his favorite films of his own work, and it's easy to see why. The movie is all the more powerful for staying within itself and not trying to become something grander than it demands to be. Focus is kept primarily on the two main characters, with the camera often on Bogarde's face, transmitting one thought, emotion and reaction after another -- purely visually. Bogarde has an especially good moment where Robbie asks Chris for a bedtime story. Chris obliges, and what starts as a fairytale about a giant gradually turns into Chris talking about himself and his own situation, and the betrayal he feels. It's a powerful, fantastic piece of writing and delivery that you will want to watch over again, if only to find the point at which the story changes. It's that subtle.
John Whiteley as Robbie is every bit Bogarde's equal here -- a great child performance. This was Whiteley's debut, after which he was cast in a handful more prominent films including The Little Kidnappers (1953), Moonfleet (1955) and The Spanish Gardener (1956) (in which he was again paired with Dirk Bogarde), but he soon left the acting profession and grew up to become a respected art historian.
Director Charles Crichton was best known for his Ealing comedies and his late-career comedy classic A Fish Called Wanda (1988), but he did drama quite well, too. In fact, Crichton sandwiched Hunted in between two of his funniest comedies: The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) and The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953). Like the Ealing comedies, Hunted uses location work vividly. It offers a fascinating glimpse of postwar England, with evocative images in London and the Scottish highlands, on railroads and in harbors.
The crisp black-and-white cinematography looks great on VCI's DVD, which showcases this film in very good shape all-around. VCI has also just put out another classic Dirk Bogarde picture, The High Bright Sun (1965), co-starring Susan Strasberg and Denholm Elliott.
By Jeremy Arnold
