So, you're running down the street or down the hall, with the pursuer(s) hot on your heels. How to get out of this sticky situation?
Why, run into an alley or street to the side, of course!
Rest assured that your pursuer(s) will blindly dash past you - apparently, their peripheral vision is conveniently deactivated as they approach your hideout. This will happen even if they should be capable of seeing you entering the hideout.
See also Behind the Black, Scooby-Dooby Doors.
Not to be confused with characters being pursued down an actual "blind alley", only to find themselves up against a Chain-Link Fence or other dead-end, or the short story by Isaac Asimov.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- In the Doraemon film Doraemon: Nobita and the Steel Troops, Doraemon and gang - including Suneo's new, human-sized robot Micros, hid in one such alley in Mirror-verse Tokyo after realizing the city outside is infested by the Steel Troops' robots. Micros unexpectedly panicked and runs out the alley, right in front of a robot guard... who promptly ignores Micros, mistaking Micros as one of his comrades.
- Venus Wars has Hiro Seno escaping from the police after his bike is shot at and explodes, but he dives into a doorway to a side alley. The police proceed forward to the explosion, believing he has died in the fire.
Film — Live Action
- Seen in one of the short films made for 28 Weeks Later. A man is pressed up against a wall as the Rage virus infected run past the alley — presumably, their blinding anger prevents them from doing common sense things like looking around for someone who's gone out of sight.
- The Bride: While being chased through the town by the angry mob, Viktor steps into an alcove in the wall and the entire mob runs past him without seeing him.
- The black Lamborghini does it during the opening chase sequence of The Cannonball Run: backing down a turnoff on the highway, waiting for the police car to go past, and then driving out to come up behind it again.
- Escape from Sobibór. One of the guards goes into a senior officer's office and discovers him by spotting blood and following its trail, marking the turning point of the escape when they had previously gotten along without widespread discovery.
- Averted in Inception. Cobb runs down an alley to try and ditch several agents that are chasing him. They notice him stuck in between the two buildings at the other end of the narrowing alley and he barely escapes them.
- Occurred in the mock buster Mega Piranha.
- Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971): After Marot murders Erik at the theatre, he is pursued by an angry mob. He escapes them by stepping into a narrow alley. After the mob runs past, he steps out and goes on his way, dropping a coin the cup of a blind beggar as he goes.
- An important plot device in The Neverending Story, where Bastian escapes his bullies by hiding in a bookstore, while his chasers rush by. The following encounter with the bookstore owner sets off the story.
- In Underworld (1927), Rolls Royce shakes off the police following him by hiding in a doorway.
- White Wolves: The fourth movie opens with Jack skateboarding recklessly and stealing a CD from a vendor, then being chased down an alley by bicycle cops who have reinforcements on the other side.
Literature
- The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H. P. Lovecraft has a variation of this trope. The protagonist is fleeing the eponymous Town with a Dark Secret and hears his pursuers approaching, so he jumps into a ditch. The huge search party just passes him by, even after he faints from horror at the sight of them.
- Time Machine Series. In the Blade of the Guillotine, it's used to escape an angry royalist blacksmith.
Live-Action TV
- Happens in an episode of Friends, "The One in Barbados, Part 2". Ross and Charlie enter a room down the corridor while their pursuers continue down the hall.
Video Games
- A game mechanic in the Assassin's Creed series. Get out of the guards' line of sight, jump into a convenient well or haystack, and wait for the guards to lose interest.
Webcomics
- In Star Impact, Aster and company duck into an alley
to escape a Paparazzi in pursuit of her.
- In Weak Hero, Alex and Teddy manage to shake off a group of pursuing Hyeongshin students by dipping into an alley after they turn a corner. It works until Teddy's phone goes off and exposes their location.
Web Original
- Played for Laughs in The Hire: Star, where an incredibly abusive singer's driver decides to have some fun at her expense, leading her bodyguards (trying to catch up in an SUV) in a high speed chase through a city, at one point backing into an alleyway to see if they'd "lost them". The guards drive past, and he proceeds to tear out of the alley, pull up along side them, wink at them, and then take off again.
- In the second episode of There she is!!, the cat is trying to deliver the cake to his bunny girlfriend and hides in an alley from the rhino, dog, and other animals chasing him.
Western Animation
- In the Batman: The Animated Series episode "The Clock King", Batman enters one next to the Gotham Traffic Department, so no one will see him getting out of Bruce Wayne's limo.
