| The Fugitive (1963) | |
|---|---|
The Fugitive |
|
| Format | Action/Adventure Mystery Drama Thriller |
| Created by | Roy Huggins |
| Starring | David Janssen Barry Morse |
| Narrated by | William Conrad |
| Theme music composer | Pete Rugolo |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of seasons | 4 |
| No. of episodes | 120 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Running time | 51 min. |
| Production company(s) | Quinn Martin Productions United Artists Television |
| Distributor | CBS Television Distribution |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | ABC |
| Picture format | Black and white (1963-1966) Color (1966-1967) 4:3 |
| Audio format | Monaural |
| Original run | September 17, 1963 – August 29, 1967 |
| Chronology | |
| Followed by | The Fugitive (2000) |
The Fugitive is an American drama series created by Roy Huggins and produced by QM Productions and United Artists Television that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1967. David Janssen stars as Richard Kimble, a doctor from the fictional town of Stafford, Indiana, who is falsely convicted of his wife's murder and given the death penalty. En route to death row, Kimble's train derails and crashes, allowing him to escape and begin a cross-country search for the real killer, a "one-armed man" (played by Bill Raisch). At the same time, Dr. Kimble is hounded by the authorities, most notably by Stafford Police Lieutenant Philip Gerard (Barry Morse).
In 2002, The Fugitive was ranked #36 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.[1]
Contents |
The series premise was set up in the opening narration, but the full details about the crime were not offered in the pilot episode, which started with Kimble having been on the run for six months. In the series' first season, the premise (heard over footage of Kimble handcuffed to Gerard on a train with Gerard lighting a cigarette for him) was summarized in the opening title sequence of the pilot episode as follows:
| “ | Name: Richard Kimble. Profession: Doctor of Medicine. Destination: Death Row, state prison. Richard Kimble has been tried and convicted for the murder of his wife. But laws are made by men, carried out by men. And men are imperfect. Richard Kimble is innocent. Proved guilty, what Richard Kimble could not prove was that moments before discovering his wife's body, he encountered a man running from the vicinity of his home. A man with one arm. A man who has not yet been found. Richard Kimble ponders his fate as he looks at the world for the last time. And sees only darkness. But in that darkness, fate moves its huge hand. | ” |
This title sequence would be shortened for the remainder of the first season as follows:
| “ | The name: Dr. Richard Kimble. The destination: Death Row, State Prison. The Irony: Richard Kimble is innocent. Proved guilty, what Richard Kimble could not prove was that moments before discovering his murdered wife's body, he saw a one-armed man running from the vicinity of his home. Richard Kimble ponders his fate as he looks at the world for the last time, and sees only darkness. But in that darkness, fate moves its huge hand. | ” |
The main title narration, as read by William Conrad, was changed for the first episode of the second season on through the last episode of the series:
| “ | The Fugitive, a QM Production—starring David Janssen as Dr. Richard Kimble: an innocent victim of blind justice, falsely convicted for the murder of his wife ... reprieved by fate when a train wreck freed him en route to the death house ... freed him to hide in lonely desperation, to change his identity, to toil at many jobs ... freed him to search for a one-armed man he saw leave the scene of the crime ... freed him to run before the relentless pursuit of the police lieutenant obsessed with his capture. | ” |
It was not until Episode 14, "The Girl from Little Egypt", that viewers were offered the full details of Richard Kimble's plight. A series of flashbacks reveals the fateful night of Helen Kimble's death, and for the first time offers a glimpse of "the one-armed man".
The Fugitive aired for four seasons, and a total of 120 51-min segments. One hundred sixteen individual episodes (four of which were two-part episodes), were produced. The first three seasons were filmed in black and white; the final season was in color.
The series was conceived by Roy Huggins and produced by Quinn Martin. It is popularly believed that the series was based in part on the real-life story of Sam Sheppard, an Ohio doctor accused of murdering his wife. Although convicted and imprisoned, Sheppard claimed that his wife had been murdered by a "bushy-haired man". Huggins denied basing the series on Sheppard, though the show's film editor, Ken Wilhoit, was married to Susan Hayes, who had had an intimate relationship with Sheppard prior to the murder and testified during the first trial in 1954.
