The Runner Stumbles

The Runner Stumbles
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Stanley Kramer
Produced by	Stanley Kramer
Written by	Milan Stitt
Based on	Play by Milan Stitt
Starring	Dick Van Dyke Kathleen Quinlan
Music by	Ernest Gold
Cinematography	László Kovács
Edited by	Pembroke J. Herring
Distributed by	Twentieth Century-Fox
Release date	November 16, 1979
Running time	109 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The Runner Stumbles is a 1979 film directed and produced by Stanley Kramer, based on the Broadway play by Milan Stitt. The film was the last of Kramer's long and distinguished career. It stars Dick Van Dyke, Kathleen Quinlan, Maureen Stapleton, Tammy Grimes, Beau Bridges, and Ray Bolger.

The film is set in 1911 at a Roman Catholic parish in the rural town of Isadore, Michigan. Sister Rita (Quinlan), a young nun, arrives at the parish to help run the church school. When the parish's two elderly nuns contract tuberculosis, Sister Rita is forced to move into the rectory that is home to Father Rivard (Van Dyke), the parish priest. The close proximity between the two begins to set off gossip and suspicions, to the point that a monsignor from the diocese (Bolger) comes to give Father Rivard a talking-to. The gossip turns out to be correct, as the priest and the nun confess their love for each other. However, their declaration of emotion leads to tragedy.

The original play and film are both inspired by the August 1907 murder of Sr. Mary Janina Mezek, a Polish-born nun of the Felician Sisters. In December 1918, Sister Janina's bones were re-exhumed from a shallow grave underneath the parish church in Isadore. The former parish priest, Father Andrew Bieniawski, was rumored to be having an affair with Sr. Janina and of being the father of her unborn child. However, he was found to have an ironclad alibi of fishing on Lake Michigan. This, and his frantic attempts to find Sr. Janina for years after her disappearance, caused Fr. Bieniawski to be ruled out as a suspect. While being held at the jail in Leelanau County, Michigan, Fr. Bieniawski's elderly housekeeper, Stanislawa Lipczynska, confessed to having repeatedly bludgeoned Sr. Janina with a garden spade before burying her alive under the church. During her subsequent trial, numerous Isadore residents testified how Mrs. Lipczynska had referred to the Felician Sisters as "priest's wives" and "whores". Mrs. Lipczynska was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.