I tried to find a DVD or video to buy of the 1963 movie called The Running Man, directed by Carol Reed, and based on the novel by Shelley Smith. (I've also read other novels by her and they are a very good read.)

The only place I found a copy of the video was a US or Canadian site which only sells to the north American continent. So frustrating!

I saw the movie when I was in high school and I was very taken with it. It is listed as a rotten tomato on many sites but the characters and the plot was intriguing and the main actors were Lee Remick, Alan Bates and Lawrence Harvey so it was well acted.

The plot? It's about an insurance fraud. Harvey's character fakes his death in a plane crash at sea, and then makes his way to Malaga, where he's later joined by his wife Remick. Bates is an insurance investigator who also turns up in Spain, and the guilty couple are left to wonder constantly whether Bates is just on holiday or if he really knows something.

So, substitute a canoe for the plane, and Panama for Malaga, and what have you got? A not-so-dead canoeist.

Helen