The plot device of an innocent man on the run from the police for a murder he did not commit while simultaneously pursuing the real killer was a popular one with audiences. It had its antecedents in the Alfred Hitchcock movies The 39 Steps, Saboteur and North by Northwest. The theme of a doctor in hiding for committing a major crime had also been depicted by James Stewart as the mysterious Buttons the Clown in The Greatest Show on Earth.
The concept proved to be perfect for television programming. While shows like Route 66 had employed the same anthology-like premise of wanderers finding adventure in each new place they came to, The Fugitive answered two questions that had bedeviled many similar series: "Why doesn't the protagonist settle down somewhere?" and "Why is the protagonist trying to solve these problems himself instead of calling in the police?" Casting a doctor as the protagonist also provided the series a wider "range of entry" into local stories, as Kimble's medical knowledge would allow him alone to recognize essential elements of the episode (e.g., subtle medical symptoms or an abused medicine) and the commonplace doctor's ethic (e.g. to provide aid in emergencies) would naturally lead him into dangerous situations. Several television series have imitated the formula, with the twists being mostly in the nature of the fugitives: a German Shepherd dog (Run, Joe, Run, 1974); a scientist with a monstrous alter ego (The Incredible Hulk, 1978); a group of ex-US Army Special Forces accused of a war crime they committed under orders (The A-Team, 1983); a husband and wife (Hot Pursuit, 1984); a young man afflicted with lycanthropy (Werewolf, 1987) and a reinstated detective (Life, 2007).
In its debut season, The Fugitive was the 28th highest rated show in the US (with a 21.7 Rating), and it jumped to 5th in its second season (27.9). It fell out of the top 30 during the last two seasons,[2] but the show's finale in 1967, in which was revealed the fate of Dr. Kimble, held the record at that time for the highest share of American homes with television sets to watch the finale of a series, 72%.
The show also came away with other honors. In 1965, Alan Armer, the producer and head writer of the series, received an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for his work. And in a 1993 ranking, TV Guide named The Fugitive the best dramatic series of the 1960s.
The series lead, and the only character seen in all 120 episodes, was Dr. Richard David Kimble (Janssen).
A respected small-town Indiana pediatrician, it was generally known around Stafford that Richard and his wife Helen had been having arguments prior to her death. Helen's pregnancy had ended in a stillborn birth of a son, and surgery to save her life had also rendered her infertile. The couple was devastated, but Helen refused to consider adopting children as Richard wanted. The night of Helen's murder, the Kimbles were heard arguing heatedly over this topic by their neighbors. Richard later went out for a drive to cool off; as he was returning home, he nearly struck with his car a one-armed man who was fleeing from the house. Richard then entered the house to find that Helen had been killed. No one had seen or heard Richard go out for his drive, or seen him while he was out, and he was convicted of Helen's murder. This story was enlarged upon in the first-season episode, "The Girl from Little Egypt".
After his escape from custody, Kimble moved from town to town, always trying to remain unobtrusive and unnoticed as he searched for the one-armed man while also trying to evade police capture. He usually adopted a nondescript alias and toiled at low-paying menial jobs (i.e., jobs that required no ID or security checks) in order to survive. Though Kimble tried to keep a low profile, circumstances often conspired to place him in positions where he would be recognized or forced to risk capture in order to help a deserving person he had met in his travels.
The lugubrious doctor is incredibly smart, usually able to perform well at any trade he encounters. He also displays considerable prowess in hand to hand combat; in the episode "Nemesis," for example, he distracts and then knocks out a forest ranger, then quickly unloads the man's rifle to ensure he cannot shoot him if pursued.
While the mysterious one-armed man was being pursued by Kimble, Kimble was being pursued by the relentless police detective Lt. Philip Gerard (Morse). A formidably intelligent family man and a dedicated public servant, Gerard made for an interesting anti-hero: while his utter devotion to tracking down someone he believed to be a cold-blooded murderer made him thoroughly admirable, his unrelenting pursuit of an innocent man made him equally detestable.
