The main problem with the film is that inherent to most play adaptations: it's too talky and static, with most of the responsibility for story development left to explanatory dialog.
The Runner Stumbles (1979)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:8
Fresh:3
Rotten:5
Average Rating:5.4/10
Runtime: 1 hr 49 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: In this drama based on a real-life story, a priest falls in love with a young nun at his parish. When she is murdered, he becomes the prime suspect. Through flashbacks, the film shows the events... In this drama based on a real-life story, a priest falls in love with a young nun at his parish. When she is murdered, he becomes the prime suspect. Through flashbacks, the film shows the events leading up to Sister Rita's death, before returning to the present and Father Rivard's trial. Will the clergyman be found guilty? And, if he didn't commit the crime, who did? [More]
Starring: Dick Van Dyke, Kathleen Quinlan, Maureen Stapleton, Ray Bolger
Starring: Dick Van Dyke, Kathleen Quinlan, Maureen Stapleton, Ray Bolger, Beau Bridges, Tammy Grimes
Director: Stanley Kramer
Director: Stanley Kramer
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Reviews for The Runner Stumbles
Throughout, the film is paced by fine performances, especially Van Dyke as Father Rivard, Quinlan as Sister Rita and Maureen Stapleton as Van Dyke's housekeeper.
Deadly earnestness over Van Dyke's tortured celibacy becomes risible long before the Perry Mason conclusion and a final scene of indescribable bathos.
Mr. Van Dyke's performance, though extremely sympathetic, is hard to assess. He worries and suffers, but the film finds nothing vital in his ordeal.
In its relentlessly old-fashioned way, The Runner Stumbles has a sort of dramatic persistence: It's not great, but it's there.
The Runner Stumbles is an exceptionally fine film about the exigencies of a religious calling and a critique of the legalism within Christianity.
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