Copyright Statement - ResearchSpace@Auckland

Because those dear hearts, and gentle people
Will never ever let you down.
They read the Good Book from Fri ‘till Monday
That’s how the weekend goes.
I’ve got a dream house I’ll build there someday
With picket fence and rambling rose.
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Trite and absurd from the cynical perspective of our own time, the song, though
American in origin, encapsulated the way in which many New Zealanders perceived
themselves and their fellow citizens; honest, decent, God-fearing people, secure in
their commonly shared values. Runaway did not depict this New Zealand. It showed
a young man who in spite of having access to the good life, turned his back on it and
wandered aimlessly around the country, having affairs and stealing cars. All this took
place in a film that was billed in newspaper advertisements and posters as being “a
daring intimate drama of a young man in a hungry hurry, set in the New Zealand you
know”. Small wonder middle New Zealand was upset since this was not the country
they knew nor the kind of motivation they understood. (The alienated anti-heroes of
Easy Rider, Zabriskie Point, and other “hippie” films were not to reach New Zealand
for another 5 or 6 years.)
Those who wrote for weekly or monthly magazines had a little longer to ponder their
reviews while absorbing the comments of their daily newspaper colleagues and those
of the public at large. A thoughtful review (written by ‘F.A.J.’) appeared in the New
Zealand Listener two weeks after the film’s première. It began: “Film-making is a
difficult art to practise, and when both the old professionals of the game and its
brilliant artists have so many failures, was it reasonable to expect that Mr O’Shea,
with all his talent and success with short films, would ring the bell with his first solo
effort? How good it is to find that he has done so.” Acknowledging that most readers
would by this time be aware of the film’s story, the writer pointed out that the “story
by Mr O’Shea and Aucklander John Graham, has no involved plot. The interest is in
the young man – in his fate.” The Listener saw the lack of narrative interest as being
of little real concern - what mattered were the experiences of David Manning. The
writer acknowledged that “Mr Broadley has the right kind of sensitive face for the
part and quite a bit of acting talent” but added: “He isn’t really equal to one or two