Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Payno I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS*** The most unusual thing about this movie is that the person who's really the center of attraction and the reason all that happens in it someone called Mr.Wills isn't even in the films credits and isn't even, as far as I can see, played by a living person or actor but by a store front mannequin. It's in this bombed out building, during the London Blitz, that we see sailor Chris Lloyd, Dirk Bogarde, together with this six year old runaway little Robbie Campball, Jon Whiteley,just shooting the breeze where in the foreground we see this stiff, Mr. Willis, laying on the ground in the early stages of rigor mortis. How he, Willis, got there and what caused his condition, being dead, were never really told only that Lloyd's wife Megda, Elizabeth Sellars, worked for Willis who was getting a little too friendly with her.With all that behind us were then shown that Robbie is on the run from his foster parents because in him playing with matches he almost set the house on fire and is afraid that his step-dad Mr. Campbell, Jack Stewart, will beat the living hell out of him when he finds out about it. From then on both Lloyd & Robbie are on the run from the police as well as Mr. Campbell until they reach this seaside town in Scotland and plan to sea-jack a boat and check or sail out to safety in Ireland. It's while on the lamb that Lloyd becomes very attached to Robbie in that he feels that he's in far more trouble then he is. Not having a home to go home to and parents to love him Lloyd who had first had little use for Robbie starts to show real affection towards the little boy.***SPOILERS*** The love and affection that Lloyd shows for Robbie really hits home when on their way to Ireland Robbie falls deathly ill because of the raw and possibly rotten eggs that Lloyd has been giving him to eat and decides to turn the boat around back to Scotland and eventually face justice in the murder of Wills for reasons were never really given by the films screenwriters. What I couldn't quite understand is why Wills, who seemed to be well off financially, was in that bombed out building in the first place? That unless if Lloyd did murder him had dragged his body there to keep the police from finding it.

DavidW1947 From the opening scenes of Hunted, directly after the credits, when the dramatic music accompanies a little boy running through the streets of London clutching a teddy bear, we just know this is going to be a great film and it certainly is. Filmed in England and Scotland in late 1951 and released early in 1952, this truly is a wonderful film. The boy is six years old orphaned Scots boy Robbie Campbell (a truly outstanding debut performance by six years old Scots boy Jon Whiteley), who is running and searching for somewhere to hide after accidentally setting the kitchen curtains on fire in his adoptive London home and, believing he has set the house on fire, is fleeing the severe punishment that he believes will be meted out to him by his cruel and violent adoptive father. He ends up running into a derelict building on a bomb site some distance from home where he accidentally comes upon a man, Chris Lloyd (Dirk Bogarde), having just murdered his wife's lover in a crime of passion. Seeing that Robbie has seen the body and is the only witness to his crime, Chris abducts him and takes him on the run with him as he attempts to flee the country and the long arm of the law. Robbie, unloved at home and cruelly treated by his adoptive father, dare not return home and a bond develops between the two fugitives as Robbie flees his adoptive father and Chris flees the police and the hangman's rope.Chris is at first completely uncaring and rough in his attitude to Robbie, but he gradually takes on the responsibility for Robbie's devotion as the two flee from London and travel up through the midlands to Stoke-on-Trent and then north into Scotland. As the journey gets tougher, Chris has to force Robbie to keep going, to carry him in his arms and to hold him, against the cold, as they sleep out in the wilderness.It really is a superbly made drama and I read somewhere that, of all the many Rank films Dirk Bogarde made during his long career, this was his personal favourite. It is also a film record of a bygone post-war Britain; from its bomb sites and tramcars and horse drawn traffic in the capital, to the now long gone pottery factories of Stoke on Trent, belching forth their black smoke from huge bottle ovens and covered with industrial grime. The railway scenes in the film were filmed on the equally now long gone Potteries Loop Line at Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, one of hundreds of lines that fell under the Dr Beeching axe in the 1960's. All completely gone now, but captured for posterity on 35mm black and white film in Hunted.The film is also a social record of the UK in 1951, a time of general poverty; of post-war austerity and ration books, when everybody dresses so drably. The police in the film may, by modern standards, seem to be having great difficulty in tracking down Chris and Robbie. But you have to take into account the fact that in those days, television was in its infancy; the police had no personal radio communications or computers or helicopters and the pace of life was very different. In real life 1951, a man on the run could quite easily abduct a little boy and take him all over the country with him without being apprehended. So this film then is a contemporary account of how things would have been back in 1951.Today, in an increasingly paranoid age when, in the minds of many, man abducting little boy equals sex, this film is from a time when characters in films apparently didn't even think of such things. This mindset is no better demonstrated than by one of the police officials in the film who confesses to a colleague that he can't understand what Chris Lloyd wants with the boy. "Why does he hang on to him?" These days, the police would probably put two and two together and make five. However, the story is far more complicated than it would seem at first glance. For the film is not really as much about child abduction as it is about two people of very different ages teaming up in a common cause. Neither of them can go home again and all they have is each other.Early on in the film, before the loving relationship between Chris and Robbie develops, Chris says to the boy: "You don't like me, do you?" "No", says Robbie. "Well, why don't you go off home, then?" asks Chris. "I don't want to go home", answers Robbie. Hence his decision to stay with Chris. As soon as Robbie gets over the initial shock of being dragged off by Chris at the beginning of the film, he comes to realise that from now on, his only future is with his co-fugitive. At only six and a half years of age, Jon Whiteley is perfect for this film and comes across variously as scared; devious;furtive and, for a short time, happy to be with Chris and away from his abusive home. His sheer delight at seeing men hay making in a field during the long journey north has to be seen to be believed. Dirk and Jon got on so well together that when the filming finished and they had to part, Jon was reportedly inconsolable. Dirk wanted to adopt the boy, but his friends persuaded him against it. The chemistry between Dirk and Jon is plain to see and what a team they make.This film is an absolute classic. Beautifully acted; directed and photographed. One of the best British films of the 1950's. 10 out of 10 for this black and white gem.