Morse did portray Gerard as a man duty-bound to capture Kimble, but who did appear to have some doubts as to his guilt, something the shrewder screenwriters seemed to pick up. In one episode, when a woman witness remarks that Kimble killed his wife, Gerard simply replies "The law says he did", with a tone of doubt in his voice; in the episode "Nemesis" the local sheriff (John Doucette) states, "You said he's a killer", to which Gerard sharply replies, "The jury said that!" betraying doubt in his own mind as to Kimble's guilt. However, in "Wife Killer" he states with certainty that the one-armed man did not exist and that Kimble was guilty, though this is presumably more to intimidate newspaper editor Herb Malone (Kevin McCarthy) than out of complete and utter conviction.
The angle of Gerard being gnawed by doubt about Kimble's guilt was augmented as Kimble rescues Gerard in episodes such as "Never Wave Goodbye", "Corner of Hell", "Ill Wind", "The Evil Men Do", and "Stroke of Genius". "The Evil Men Do" in particular played on the respect that had developed between the two men when Gerard is pursued by former Mob hitman Arthur Brame (James Daly) who was rescued from a runaway horse by Kimble; Kimble rescues Gerard from Brame, and in their dialogue Gerard makes clear he knows Kimble didn't hire a hitman; it is also interesting that Kimble escapes from Gerard but the lieutenant does not pursue Kimble, instead going after and killing Brame. In the epilogue, Gerard explains his decision to Brame's wife Sharon (Elizabeth Allen) by noting Arthur's career as a killer while "Kimble, he's done the one murder he'll probably ever do", in reference to Helen Kimble's murder, but stated with little conviction on Gerard's part that Kimble in fact has ever killed anyone; indeed, Gerard all but acknowledges Kimble's innocence when he states, "Until I find him, and I will, he's no menace to anyone, but himself."[3]
In "Nemesis", Kimble unintentionally kidnaps Gerard's young son Philip Junior (played by 12-year-old star-to-be Kurt Russell). Though as concerned as any father should be, Gerard is confident that Kimble will not do his boy any real harm. After his experience with Kimble, Philip Junior questions whether or not he is guilty and his father openly admits that he could be wrong, though it changes nothing in that Kimble has to be brought in. The epilogue also hints at the respect Kimble has for Gerard the man. Earlier he'd confiscated some football cards which Phil Jr. was using in order to leave a trail; in the epilogue Kimble puts the remaining cards plus others he's purchased for Phil Jr. (when he first confiscates the cards Kimble pointedly notes to Phil Jr. "No Johnny Unitas. To not have a Johnny Unitas" and with the stack he mails to Phil Jr. a Unitas card is prominently seen) in an envelope and mails them back to the Gerards.
The doubt that gnaws at Gerard about Kimble's guilt plus the exhaustion felt over the prolonged pursuit begin to get the best of him in "The Judgment, Part One" (early on he tells L.A. Police Captain Ralph Lee (Joseph Campanella), "I've lost a lot of things these last four years, starting with a prisoner the State told me to guard") when he interrogates Johnson and finds discrepancies in his story, to where he grabs Johnson and demands to know if he killed Helen Kimble. (There is a script error here: In the earlier episode "Never Wave Goodbye". it is stated in dialogue that Helen was killed on "SEPTEMBER 17th, 1960". In the final episode, Gerard asks Johnson about "SEPTEMBER 19th, 1961, the night Helen Kimble was murdered.") Later he captures Kimble, but in arresting him he actually apologizes to him for performing his duty ("I'm sorry. You just ran out of time"). Building on the twin themes of Kimble's respect for Gerard and also his exhaustion with running, Kimble makes no effort to escape here.
There are parallels to be seen between Gerard's pursuit of Kimble and the pursuit of Jean Valjean by Inspector Javert in Les Miserables, though Javert never let go of his obsession to follow the letter of the law and hunt down his fugitive, even killing himself when he could not reconcile the justice Valjean dishes out. Gerard, on the other hand, was portrayed externally as a man like Javert, willing to even risk his own loyal followers to catch his man, but internally was more of a thinking man who could balance justice and duty.
