The Last Run is a 1971 American action film shot in Portugal, Málaga and elsewhere in Spain directed by Richard Fleischer, starring George C. Scott, Tony Musante, Trish Van Devere, and Colleen Dewhurst.

Harry Garmes (George C. Scott) is an aging American career criminal who was once a driver for Chicago's organized crime rings.

Unexpectedly, Harry receives a job, his first in nine years, to drive an escaped killer Paul Rickard (Tony Musante) and the man's girlfriend Claudie Scherrer (Trish Van Devere) across Portugal and Spain into France.

Without knowing this, Garmes accepts the job as a chance to prove to himself that he can still make the grade, despite premonitions that it will end badly for him as he gives Monique money to hold, which she may keep if he doesn't come back.

In the course of the trip, made in a BMW 503 modified with a hidden smuggling compartment and supercharger, Harry and his passengers are pursued by both the Spanish police and the French Security Service, who in fact arranged the escape to eliminate Rickard.

Upon returning to Portugal, and apparently having been betrayed by Monique, Harry gets shot on the beach in Albufeira, moments away from escaping on his boat with Rickard and Scherrer.

[2] The film was based on an original script by Alan Sharp who called it "an attempt to use the melodramatic crime chase to deal with whatever the hero's preoccupations might be.

"[3] In July 1970, MGM-British announced they would be making a production and distribution deal with EMI creating a new company, MGM-EMI, and would produce four films: The Go-Between, The Boyfriend, Get Carter and The Last Run.

He was at the height of his career due to the success of Patton and did The Last Run because "for the longest time I've been looking for a Bogart-like meaty part.

"[6] In November 1970, MGM head of production Herbert F. Solow announced the film would be made as part of a ten picture slate from the studio over the next six months - the other films were The Wild Rovers, Fortune and Men's Eyes, Shaft, Sextette (ultimately not made for some years), Travels with My Aunt, The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, Bullet Proof and The Gazebo.

"[9] His cinematographer was Sven Nykvist, who regularly collaborated with Ingmar Bergman and was making his first American movie.

So I talked to myself that evening and I said: "You have to remember what Ingmar said when we started our first picture-the only thing that's important is what shows on the screen.

Jim Aubrey, head of MGM, wanted to abandon filming but Littman persuaded him to continue.

Eventually the role went to Trish Van Devere, an American actress who had just made her film debut in Where's Poppa?.

Roger Ebert, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, commented that "with Huston directing Alan Sharp's interesting screenplay, the movie would still have had the good stuff, I think, and would have avoided the embarrassing collapses of tone that wreck this version.

"[18] Roger Greenspun, reviewing the film for The New York Times, stated that Fleischer "a veteran of more than 20 years in the business...seems not yet to have mastered the reaction shot; and his automobile chase sequences, for all the billowing dust and squealing tires, seem to move at 30 miles an hour.