Runner Stumbles Reviews
In its relentlessly old-fashioned way, The Runner Stumbles has a sort of dramatic persistence: It's not great, but it's there.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
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.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Time Out
Top CriticDeadly earnestness over Van Dyke's tortured celibacy becomes risible long before the Perry Mason conclusion and a final scene of indescribable bathos.
TV Guide's Movie Guide
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.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
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.
Spirituality and Practice
The Runner Stumbles is an exceptionally fine film about the exigencies of a religious calling and a critique of the legalism within Christianity.
Film Snobbery
A compelling and memorable drama, via Stanley Kramer.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
