Leofwine_draca
NOWHERE TO RUN is an odd little character study TV movie from 1978. The presence of David Janssen as the protagonist is appropriate given the title and his fame for appearing in THE FUGITIVE. Janssen plays a miserable character, downtrodden by his wife, who decides to fake his own death and disappear in order to begin a new life; much like in THE FALL AND RISE OF REGINALD PERRIN. The astonishing thing is that Janssen's plan takes no less than 15 years to achieve fruition! That this works at all is down to the unusual nature of the story, which explores a kind of situation you don't normally see play out on screen, alongside Janssen's hugely sympathetic chief performance.
lrcdmnhd72
David Janssen seems about the best choice for playing Harry Adams, a lonely, but brilliant structural engineer in a loveless marriage. It might be possible to accumulate $500,000 in high-stakes black jack playing, being able to do it in 15 years or less. In fact, a BJ card counting team went into Resorts International Casino, around 1978, in Atlantic City and won $145,000 in a period of ~8-9 days and was barred.The only thing is, I don't think any BJ player would be allowed to bring a notepad to a BJ table. This might be construed as a form of card-counting, yet was necessary for the plot.When Herbie, the Private Investigator, needed $10,000 to pay off his gambling debts, why didn't Harry (Janssen) simply remove the $10,000 from the nearly $500,000 in BJ winnings that he had already amassed, instead of getting involved in a rather dangerous, high-stakes, back room poker game? Much simpler. To me, $490,000 would be close enough.
sylkenhebden
I saw this film in Australia when I was working with Frankie Vaughan in the mid seventies and have not seen or heard of it since. I'm not a fan of David Jansen, I feel he takes 'taciturn' way past it's sell by date, but in my opinion he did a great job on this. I was blown away by the audacity of the plot. Frank and I and the rest of the team ALL agreed the story was superb. The twists and turns kept me / us on the edge of our collective seat. The ending was SPECTACULAR. After all the "will he - won't he" our whole crew was cheering as the credits rolled. To help with a happy retirement I need to get a copy of this film at any reasonable price. Please - can anybody help me ? ken h.
MartinHafer
This was a television movie from late in Janssen's career. His character, Harry, is an unhappy man stuck in a loveless marriage. His wife is cheating on him and he is rather indifferent towards her. He does not hate her--he just wants out but she doesn't want to let him go too easily. So, Harry slowly creates a complicated plan by which he will fake his death and go to Vegas for a big score (as he's created a nearly foolproof technique that should pay off big).Along the way, he meets and falls for Stephanie Powers and befriends the hapless Herbie Stoltz (played by Alan Garfield)--Herbie BEFORE he arranged his fake death and Stephanie AFTER. In fact, Herbie is broken up by Harry's apparent death and is sure Harry's wife did it--until he accidentally stumbles on Harry in his new life! What happens next and the tense build up until the "big score" make this an unexpectedly good film.
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