Reception
The Runner Stumbles opened to mixed to negative reviews. Janet Maslin, writing in The New York Times, complained: “The movie's ethics are...so hazy, and its attention to religion so perfunctory, that it almost seems as if this were a story about something else that had been transferred, as an afterthought, to a Church setting...Mr. Kramer treats the film's religious questions as afterthoughts, and too often achieves a dispirited, noncommittal tone.”
Roger Ebert, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, considered the film to be “a little silly,” but added that “in its relentlessly old-fashioned way, "The Runner Stumbles" has a sort of dramatic persistence: It's not great, but it's there.” Variety criticized the film for being “presented in such a way that, at times, it appears like the best of the old-fashioned 1940s tear jerkers complete with overly lush sound track.”
The Runner Stumbles was not commercially successful, and it turned out to be Kramer's last film. It had a brief VHS video release, but to date it has not been released on DVD.
Read more about this topic: The Runner Stumbles
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