[2] The film briefly came to the attention of the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy because of a viral marketing campaign that placed personal ads in the Dallas Morning News asking the "Running Man" to please call "Lee".

Investigators thought that these might be coded messages placed by assassin Lee Harvey Oswald until they discovered the source of the advertisements.

In Hollywood, an urban legend arose claiming that the film was a flop because it starred actors named Lee and Harvey.

[3] Stella Black attends a memorial service for her husband Rex, who "died" in a gliding accident, but whose body was never recovered.

Rex, who is in hiding, instructs Stella to transfer the insurance payment to a bank in Málaga, Spain, where he will be staying, and then to follow him there.

In Paris, Rex steals the passport of drunken Jim Jerome, a touring Australian sheep rancher, and doctors it with his own photograph.

Maddox encounters Stella at an outdoor cafe in Malaga, but she does not immediately recognize him as the agent who interrogated her after Rex's "funeral".

Maddox comments that he has made business calls to London, fueling Rex’s paranoia, and causing him to decide to drop the “Jim Jerome” fraud and leave.

Dropping the new scam reassures Stella, as does Rex handing her an envelope with the cashier's check for the Black insurance money.

Rex chases Stella into a church, accusing her of absconding with the money, and attacks her, but flees when a police officer intervenes.

"[9] Writing in The Los Angeles Times, Philip K. Scheuer praised the film, writing: "Columbia's 'The Running Man' is my idea of an almost perfect motion picture — on-edge anxiety, unpredictable surprises, all astonishingly logical; and always a developing sense of characterization, so that — in contrast to the celebrated Mr. Hitchcock's chases — the final bitterly ironic twist leaves one actually moved with pity and a feeling of loss.