One of Dirk Bogarde's earliest roles, Hunted (1952) is a compelling thriller. Both crime story and character study, it's expressively shot, well-plotted and ultimately touching.Six year old Robbie (Jon Whiteley) flees home after setting the kitchen drapes on fire. He runs into Chris Lloyd (Dirk Bogarde), who's just murdered a man. Chris abducts Robbie and the two go on the lam. Boy and criminal bond after discovering a shared past: Chris a childhood runaway, Robbie foster child of strict parents (Jane Aird and Jack Stewart). The two flee to Scotland, where escape seems imminent... until Robbie falls ill.
Hunted's delightfully crafted. Director Charles Crichton (The Lavender Hill Mob) seamlessly moves the action from London to Stoke-on-Trent slagheaps and Scottish highlands. The fast-paced show doesn't lack for set pieces like Chris's escape from a foggy balcony, or the famous train yard sequence. Eric Cross's expressive photography ranges from noirish (the dingy London tenements and fog-shrouded Stoke) to handsome (Portpatrick's pictureque quayside). It's lovely to watch and engagingly paced.
Hunted downplays the expected manhunt thrills for its central relationship. Writers Jack Whittingham and Michael McCarthy make Chris a sympathetic scoundrel. When he recounts his miserable life to Robbie as a bedtime story, Chris melts all but the stoniest hearts. It helps that Chris's crime occurs offscreen; no violence to qualify our sympathy. Hunted's less Stockholm Syndrome than filial bonding: Chris and Robbie become surrogate father-and-son, happy to connect with someone. Their relationship grows close, compelling Chris to make a heartbreaking sacrifice.
Dirk Bogarde had played a crook in The Blue Lamp (1950) but Hunted's a different beast. Sporting scruffy beard and Estuary accent, Bogarde's a world away from his Doctor films. But he's endlessly compelling, smoothing out Chris's coarse appearance with glimmers of warmth, regret and basic decency. Bogarde's the right actor to give Chris humanity, providing Hunted dramatic weight.
Jon Whiteley did a few more films, reteaming with Bogarde on The Spanish Gardener (1957), before growing into an art historian. He's a competent child actor, avoiding precocity but often stiff. There's a nice supporting cast Kay Walsh (Oliver Twist) as an inquisitive landlady; Elizabeth Sellars (The Day They Robbed the Bank of England) Lloyd's defiant wife; Julian Somers as Chris's brother; Geoffrey Keen (Doctor Zhivago) a hardnosed policeman.
Hunted is a lovely treat, downbeat yet engaging. By film's end you're focused less on the conventional crime story than its poignant central relationship.
