Cinema: The New Pictures, Aug. 20, 1956

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Run for the Sun (United Artists) confirms the Hollywood truism that one scrappy Yank is more than a match for three brutal Nazis. Richard Widmark, an ex-war correspondent, big-game hunter and bestselling novelist, is tracked down in Mexico by Girl Reporter Jane Greer, whose assignment is to discover why he has stopped writing. Soon Widmark sobs out the terrible truth (while he was shooting lions in Africa, his wife and best friend were making beautiful music together). Jane is so moved that she starts back for Manhattan without her story. Aloft in Widmark's personal plane, the two of them crash in the Yucatan jungle right next to the isolated hacienda belonging to Trevor Howard and two Dutch cronies. Howard says he is an archaeologist but, if so, why are the grounds patrolled by man-eating dogs? And why has Widmark's wrecked plane disappeared? And why do Howard and his pals look so familiar?

In a masterly bit of total recall, Widmark identifies his hosts as Nazi war criminals. Instead of telling them that if they would just go home everything would be forgiven, Widmark and Jane plunge into the jungle, pursued by the Nazis and their venomous wolf pack. The villains should have known better. Widmark kills the first Nazi with a homemade crossbow, the second with a lucky bullet, and the third by running him down in his own airplane. Jane has her story. Widmark can write again. They're in love. All that is needed is someone to wake the audience.

Storm Center (Columbia) makes reading seem nearly as risky a habit as dope. Bette Davis, a peppery, small-town librarian, moves like Lady Bountiful among the worshipful peasants in her reading room, opening their purblind eyes to the treasure trove on the shelves around them. One book among the thousands, however, is a subversive tome entitled The Communist Dream. Bette never lets it go into circulation without warning the borrower of its deleterious effects, but she is disturbed when the city council tells her to put it in the ashcan. "What," wonders Bette, "would Thomas Jefferson say to a request like this?" She refuses, and more in sorrow than anger the city council fires her.

Since Bette is too proud to fight, it seems that Authors Daniel Taradash and Elick Moll have run out of plot. But no! Ten-year-old Kevin Coughlin, who has been reading like crazy up to this point, now abhors books and concludes that Bette is a mean old witch. He has nightmares. He listens for the first time to his sub-moronic father. He cuts Bette dead on the street. He even sneaks into the library in the dead of night and sets it on fire.

As the words of Voltaire, Shakespeare, Thoreau and Zane Grey go up in flames, the watching townsfolk brush tears from their eyes. The city council gets a hangdog look, and the leading Red hunter, Brian Keith, simultaneously loses his girl and his political future. By acclamation, Bette is reinstated as librarian. Storm Center is paved and repaved with good intentions; its heart is insistently in the right place; its leading characters are motivated by the noblest of sentiments. All that Writer-Director Taradash forgot was to provide a believable story.