Dick Van Dyke cast against type
When most Americans think of Dick Van Dyke, generally comedy or musicals come to mind. After all, he starred in the films “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Mary Poppins” and two successful TV sitcoms. His timing, rubber face, and agility consistently elicited laughs and provided a lucrative career for him. It’s therefore odd to see him as a humorless priest in the 1979 movie drama, “The Runner Stumbles,” that poses questions of faith in God and the meaning of morality.<br /><br />We first see Father Rivard (Van Dyke) in jail awaiting trial for the murder of a nun. Defense attorney Toby Felker (Beau Bridges) visits him and elicits, through a series of flashbacks, the events that preceded the alleged crime.<br /><br />The time is 1911. Father Rivard serves the small Catholic population of a rural Michigan mining town. He believes he has been consigned to this remote, poverty-stricken area as punishment for his radical views. The two elderly nuns who run the school have come down with tuberculosis and are confined to their quarters, and a young nun, Sister Rita (Kathleen Quinlan), is sent to fill in. Idealistic and unexpectedly outspoken, Sister Rita views her new teaching post as an opportunity rich with potential. She takes over the school and the children seem happier than they have ever been. In fact, in a scene that seems to have been inspired by “The Sound of Music,” she leads her smiling students in a distinctly nonreligious song as they all run across a field and into the schoolhouse.<br /><br />Because the two contagious nuns are quarantined in the convent, Sister Rita will have to be recalled to her order and the school will have to close. Instead, Father Rivard asks permission to move her into the rectory with him and his housemaid, Mrs. Shandig (Maureen Stapleton). The answer from the monsignor (Ray Bolger) is absolutely not. People in a small town will gossip, and a nun and priest living under the same roof would be viewed the wrong way. Father Rivard ignores the order. In addition to keeping the school running, Sister Rita has become a friend with whom he can have forthright conversations. He doesn’t want to lose her.<br /><br />Van Dyke does a credible job in a very serious role. His stoic portrayal and stiff demeanor are suitable for the character of the repressed priest and his performance is convincing, for the most part. When the film resorts to soap opera melodrama, however, he looks awkward and out of his depth.<br /><br />Quinlan’s Sister Rita conveys youthful energy and innocence — part Debbie Reynolds fizziness and part Ingrid Bergman spirituality. Yet she makes the role her own as she exchanges ideas of faith and morality with the middle-aged priest. She refuses to consider the perceptions of outsiders, while Rivard is consumed by a tangle of appearances, disobedience, his vows, and duty to God and community.<br /><br />Though initially taken aback by Sister Rita’s frank manner, Mrs. Shandig comes to like and respect her. She becomes a co-conspirator, in a sense, with Father Rivard, since she is devoted to him and will unequivocally support his decision. Stapleton’s Mrs. Shandig conveys a combination of loyalty, protectiveness, and motherly concern for a troubled soul.<br /><br />The screenplay by Milan Stitt is talky, reflecting its origin as a play. Long scenes of explanatory dialogue should have been replaced by more cinematic means. Director Stanley Kramer tries to open up the story by staging these dialogues as Father Rivard and Sister Rita share tea at a table outside the church, walk on country roads, or converse in a car, but there are few scenes in which we see, rather than hear, what’s going through their minds.<br /><br />Kramer, who directed such memorable films as “On the Beach, “ “Inherit the Wind,” “The Defiant Ones,” and “Judgment at Nuremberg,” is heavy- handed in presenting Father Rivard’s moralistic quandary. The humanity of the characters in the first half of the movie disappears as they become metaphoric entities of lust, temptation, faith, and doubt. The movie descends into an abyss of overwrought melodrama to hammer home its tragic trajectory. This is one of Stanley Kramer’s weakest films.<br /><br />Both the play and the film are based on the 1907 murder of a Polish-born nun whose bones were exhumed from a shallow grave under a church in Michigan. The former parish priest was rumored to have had an affair with her and fathered her unborn child.<br /><br />Bonus materials on the PG-rated Blu-ray release include an audio commentary and several theatrical trailers.
The movie title "The Runner Stumbles," available on Movies & TV, has received an average rating of 4.4 from 84 reviewers. 
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The additional details include the following in key-value format :
 {"MPAA rating": "PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)", "Product Dimensions": "0.7 x 7.5 x 5.4 inches; 5.92 Ounces", "Media Format": "Anamorphic, NTSC, Subtitled", "Run time": "1 hour and 49 minutes", "Release date": "May 19, 2020", "Actors": "Dick Van Dyke, Kathleen Quinlan, Beau Bridges", "Studio": "KL Studio Classics", "Country of Origin": "USA", "Number of discs": "1"}

Here is a brief synopsis of the title : From Stanley Kramer, the acclaimed director of On the Beach, Inherit the Wind, Judgment at Nuremberg, Ship of Fools, The Defiant Ones and It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, comes The Runner Stumbles, the final film in the legendary filmmaker’s career. Television and screen legend Dick Van Dyke (Mary Poppins, The Dick Van Dyke Show) stars in this moving and powerful drama about a priest accused of murdering the nun with whom he had fallen in love. Inspired by a real-life murder case, the story focuses on Father Rivard (Van Dyke), a priest banished to a dreary, poverty-stricken coal mining town for his radical views. His life is suddenly changed by the arrival of Sister Rita (Kathleen Quinlan, Warning Signs, Breakdown), a vivacious young nun who immediately sets the town talking with her open, unorthodox behavior. But soon talk turns to vicious gossip and tragedy as the self-righteous townsfolk come to believe the love between the nun and the priest is more than just spiritual. Maureen Stapleton (Reds), Beau Bridges (The Landlord), Ray Bolger (The Wizard of Oz) and Tammy Grimes (Play It as It Lays) co-star in this compelling, intelligent and ambitious film that expertly builds to its surprising ending. Special Features:-NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historian and Critic Peter Tonguette -Optional English Subtitles -Dual-Layered BD50 Disc -Trailers.