dbdumonteil ....and "Gloria" (1980) and "Leon" as well...Charles Crichton,whose career spans the second half of the century ("a fish named Wanda"!),is definitely a director to upgrade."Hunted" is a small gem ,a suspenseful sensitive story which casts Bogarde as an unlucky murderer on the lam and young John Whiteley as a moving kid.A road movie,from the bleak city to the wild moors of Scotland ,where a special chemistry between the man and the boy literally grows on the audience .Spoilers.Spoilers. Like all the great storytellers ,Crichton introduces first Bogarde as the "villain " who abducts a cute brat.But further acquaintance shows this:actually both of them are victims of a society that increases the prestige of money ,of Bogarde's boss who sleeps with his wife ,a society that does not care a little bit about its orphans whom it leaves to hateful "parents" .The boy really acts as if he's got nothing to lose.Admirable sequence :In a bedroom they share for one night,Bogarde begins a bedtime story for his protégé:it's a fairy tale ,a story of a giant.But little by little ,the story becomes HIS own story :what a smart way of letting us know about the hero's past!During this sequence ,which takes place halfway through the film,we see the boy SMILE for the first time.His face is so beaming we are on the verge of tears .He will laugh later ,in his pal's mean brother's house ,during the meal.When Bogarde sails away with his "hostage" ,he makes the story he told come true . End of spoilers .end of spoilersBogarde's rendering is a real tour de force and many consider this parthis first important one:tense,distraught,anguished,he runs the whole gamut of emotions.Matching him every step of the way is Whiteley's performance :in the three examples I mention at the beginning of my comment ,which I admire (with the exception of Besson's) ,the young actors cannot hold a candle to him.Instant karma:he won a special AA the following year,and was given the main part in Lang's "Moonfleet" in 1954.He was to meet again Bogarde in "Spanish gardener".Crichton had often been labeled "for the whole family".But they totally missed the point:"hunted" is not a rosy work,its open ending does not settle the things ,but increases our fear of what will become of our two so endearing heroes.His directing is now nervous -the first sequences when the heroes do not stop running -,now intimate -all the scenes where the two characters hang on to each other,now poetic -the seagulls which accompany the triumphant voyage .A wonderful use of nature (not unlike Charles Laughton's "the night of the hunter") and its wildlife where the runaways take refuge.Wonderful movie.

Adira-2 Although this movie is nearly fifty years old, it had me on the edge of my seat the whole way through. What was going to happen next? Would the characters escape? I can't say much more, without giving away the story except - "Hunted" was brilliantly plotted and directed. Thumbs up to everyone concerned, including Dirk Bogarde as the wanted man, and Jon Whitely as the little boy whom he first used, and then befriended.