Review of A Run for Your Money

In London they get into every conceivable sort of mess and trouble, and it's difficult to say what finally saves them, if it is Alec Guinness the garden journalist who finally is rewarded by prison for his valiant honesty, of if it is Hugh Griffith the old alcoholic harpist, who kind of saves his fellow Welshmen by saving his harp, even if that one gets a hard tilme getting through alive or intact as well. At least he actually saves the film and makes it memorable and something you would love to return to for a revisit at times, it's a film well worth seeing several times, and this is not the only film he has saved: in a way, he saved every film he was in, at least to a considerable degree. Donald Houston is the honest Welshman who in his innocence does everything wrong and is too kind not to get the least suspicious about the characters who try to frame him. It's a muddled story full of anxiety, where everything constantly goes wrong, while the wonderful Welsh choir singing keeps up the good spirit of the film throughout in spite of the terrible ordeals - the poor Welsh fellows do everything they shouldn't and always get deeper into trouble for it, while without Alec Guinness they probably never would have got out of London alive. His performance is outstanding already here, an honest journalist who just wishes to stick to his gardening, while his chief bullies him into this inextricable Welsh mess. In spite of all the worries and ordeals and troubles without end, it's an impressing comedy of tremendous documentary value for showing life in London at the time. And the singing, with all the music, is formidable thorughout, while the prize goes to Hugh Griffith.