Main Cast: George C. Scott, Tony Musante, Trish VanDevere, Colleen Dewhurst
Release Year: 1971
Country: US
Run Time: 92 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
George C. Scott stars in The Last Run as an aging mob driver hoping to make one last big haul and retire. Harry Garmes (Scott) is persuaded by his old cronies to drive escaped criminal Paul Ricard (Tony Musante) and his girlfriend, Claudio Schemer (Trish VanDevere), across Spain to safety. Garmes has premonitions throughout the flight of his own demise, but his fate will not be known until the end of his journey. John Huston was supposed to direct, but was replaced after a series of confrontations with Richard Fleischer.The cast includes Scott's then-wife, Colleen Dewhurst, alongside his wife-to-be, Trish VanDevere. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Robert Coleby - Hitchhiker; Antonio Tarruella - Motorcycle Policeman; Rocky Taylor - 2nd Man; Robert J. Zurica - 1st Man; Aldo Sanbrell - Miguel
Credit
Jose Marie Tapiador - Art Director, Roy Walker - Art Director, Antonio Tarruella - First Assistant Director, Richard Fleischer - Director, John Huston - Director, Russell Lloyd - Editor, Jerry Goldsmith - Composer (Music Score), Del Acevedo - Makeup, Sven Nykvist - Cinematographer, Carter DeHaven III - Producer, Basil Fenton-Smith - Sound/Sound Designer, Alan Sharp - Screenwriter
Harry Grimes (George C. Scott) is an aging American career criminal who was once a driver for Chicago’s organized crime rings. He is living in self-imposed exile in a fishing village in southern Portugal, where he seeks occasional companionship from a local prostitute (Colleen Dewhurst). Unexpectedly, Harry received a job, his first in nine years, to drive an escaped killer (Tony Musante) and the man’s girlfriend (Trish Van Devere) across Portugal and Spain into France. He accepts the job, despite premonitions that will end badly for him. In the course of the trip, Harry and his passengers are pursued by both the police and Harry’s former mobster cronies.[1]
John Huston was the original director for The Last Run. However, Huston and Scott, who previously worked together on the 1966 film The Bible: In the Beginning, had fights on the set. Huston walked off the production and he was hastily replaced by Richard Fleischer.[2] Scott also had fights with French actress Tina Aumont, who was originally cast as the killer’s girlfriend. She also quit the film and was replaced by Trish Van Devere, an American actress. Scott and Van Devere fell in love during the production. However, Scott was married at the time to Colleen Dewhurst, who was also in the film. Dewhurst and Scott divorced after the production concluded, and the actor married Van Devere (who became his third wife).[1]
Critical reaction
The Last Run was poorly received by the major critics, and most of them lamented the replacement of Huston with Fleischer. Roger Ebert, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, commented that "with Huston directing Alan Sharp's interesting screenplay, the movie would still have had the good stuff, I think, and would have avoided the embarrassing collapses of tone that wreck this version."[3] Roger Greenspun, reviewing the film for The New York Times, stated that Fleischer "a veteran of more than 20 years in the business...seems not yet to have mastered the reaction shot; and his automobile chase sequences, for all the billowing dust and squealing tires, seem to move at 30 miles an hour."[4] Toni Mastroianni, reviewing the film for the Cleveland Press, faulted Scott’s performance as the main stumbling block: "The problem with Scott at the moment is to find a movie as big as he is. The role is right for him and maybe he should play a real Hemingway part instead of an imitation one."[5]
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer promoted the film with the tag line: "In the tradition of Hemingway and Bogart." However, the film was not a commercial success. To date, The Last Run has not been released on home video or DVD.
