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After seeing the distributor's final cut, though, Shebib asked to have his name removed from the picture.

Shebib surrounded Benson with capable actors, and gets convincing performances out of a supporting cast that includes Pat Hingle (as Kansas University coach Bill Easton), Claudia Cron (as Billy's middle-American girlfriend) and August Schellenberg (as Billy's father). Made on location in and around Edmonton and Drumheller (though set entirely in the U.S.) the film was directed by Toronto's Don Shebib, whose credits include an underrated little gem of a sports movie called Second Wind. That, combined with his unfortunate resemblance to Jerry Lewis, undermines the power of his performance and the impact of the entire film.įinanced by Alberta's oil-rich Ermineskin Cree, the picture was designed as a tribute to the real Mills and, more generally, as an expression of Indian racial pride. Dull blue - genetically unlikely even in an Indian who is "half white" - Benson's eyes are as dead and empty as a frozen fish's. Muscle? Benson played a vigourous game of basketball in the Rocky-lite One on One (1977) and, at 27, didn't need stunt doubles for the Mills character's numerous foot races. Heart? In 1981’s The Chosen he played a Hassidic Jew finding himself in a post-Holocaust world, while in Walk Proud (1979), he was a Chicano street fighter in Los Angeles. Benson's credentials seemed to be in order.

The story of Billy Mills, the South Dakota-born Sioux Indian athlete who overcame all obstacles to score an upset victory at the 1964 Olympics, the Running Brave project needed an actor with those particular qualifications. It's Robby Benson's eyes that leave Running Brave running on empty. Classifier’s warning: occasional nudity and coarse language.