He Ran All the Way (1951)

With its short runtime (just 77 minutes), this was a tightly-paced noir with all the fat trimmed off. The script stayed focused on the essentials, and the story beats kept escalating scene to scene, culminating in a dramatic conclusion.

Nick Robey (John Garfield) fumbles an armed robbery, shooting a cop in the process, but ultimately escapes with the money. Now on the run, he meets Peg Dobbs (Shelley Winters) and uses his charms to convince her to let him take her home. It turns out she doesn’t live alone, but shares an apartment with her mother, father, and younger brother.

When Robey inadvertently reveals to the family that he was involved in the robbery, it puts him in a bind. He forces them to let him hole up at their place until he finds an appropriate time to escape.

Tensions build as Robey becomes increasingly paranoid after seeing his face in the paper. The family equivocates about trying to resist his tyranny over the household, while Peg makes some hard choices of her own.

Notable for being Garfield’s final role. He died less than a year after the movie’s theatrical release at the age of 39.

Shelley Winters was great in this, as usual. I grew up watching her in much later roles, so I always love going back and seeing material from the early days of her career.