I wasn't all that interested in watching Run Stranger, Run -AKA- Happy Mother's Day, Love George at 1st.Knowing Ron Howard was in it, kinda had my curiosity but after seeing Darren McGavin was the director, I definitely had to watch it now.I was really expecting to at least like the movie but after watching it, I don't know what to think.The movie was weird.It starts out (kinda) normal, Ron Howard comes to town, looking for his birth mother in hopes of finding out who his father is.The cast of characters are weird.Everybody has something about them.The movie's vibe is weird & it gets weirder.Towards the end, it turns into a horror flick.Run Stranger, Run -AKA- Happy Mother's Day, Love George was a big, weird mess.I wouldn't recommend anybody watch it anytime soon.It's a movie that if you watch it, you watch it but if you don't then you don't.You're not missing anything at all.Damn, Darren McGavin I was hoping for something way better

This is an interesting film in that it's one of the first cinematic efforts of a TV actor who would go on to become one of Hollywood's most famous directors (Ron Howard) and the sole directorial effort by another (at the time even more famous) TV actor, Darren "The Nightstalker" McGavin.The interesting cast also includes singer Bobby Darin and McGavin's "Nightstalker" co-star Simon Oakland. But perhaps the two real heavyweights here are Patricia Neal and Cloris Leachman as two feuding sisters living in a small New England town. Howard plays the teenage son of Leachman, who she gave up when he was a baby due to a scandal which might have had something to do with the mysterious death of her sister's husband (the "George" of the title). The small town is also plagued more recently by the disappearances of a number of middle-age men (including later in "Jaws 2"). Howard's character quickly becomes a suspect when he returns to the town after many years, but there's also the two sisters, the mother's jealous boyfriend (Darin), and the aunt/sister's sexually precocious teenage daughter (Tessa Dahl), who speaks in an English accent for no real reason and immediately tries to seduce her own first cousin (who may be even MORE than a cousin).Interestingly, despite its predominantly American cast, this movie very much resembles another early 70's Patricia Neal movie, the British film "The Night Digger". Tessa Dahl,who gets an "introducing" credit here, is Neal's real-life daughter and her father is Brit poet/writer Raould Dahl (which would explain the English accent,I guess). Raould Dahl had written the screenplay for "The Night Digger"; according to the credits he had nothing to do with this film, but the two films are strangely similar nevertheless. This film is brilliantly acted, suitably atmospheric, and well-scripted until the very end, which is very abrupt and pretty much non-sensical. The ending is definitely flawed, but this is still an interesting movie. I'd like to know more of the story behind it.

Following the previous year's "You'll Like My Mother," starring the equally All-American Richard Thomas, this film plays off the boyishness of the lead for added effect. The location filming is great, if only a bit tedious, and we are entertained by Patricia Neal's scenery-chewing. Cloris Leachman actually underplays her role. Bobby Darin is wasted as a throw-away supporting character.The plot is a bit interesting, although the killer's identity is telegraphed within the first fifteen minutes.Ron Howard is directed well by Darren McGavin, revealing that the former could have been a much more serious actor, but was instead saddled with the horrendous "Happy Days" series the next year. McGavin sandwiched this between the "The Night Stalker" TV movie in 72, and the subsequent series (as an actor, of course).Tessa Dahl is tolerable as the disturbed young woman.Worth a watch, but don't expect, well, "You'll Like My Mother."

Actor Darren McGavin made a stunning directorial debut with this suspenseful chiller about a series of gruesome murders in a small New England fishing village that end up having a bizarre connection to an adopted teen(Ron Howard) who is searching for his biological parents. The marvellous cast includes Cloris Leachman(as Howard's mother), Patricia Neal(as Howard's aunt), Bobby Darin, and Simon Oakland. The most memorable performance is given by Tessa Dahl, who not only plays Neal's daughter in the film, but is, in fact, her daughter in real life. Released to theatres as HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY, LOVE GEORGE, the film was retitled RUN, STRANGER, RUN for home video release.