Escape

While many film adaptations of stage plays play like claustrophobic chamber dramas, Joseph Mankiewicz’s Escape effectively establishes an expansive universe through which fugitive Matt Denant (Rex Harrison) flees the police and strings together hideouts all across town. Jailed for accidentally killing a police officer while defending a falsely arrested woman, Denant is discovered by the wealthy but adventurous Dora Winton (Peggy Cummins) during a fox hunt. Feeling immediately connected to the runaway, Dora shelters him, hides him, lies for him, and otherwise helps to arrange his escape out of town just in time to realize she’s in love. Mankiewicz creates a countryside atmosphere through a variety of exterior settings, both intimate and panoramic, including beautiful use of expressionistic lighting in the prison yard, for example, where the inmates carry pitchforks through moonlit fog. Look out for a particularly exciting scene in which a plane fails to attain liftoff and crashes into the treetops.