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Run For Your Life
Starring Ben Gazzara
Episode:
The Savage Machines
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To contact us, click Homepage link above
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Synopsis: Pete Gaffney (Jeremy Slate) and Paul form a racing partnership with Clive Darrell (Edward Mulhare), but his wife Rhona (Sally Ann Howes) is sabotaging the car. With Brendan Dillon as Rudy, Don Bright as Freddie, Maurice Dallimore as Lord Mell, Chris Winters as Hoyt
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Episode 29
First broadcast on
May 2, 1966
eleplay by William Wood
Story by Robert Guy Barrows
Directed by Richard Benedict
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SEE INDIVIDUAL PHOTOS OF ENTIRE CAST AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE
Watch a video clip from this episode on the same page
Creative Team
Producer
Gordon Hessler
Associate Producer
Paul Freeman
Music
Pete Rugolo
Director of Photography
John L. Russell A.S.C.
Art Director
Howard E. Johnson
Film Editor
Michael R. McAdam A.C.E.
Unit Manager
Willard Sheldon
Assistant Director
Donald Baer
Set Decorators
John McCartey &
Robert C. Bradfield
Sound
Frank K. Wilkinson
Color Coordinator
Robert Brower
Color by Technicolor
Editorial Dept. Head
David J. O'Connell
Musical Supervisor
Stanley Wilson
Costumes by Burton Miller
Makeup
Bud Westmore
Hair Stylist
Larry Germain
Links to Other Episodes
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Pete is discouraged by the speed of their car
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The Plot:
Rhona Darrell is attending a 24-hour motor race in Latin America where her about-to-be ex-husband's racing team is competing. During the trials she phones him in the pit to remind him to sign the divorce papers. Clive Darrell's car goes on to blow a clutch. Paul and Pete Gaffney, who are also competing, lament the weakness of their own engine compared to the power of Darrell's, but also note its unreliability, so they go to Clive to see about forming a partnership for the race. Clive likes the idea, but is wary of a non-professional like Paul .
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Rhona accuses Clive of destroying her father's company
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Pete says Paul goes with the car. Clive then goes to Rhona's hotel room to deliver the signed divorce papers. She is curt with him, saying that Clive ingratiated himself with her father to get control of his company by courting the daughter, and that he is “one step removed from a pick pocket,” Clive having driven the company to the brink of bankruptcy. He admits that he neglected her to try and save the car and factory from extinction. She tells him he was a marvellous driver, but when they married, all too quickly turned into a “mechanic."
That evening Paul goes to the garage
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Rudy tells Paul the Darrell was sabotaged
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He finds chief mechanic Rudy still working, but not on the race car, rather the one which has been abandoned for Paul and Pete's Mastin. Rudy shows Paul the damaged part, and tells him that the car had been tampered with. When Paul asks what Clive thinks, Rudy admits having said nothing to him, knowing he'd think it was a matter of bad engineering, and not what Rudy believes, that Rhona is behind the sabotage, since he has nothing to prove his allegations. Paul goes to Pete's room and shows him the damaged component, asking whether it was a manufacturing fault or accidentally damaged.
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Paul wakes Pete to tell him about the sabotage
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“Deliberately cut,” replies Pete emphatically. Paul tells him the part caused the Darrell clutch to fail. When he goes on to say that the suspected culprit is Rhona Darrell, Pete is incredulous, knowing Rhona owns 49% of the Mastin company, her father having left the other 51% to her husband. Paul explains that when Clive became champion driver, Rhona wanted him. When they married, he stopped driving in favor of building cars, to his wife's disappointment. She decided that all he'd wanted was the company, not her. Since Paul and Pete's lives depend on the situation, Paul goes to a night spot where he meets Rhona.
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Rhona knows that Paul suspects her
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They dance, and discuss the sabotage, a matter actually brought up by Rhona, who knows that Rudy is suspicious of her, having been confronted by him. The next day Clive and Paul drive together, and talk about Rhona, Clive displaying an interest in his wife and any relationship with Paul, saying that would make their racing partnership uncomfortable. Paul points out that Clive is jumping to a false conclusion. He says the reason the Darrell cars failed was sabotage, not ordinary malfunction, and he met Rhona, only because he believed her to be the source.
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Clive suspends his entire team
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In response Clive brings the whole racing team together, and suspends everyone who worked for Darrell, leaving the Gaffney-Bryan team to mind the joint car. Clive says that, if the person who performed the sabotage does not come forward, the entire team will be dismissed permanently. The mechanic who committed the sabotage meets with Rhona, and tells her that only members of the Gaffney-Bryan team will have the access to the car, and she asks him if he can get to one of them. He says he can for a price, and she gives him the money, not wanting to know any details or to have any of the drivers hurt.
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They try to determine what's wrong with the car
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When the 24-hour race starts Pete reports that he can't get his car to go beyond 5400 RPM, but the team can't find the cause, and he starts again after making a pointed remark about Rhona. But for a while, the car performs again. After four hours, when it begins raining, the engine starts missing again, and Pete stops to have the car checked. Rudy finds a piece of steel wool in the fuel line. The car runs well the next four hours, and Paul takes over in a lightening storm. When he comes in for a pit stop after two hours, Paul has made up the deficit caused by the sabotage, and is up to sixth place
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A kiss seals the contract to start again
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But Clive says that he's now going to take over the drive, Paul goes to Rhona in the stands, asking her to stop him driving madly and getting killed. She accompanies him to the pit, and when Clive makes a routine stop, Rhona confesses her guilt. Clive says he never believed it could be her. She offers funds to keep the company going, but though she begs him to stop, he gets back in the car. Three hours later, in third place, Clive has a terrible crash. After extracating himself from the car, he calls Rhona over, and they embrace warmly. “We're not too late,” he tells her, “now we're both on probation, and we'll report to each other.”
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Notes & Comments: A flat and lack lustre episode built around very little.
Watch a video clip from this episode on the same page
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Edward Mulhare
as Clive Darrell
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Sally Ann Howes
as Rhona Darrell
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Jeremy Slate
as Pete Gaffney
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Brendan Dillon
as Rudy
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Don Bright
as Freddie
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Maurice Dallimore
as Lord Mell
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Chris Winters
as Hoyt
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