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HALLMARK HALL OF FAME |
Hallmark's new CBS movie spins
a mysterious tale of murder, rape
By
RON MILLER
of TheColumnists.com
One of the nice things about the Old South as a setting for drama is the fact that you can't turn over a rock alongside a country road without uncovering some mystery or scandal that's worth looking into. Seems like southerners long have been in the habit of burying their secrets, among other things.
For instance, in "The Runaway" (Sunday, Dec. 10, 9-11 p.m.), CBS' latest Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, two youngsters pick up a rather large bone while "liberating" a boat, so they can run away from home by rowing down river. Though they don't know it at the time, that's going to open up one heck of a big can of worms.
Adapted from Terry Kay's novel, "The Runaway" is a sort of Gothic mystery with the lights on. At first glance, the rustic surroundings and beautiful rural landscape hardly suggest anything mysterious has been going on. What's more, the time is the late 1940s, shortly after World War II, a generally rosy and upbeat time for most Americans.
But we soon recognize this is still the Jim Crow south where lowbrow rednecks like Harlan Davis (Cliff De Young) can maintain their reign of terror over black folks who are yet to catch the scent of the civil rights revolution on the horizon.
The story begins with the births of two youngsters--one of them white, the other black--almost simultaneously in different parts of the same community in rural Georgia. The elderly neighborhood "conjure woman" (Maya Angelou) tells the black boy's mom (Debbi Morgan) that their linked births mean these two boys are "bound" in some psychic way.
"They will bring change," says the Conjure Woman.
Well, that doesn't look like such a good prediction a few years later when both boys are verging on their teens and don't seem interested in doing much of anything truly significant, except maybe set records for running away from home. They've become best friends, which is a mite unusual, but they spend much of their time together getting into trouble. The white boy is Luke (Cody Newton), who's the smaller of the two, but tends to be the idea man. When he tells his pal Sonny (Duane McLaughlin) that it's time to run away, Sonny usually goes along with him, albeit reluctantly.
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 Cliff De Young as Harlan |
Basically, they're just adventurers, not delinquents. Still, their latest runaway caper does upset a lot of people because Luke gets the bright idea to leave evidence behind suggesting they've been snatched by a legendary regional black "Pegleg" bogeyman who usually gets blamed for most of the area's murders and abductions. They steal a boat to escape down river, but just before they push off, they discover a very large bone sticking out of the underbrush and take it along. Later, when their boat overturns and they have to be rescued by Sheriff Richards (Dean Cain) and his men, that stray bone becomes suddenly very important.
It's not hard to understand why: The bone is from a human skeleton and when the sheriff gets Luke to show him where they found it, the deputies uncover the rest of the skeleton.
William Faulkner would have loved seeing where all this meanders over the next two hours. For one thing, the remains are found on the property of a young, attractive widow named Evelyn Carnes (Kathryn Erbe), who may know more than she's telling about what went on out by the old mill. Sonny's older sisters also seem to be hiding something very painful--and he begins to suspect it has something to do with racist Harlan Davis, who beats his woeful wife (Roxanne Hart) and has a reputation for chasing black girls--and not to present them with academic scholarships either!
If there's any troubling fault with "The Runaway," it's probably the fact that it shifts story focus a mite too often. It starts off as a boys' story with a "To Kill A Mockingbird" sensibility about race relations and other issues. But it winds up being a mystery/romance in which the young, good-looking sheriff draws closer and closer to the truth that the pretty widow is hiding.
Still, it's pretty involving, even if the hero is a little too good to be true and the villain is sort of a libidinous cross between Simon Legree and Oilcan Harry. Dean Cain, the former Man of Steel from "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," gives his character some nuance as a decorated war veteran who's appalled at the racism he finds when he takes over law enforcement in what's clearly Klan territory. Except for the sheriff and the two boys, we don't really get very full portraits of the many other characters, but this is a Hallmark film, so it's filled with superb actors like Debbi Morgan, Roxanne Hart and Pat Hingle, who plays a former district attorney who comes out of retirement for the big courtroom scenes.
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One
does wonder why Maya Angelou bothered playing a "conjure
woman" role when she could have just lounged around, being
a literary and social icon. Still, it's always good to see her,
and she brings a certain essence of quality to whatever she does.
This Hallmark--it's No. 207 in the 50-year history of the series--falls
short of the many great movies Hallmark has given us in the past,
but the series quality stamp is still on this production. It
looks especially good with those stunning locations around Wilmington,
N.C., and the period look of postwar Georgia. Given the low expectations
for so many of the commercial network movies so far this season,
it may turn out to look a lot better in months to come.
© 2000 by Ron Miller. The photos are © 2000 by Hallmark Hall of Fame.
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