Johnny on the Run

Denis Gifford probably didn't have this early Children's Film Foundation presentation in mind when he wrote that Lewis Gilbert made "some of the best films about World War Two", but it compares well with 'The Search' and 'The Boy with Green Hair' in it's depiction of the plight of a displaced East European war orphan (the 'Johnny' of the title actually being named Jacek) alone in the world.

Made long ago when £17 was a life-changing sum of money, the excellent location photography of Edinburgh and Dumfrees is by Gerald Gibbs not long after he went north of the border to shoot 'Whiskey Galore!' It's rather sombre for a CFF production until the entrance of (SPOILERS COMING:) 'Flash Harry Fisher' and 'Fingers Brown', the usual pair of gallumphing crooks in loud suits played of course by Sydney Tafler and Michael Balfour; Tafler for a while becoming Fagan to Janek's Oliver Twist. (When they appear Antony Hopkins' otherwise wistful woodwind score turns comic to remind us how funny they are.)

The former actually says "It's a fair cop" when eventually foiled; and with all those lochs available they missed a trick not dunking them in one of them.

i actually took part in this film when i was 13years old as an extra. i was at queen victoria school dunblane in stirlingshire. we were asked to take part in this as cross country runners at loch earn. and i tripped and fell and sprained my ankle and fingers actor Micheal balfour picked me up to carry me back up the side of loch earn. and the director told him to put me down and get on with the film. i enjoyed the film as an extra. and as watching the film. i would like to trace this film if it was possible? well worth watching. the film is about two villains using a boy small enough to go through the fanlight windows and steal valuables. archie downie.

Rather gritty and upsetting early on with a nasty foster mother (an untypical role for Mona Washbourne), horrible bullying, unjust blame and then a scary chase of the innocent Polish lad-it must have been a quite worrying experience for the young audience of 1953.

The movie then settles down a bit in the central travelling sequence with the two unbelievably inept crooks; then the final part is quite nice set in an idyllic "village" for refugee children from the war-everybody-children and the "parents"-are kind, trusting and charitable; the finale has the crooks back and they are of course foiled, but the makers missed a trick in not giving them a dunking in the lakes in the Scottish locations!

The young audience were still given a worry right at the end with the nasty foster mother returning, but...well we know it'll come out all right!

UK's Talking Pictures channel showed this at Holocaust Memorial time in January 2023. Very apt, as there is a scene where the Polish lad wants to get back to his town, even though his parents are dead, as he thinks that there will be relatives still there-the refugee children tell him that he should know that there is never anyone left-a reminder today that the extent of the Holocaust was pretty well-known even a few years after war's end.

Another valuable CFF social document in the archives for tomorrow's students....

I loved the Children's Film Foundation films shown at our local cinema on Saturdays. This early Lewis Gilbert film (You Only Live Twice/The Spy Who Loved Me) is about Janek, a Polish orphan living in Scotland, who gets inadvertently caught up in a burglary & runs away from the real thieves. Janek then stumbles into a group of children who are refugee orphans like himself. All the young actors give great performances as well as the grown up professional actors which include Jean Anderson & even John Laurie (Dad's Army). The film is available on the CFF compilation "Runaways" on DVD from Amazon. Worth a nostalgic watch.

Included as an extra on the BFI's Blu-ray release of the same director's Cosh Boy this was made under the auspices of the Children's Film Foundation. Much of the CFF product was of very high quality and often shown at Saturday morning picture presentations. As a punter at the time I recall not always being very happy when these supplanted our usual American superhero imports but seem very impressive now. Indeed this offering is certainly superior to the film featured on the front of the box. A simple enough tale of child refugees but much glorious location shooting out in the Scottish hills and vales and a cast of very enthusiastic children who run hither and hither just as much as young Johnny. Eugeniusz Chylek plays the young Pole and very effectively too, an object lesson perhaps for Sydney Tafler alongside whom he plays in the middle section. A delightful and well photographed film capturing well the countryside and the enthusiasm of the young actors.