Hunted (1952) [VHS]

 

 

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This drama snares you from the word go with riveting performances from decorated WWII veteran Dirk Bogarde and little Jon Whitely. It's hard to say which of the two stole the show. Pairing them up was sublime. The tension and suspense starts straight off, in the violent way man and boy meet, and never lets up. If ever there was a film to make a Dirk Bogarde fan of you, this is it. His character's (Chris) initial rough handling of the child, superbly portrays his feelings of a man's trapped despair. As for Jon Whitely ... why can't kids act like this anymore, so wonderfully naturally you forget they're acting. His character's early fear and fascination for Chris was so realistically that of a small boy. A couple of tender moments that you feel all the more for how simply they play out; no over-dramatising or deliberate manipulation of the viewer's emotions, as movies now fall on themselves to make a practice of. If you've not seen this gritty drama set in postwar Britain, don't delay, run out and buy it.

From the opening scenes of "Hunted", directly after the credits, when the dramatic music accompanies a little boy running through the streets of London clutching a teddy bear and dodging cars and horse drawn carts, we just know this is going to be a great film and it certainly is. Filmed in England and Scotland in late 1951 and released early in 1952, this truly is a great picture. The boy is six years old orphaned Scots boy Robbie Campbell (a truly outstanding debut performance by six years old Scots boy Jon Whiteley), who is running and searching for somewhere to hide after accidentally setting the kitchen curtains on fire in his adoptive London home and, believing he has set the house on fire, is fleeing the severe punishment that he believes will be meted out to him by his cruel and violent adoptive father. He ends up running into the basement of a derelict building on a bomb site some distance from home where he accidentally comes upon a man, Chris Lloyd (Dirk Bogarde), having just murdered his wife's lover in a crime of passion. Seeing that Robbie has seen the body and is the only witness to his crime, Chris abducts him and takes him on the run with him as he attempts to flee the country and the long arm of the law. Robbie, unloved at home and cruelly treated by his adoptive father, dare not return home and a bond develops between the two fugitives as Robbie flees his adoptive father and Chris flees the police and the hangman's rope.

Chris is at first completely uncaring and rough in his attitude to Robbie, but he gradually takes on the responsibility for Robbie's devotion as the two flee from London and travel up through the midlands to Stoke-on-Trent and then north into Scotland. As the journey gets tougher, Chris has to force Robbie to keep going, to carry him in his arms and to hold him, against the cold, as they sleep out in the wilderness.

I read somewhere that, of all the many Rank films Dirk Bogarde made during his long career, this was his personal favourite. It is also a film record of a bygone post-war Britain; from its bomb sites and tramcars and horse drawn traffic in the capital, to the now long gone pottery factories of Stoke on Trent, belching forth their black smoke from huge bottle ovens and covered with industrial grime. The railway scenes in the film were filmed on the equally now long gone Potteries Loop Line at Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, one of hundreds of lines that fell under the Dr Beeching axe in the 1960s. All completely gone now, but captured for posterity on 35mm black and white film in Hunted.

The film is also a social record of the UK in 1951, a time of general poverty; of post-war austerity and ration books, when everybody dresses so drably. The police in the film may, by modern standards, seem to be having great difficulty in tracking down Chris and Robbie. But you have to take into account the fact that in those days, television was in its infancy; the police had no personal radio communications or computers or helicopters and the pace of life was very different. In real life 1951, a man on the run could quite easily abduct a little boy and take him all over the country with him without being apprehended. So this film then is a contemporary account of how things would have been back in 1951.

Today, in an increasingly paranoid age when, in the minds of many, man abducting little boy equals sex, this film is from a time when characters in films apparently didn't even think of such things. This mindset is no better demonstrated than by one of the police officials in the film who confesses to a colleague that he can't understand what Chris Lloyd wants with the boy. "Why does he hang on to him?" These days, the police would probably put two and two together and make five. However, the story is far more complicated than it would seem at first glance. For the film is not really as much about child abduction as it is about two people of very different ages teaming up in a common cause. Neither of them can go home again and all they have is each other.

Early on in the film, before the loving relationship between Chris and Robbie develops, Chris says to the boy: "You don't like me, do you?" "No", says Robbie. "Well, why don't you go off home, then?" asks Chris. "I don't want to go home", answers Robbie...hence the reason why he has chosen to stay with Chris. As soon as Robbie gets over the initial shock of being dragged off by Chris at the beginning of the film, he comes to realise that from now on, his only future is with his co-fugitive.

At only six and a half years of age, Jon Whiteley is perfect for this film and comes across variously as scared; devious; furtive and, for a short time, happy to be with Chris and away from his abusive home. His sheer delight at seeing men hay making in a field during the long journey north has to be seen to be believed. Dirk and Jon got on so well together that when the filming finished and they had to part, Jon was reportedly inconsolable. Dirk wanted to adopt the boy, but his friends persuaded him against it. The chemistry between Dirk and Jon is plain to see and what a team they make, although modern viewers will find very disconcerting indeed the very rough way that Chris treats Robbie early on in the film, grabbing him hard and shaking the poor little lad violently on at least two occasions.

I read in an old film book that on the first of these occasions, Jon Whiteley burst into tears, thinking that Dirk Bogarde, who had become a hero to him, had suddenly and inexplicably turned against him. The director, Charles Crichton, stopped the filming and Dirk took the very upset little boy to one side and, consoling him, explained to him gently that it was only acting, but that it was meant to look real. After that, Jon got into the part with all his heart and gave a real performance, appearing with Dirk in almost every scene in the film. Today's Health and Safety people would have a fit at the sight of little Jon Whiteley perched precariously on the parapet of a real railway bridge as a real train rumbles by underneath him! What if he had lost his balance and slipped? The poor little lad would have been killed for sure! It wouldn't be allowed today.

This film is an absolute classic. Beautifully acted; directed and photographed. One of the best British films of the 1950s. 10 out of 10 for this black and white gem.

I just want to agree with the two previous reviewers of 'Hunted'. It is without doubt one of the finest British films of its era and I have never understood why it isn't better known. The rapport between Dirk Bogarde and Jon Whitely is quite extraordinary, Jon acts mainly with his wonderful facial expressions which can change instantly. He was a natural actor and the director Charles Crichton managed to inspire a wonderful performance from him.

My fellow reviewer has commented at length about the scenes filmed in Stoke on Trent, for me these are the best in the whole picture. It's in these scenes that the bond is finally forged between these two unlikely fugitives, one escaping a murder charge and the other cruel adopted parents. Kay Walsh has a cameo role as the landlady they lodge with and she too acts extraordinarily well. She is warm, compassionate and motherly as she helps Jon to have a bath, and she conveys excellently her mounting terror the following morning as she realizes she may be harbouring a murderer. The scene in which Dirk tells Jon a bed time story, beginning with a fairy tale that soon lapses into his own life story is one of the most moving ever filmed in my opinion.

This sequence ends with the famous chase with a thrilling climax which I won't describe, but at the end of it you will have tears in your eyes.

The DVD transfer is excellent, good crisp black and white with a strong audio track.

I could go on and on singing its praises, there is so much to enjoy, the excellent street scenes around Victoria and Pimlico at the beginning,and the always welcome Elizabeth Sellars as Dirk's unfaithful wife.

Some may find the ending contrived, but I just regard it as inevitable and proof if we needed any more of the affection between the two fugitives.

So, superb and unmissable - you won't forget this film in a long while!

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