Running Scared is a 1980 action/adventure film directed by Paul Glickler, starring Ken Wahl and introducing Annie McEnroe and Judge Reinhold.

Plot

The film takes place in April 1961, prior to the proposed Bay of Pigs Invasion. Two soldiers, LeRoy Beecher (Judge Reinhold) and Chaz McClain (Ken Wahl), are just finishing a two-year Infantry tour in the Army in Panama. They hitch a ride on a military C-47 back to their home state, Florida after bribing the pilot with a gift of LP records. LeRoy has stolen a footlocker full of surveillance equipment in-particular an infra-red camera (punishable with time in Leavenworth). During the flight to Florida the plane makes a brief stopover on some secret Caribbean island base. While at the island LeRoy, goofing around, unwittingly uses the infra-red camera to take photographs of the base and of Chaz (thereby identifying him). He leaves the tear-off part of the negative on the C-47's floor. The plane then continues to Florida, where Leroy and Chaz disembark and workers (presumably anti-castrist Cubans) sweep up the aircraft and find LeRoy's camera tear-off. The workers take the negative to two superiors (John Saxon and Bradford Dillman), who are planning an invasion of Cuba from the secret island base. They develop LeRoy's negatives and now can visually identify Chaz.