The New Pictures

Run for the Sun (United Artists) confirms the Hollywood truism that one scrappy Yank is more than a match for three brutal Nazis. Richard Widmark, an ex-war correspondent, big-game hunter and bestselling novelist, is tracked down in Mexico by Girl Reporter Jane Greer, whose assignment is to discover why he has stopped writing. Soon Widmark sobs out the terrible truth (while he was shooting lions in Africa, his wife and best friend were making beautiful music together). Jane is so moved that she starts back for Manhattan without her story. Aloft in Widmark's personal plane, the two of them crash in the Yucatan jungle right next to the isolated hacienda belonging to Trevor Howard and two Dutch cronies. Howard says he is an archaeologist but, if so, why are the grounds patrolled by man-eating dogs? And why has Widmark's wrecked plane disappeared? And why do Howard and his pals look so familiar?

In a masterly bit of total recall, Widmark identifies his hosts as Nazi war criminals. Instead of telling them that if they would just go home everything would be forgiven, Widmark and Jane plunge into the jungle, pursued by the Nazis and their venomous wolf pack. The villains should have known better. Widmark kills the first Nazi with a homemade crossbow, the second with a lucky bullet, and the third by running him down in his own airplane. Jane has her story. Widmark can write again. They're in love. All that is needed is someone to wake the audience.

Storm Center (Columbia) makes reading seem nearly as risky a habit as dope. Bette Davis, a peppery, small-town librarian, moves like Lady Bountiful among the worshipful peasants in her reading room, opening their purblind eyes to the treasure trove on the shelves around them. One book among the thousands, however, is a subversive tome entitled The Communist Dream. Bette never lets it go into circulation without warning the borrower of its deleterious effects, but she is disturbed when the city council tells her to put it in the ashcan. "What," wonders Bette, "would Thomas Jefferson say to a request like this?" She refuses, and more in sorrow than anger the city council fires her.

Since Bette is too proud to fight, it seems that Authors Daniel Taradash and Elick Moll have run out of plot. But no! Ten-year-old Kevin Coughlin, who has been reading like crazy up to this point, now abhors books and concludes that Bette is a mean old witch. He has nightmares. He listens for the first time to his sub-moronic father. He cuts Bette dead on the street. He even sneaks into the library in the dead of night and sets it on fire.

As the words of Voltaire, Shakespeare, Thoreau and Zane Grey go up in flames, the watching townsfolk brush tears from their eyes. The city council gets a hangdog look, and the leading Red hunter, Brian Keith, simultaneously loses his girl and his political future. By acclamation, Bette is reinstated as librarian. Storm Center is paved and repaved with good intentions; its heart is insistently in the right place; its leading characters are motivated by the noblest of sentiments. All that Writer-Director Taradash forgot was to provide a believable story.

Autumn Leaves (Columbia) stars Joan Crawford as a spinster who is so remote and lovely that all the men she meets think she is unattainable and therefore never ask her for a date. Then along comes irrepressible Cliff Robertson, and, quick as a wink, frigid Joan is thawing in his arms and even outdoing From Here to Eternity by necking amid the breakers on a public beach. But Joan hesitates about marriage because she is at least old enough to be his mother.

She should have hesitated even longer. They are no sooner wed and settled down in her bungalow than Joan begins making alarming discoveries about her boyish mate. It develops that he already has a wife (Vera Miles) who is having an untidy affair with his father (Lome Greene). Finally, it becomes increasingly clear that Cliff is off his rocker. Joan takes some convincing, but when he blacks her eye, knocks her down, tries to brain her with a typewriter, and spends most of one night battering at a locked wardrobe under the impression that it is the door to his former wife's bedroom, Joan gets concerned enough to visit a psychiatrist, who suggests confinement and cure for Cliff. "But," quavers Joan, as the camera moves in for a close shot of her downturned, trembling mouth, "but if he's cured, he may not need me any more!"

Joan, however, does the right thing. The men in white come for Cliff and haul him screaming away. While Cliff writhes in the agonies of shock treatment, Joan exhibits anxiety by pacing the floor. Soon, through the use of some Hollywood miracle drug, Cliff is completely cured and ready for release. Joan, as tremulous as the title song (sung off-camera by Nat "King" Cole), walks toward Cliff across the asylum grounds. Will he still cling to her? Will returning reason rob her of her one true love? Will he respond to the lovelight in her eyes? Will the sun rise tomorrow?

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