#running scare

[aviel]

Cecily Brown - Running Scared (2010)

[skippysux]

[filmstruck]

A Quick Appreciation of the Late, Great Gregory Hines by Thomas Davant

I first saw him in HISTORY OF THE WORLD PART I (‘81). In the first of its three chapters, Gregory Hines plays Josephus, an Ethiopian slave who shim-shams his way out of the Roman guards’ clutches and uses an enormous doobie to elude his captors. He delivered one of the best performances in the film (especially in one hilariously suspenseful interrogation scene involving a feather fan, a belly dancer and a group of eunuchs), but I didn’t recall seeing him in anything else for a long time afterwards.

But then while watching a late-night screening of Coppola’s THE COTTON CLUB (‘84), Hines emerged again, tap-dancing across a spotlit stage as members of the mob ate machine gun dinners at their tables. But again, to me he was just that guy who gets the Romans high in the Mel Brooks movie!

Shamefully, I admit it’s only now, in exploring the filmography of Peter Hyams—whose work is currently streaming on FilmStruck—that I found myself realigning with this actor. There’s a film available in which Hines not only receives top billing (above Billy Crystal, if you can imagine that today) but just about walks off with the film!

RUNNING SCARED (‘86) is one of those pretty familiar buddy cop films which were a dime a dozen in the 1980s: Full of color, featuring made-strictly-for-the-purpose-of-selling-a-soundtrack songs (this one’s by Michael McDonald), one-liners and witty banter, which finds the two partners cracking jokes and keeping it calm, collected and comedic as bullets rain down upon them. It doesn’t exactly stand out from the rest. I haven’t heard people talk about this film the way they do 48 HOURS (‘82) or BEVERLY HILLS COP (‘84), but maybe that’s because it followed in the wake of those pictures, when the sub-genre had just about been exhausted beyond repair.

Hines and Crystal play Ray Hughes and Danny Costanzo, two of the Windy City’s best detectives, comfortable and happy living on the razor’s edge. The biggest decision weighing on their shoulders is whether they should leave the cold, crummy streets of Chicago for the crystal-blue cool of Key West. The biggest question in the film isn’t whether they’re going to bag the baddie (Jimmy Smits as a cocaine-smuggling gangster), but whether a life without this constant pull of danger is the life for them.

Crystal is great, and in this early entry in his career you can see the grass roots of his later shtick. But it’s the work of the under-appreciated Gregory Hines that stands out and he delivers a performance that I found to be fresh and exciting.

Hines started tap when he was five years old, and he quickly grew to a height of prominence as a young talent. His work in the Brooks film was his feature film debut, and afterwards he went on to star in a number of features and television series. WHITE NIGHTS (‘85) and Coppola’s film allowed him to show off his skills as a performer, but in RUNNING SCARED (’86) he had the reign to show his versatility as a comedic actor. Though the film doesn’t feature a dancing scene, he still channels the grace and effortlessness of a dancer.

Things never get too dramatic in the film. It’s police slapstick and though there are moments of violence (say goodbye to Nameless Bad Guy #2, Drug Dealer #6…), things stay light and tidy on the surface.

A fantastic moment finds the two partners gathering at the edge of the Atlantic. They’ve been suspended and forced to go on vacation and have wound up as far south from the snowy streets of Chicago as possible. A crowd has gathered in the blood-orange light of the afternoon and stares out at the ocean. The two men stare in wonder. What the hell’s so fantastic about the same thing happening every day? When Crystal’s character suggests they stick around and check it out, Hines gives him a look that’s just long enough.

“Yeah, well, it better be good,” he responds with a hilarious dose of suspicion.

Hines took to the stage in the early 1990s and continued to tap dance until his death from cancer in 2003. Today he’s viewed as one of tap’s greatest performers, and it was that ability to improvise on the spot and to make it look so damn effortless that translates so well to his few on-screen performances.

Check it out, and then quickly seek out his other work, both on screen and on the stage.

[veragoddessfarmiga]

[mackenzie-brown]

He ran until the blood in his ears was deafening and he could no longer hear the breath leaving his body.

The Shifting 

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