Screen Junkies » The Running Man

R.I.P. ‘Family Feud’ Host Richard Dawson

Wookie Johnson — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 16:09:27 +0000

Beloved game show host and kissing bandit Richard Dawson has passed away. The former Family Feud host died on Saturday at the age of 79 from complications related to esophageal cancer. He began his career as a stand up comedian before booking roles on The Steve Allen Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Hogan’s Heroes, and eventually the sadistic game show host who terrorized Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Running Man.

As Feud’s original host, Dawson kissed “somewhere in the vicinity of 20,000″ contestants. One of which was Gretchen Johnson, the woman who would become his second wife. Dawson is survived by Gretchen and their daughter, as well as two sons from his first marriage to actress Diana Dors.

An icon has passed and we should not allow him to die in vain. I beseech you. Lay down your differences. It’s time that all of this feuding should end.

In Honor Of The NYC Marathon: 7 Memorable Runners From TV And Film

Penn Collins — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 19:10:57 +0000

The New York City Marathon came and went yesterday, with tens of thousands of anonymous runners completing lifelong goals and running farther than many of us do in our lifetimes. It’s a rare instance in which the relatively boring act of running is brought to the forefront of the public consciousness. Sure, races can bring high drama, but that aspect is generally limited to the last 30 seconds or so of races that can take hours.

Films shy away from depictions of running for this reason, but they don’t avoid it altogether. Below are seven runners who heroically (and impossibly) make running interesting, if only for a few seconds. Let’s congratulate these skinny, dorky entrants as we peruse the list, shall we?

Johann Retternberger - The Robber

We’ll kick off with a lesser-known, but nonetheless awesome German film about real-life marathoner Johann Kastenberger (fictionalized as Johann Rettenberger), who made name for himself as a very prolific bank robber. He was no recreational runner, but rather among his nation’s most elite, placing in and winning several races. His speed wasn’t able to keep him out of jail his whole career, though. I don’t want to give away any plot details, so check out the film (on Netflix Instant) for the story, or wait for the Americanized version, which is slated to star Andrew Garfield.

Babe Levy – Marathon Man

Marathon Man isn’t just a clever title. In this seminal film that will probably ruin dentists for you, Dustin Hoffman plays a marathoner NYC grad student who runs afoul of some Nazi holdouts who have designs on a WWII diamond selloff. Sure, the running here is only tangential to the plot, but running is a boring enough activity that any reference to it in films is enough to get fired up about. (Sorta. I guess.)

As far as vanilla marathon running PhD candidates go, Hoffman’s Babe Levy proves himself to be a pretty tough cookie.

Arnold Schwarzenegger Making Up For Wasted Time As Governor

Joseph Gibson — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 17:34:16 +0000

Sometimes movie news comes from unexpected places, like over the weekend, where Arnold Schwarzenegger announced at Arnold Classic (which is, of course, a bodybuilding competition) that he’s choosing between, like, 15 different projects on which to mount his comeback to the screen. Here’s The Man himself on the slight increase from the earlier report of 3:

“Well, first of all it’s more 15 films, obvious ones from The Terminator to remakes of Predator and The Running Man and all of those things. Then also a lot of original stuff too. But I am also packaging a comic book character right now. I’m going to announce that sometime by the end of March or the beginning of April.”

It’s weird to me that Schwarzenegger would even be involved with remakes of his previous hits like Predator, since nowadays a movie from 1987 may as well have been made in the silent era. What role would Arnold have in a hypothetical Predator remake? I think he should play the Predator. Think about it, that would be awesome. (via /Film)