According to some of those who worked on the show, these parallels were not coincidental. Stanford Whitmore, who wrote the pilot episode "Fear in a Desert City," says that he deliberately gave Kimble's nemesis a similar-sounding name to see if anyone would recognize the similarity between 'Gerard' and 'Javert'.[4] One who recognized the similarity was Morse; he pointed out the connection to Quinn Martin, who admitted that The Fugitive was a "sort of modern rendition of the outline of Les Misérables."[4] Morse accordingly went back to the Victor Hugo novel and studied the portrayal of Javert, to find ways to make the character more complex than the "conventional 'Hollywood dick'" Gerard had originally been conceived as. "I've always thought that we in the arts ... are all 'shoplifters'", Morse said. "Everybody, from Shakespeare onwards and downwards ... But once you've acknowledged that ... when you set out on a shoplifting expedition, you go always to Cartier's, and never to Woolworth's!"[4]
A shadowy figure, the one-armed man (Bill Raisch) Raisch's most notable prior screen role was in 1962's Lonely are the Brave in which he picks a fight in a stranger unfrendly bar with Kirk Duglas's character, John (Jack) W Burns.as both crafty and almost superhumanly strong. Not much is revealed about his personal life or how or when he lost his right arm. Like Kimble, he used a variety of aliases while on the run—in the episode "A Clean And Quiet Town", he is credited as "Steve Cramer", and in "The Ivy Maze", he poses as "Carl Stoker". He went by the name Fred Johnson in several episodes, notably "Escape Into Black" and "Wife Killer", as well as the two-part series finale "The Judgment". He is also referred to as Johnson in "The Ivy Maze", and at one point Fritz Simpson (William Windom) addresses him as "Fred." However, when interrogated by Lt. Gerard in "The Judgement", he denies that Fred Johnson is his name. Although Fred Johnson is generally regarded as his "real" identity, a case could be made for his actual name being Gus Evans—as revealed in "The Judgment". Gus Evans was the name the one-armed man used before he killed Helen Kimble, when he would presumably have had no need to adopt an alias.
The one-armed man was rarely seen on The Fugitive, appearing in person in only 10 episodes—and also in a photograph in the episode "The Breaking of the Habit" with Eileen Heckart. Aside from a few ad libs, he also has no dialogue until the episodes in season four, as his character takes a more prominent part in the plotline of those episodes. Aware that Kimble is after him to clear his name for his wife's murder, the one-armed man frequently tips the police off as to Kimble's whereabouts as not to let his and Kimble's paths cross, most notably in "Nobody Loses All The Time" when he telephones his girlfriend (Barbara Baxley) at a hospital and orders her to call the police on Kimble—even though Kimble risked arrest to save her life.
William Conrad provided voice-over narration for each episode but never appeared in the credits.[5] Kimble's murdered wife Helen was portrayed in flashbacks in several episodes by Diane Brewster. In the first such episode, "The Girl from Little Egypt", flashbacks illustrate the actual murder and the circumstances leading up to and surrounding it. Also seen very occasionally were Kimble's married sister, Donna Taft (Jacqueline Scott); his brother-in-law, Leonard Taft (played by several actors in different episodes, including Richard Anderson, James B. Sikking and Lin McCarthy[6]); and Gerard's superior at the Stafford police department, Captain Carpenter (Paul Birch). Only the character of Richard Kimble is present onscreen in every episode; off-screen narrator Conrad is also heard at the beginning and end of each episode, while a separate voice, the announcer, speaks the title of the episode and the names of the episode's guest stars in the opening teaser. This announcer (an uncredited Dick Wesson) also says, "The Fugitive" aloud at the end of the closing credits leading in to studio sponsorships of the series ("'The Fugitive' has been brought to you by.....") Quinn Martin's previous show, The Untouchables, also contained both a narrator (Walter Winchell) and an announcer (Les Lampson).
Gerard directly appears in only thirty-seven episodes, and The One-Armed Man is seen in only ten episodes though he appears in the opening credits beginning with the show's second season. He appeared only twice in the show's first season and one time apiece in the second and third seasons, but appeared in six fourth-season episodes, a reflection of new producer Wilton Schiller's desire to steer the show toward a more action-oriented direction.
The 120 episodes of The Fugitive offered a who's who of Hollywood character actors and upcoming talent. Many guest stars reappeared in multiple episodes. Mel Proctor's book, The Official Fan's Guide to The Fugitive, lists all the actors and their episode numbers as Appendix 5.
Pete Rugolo, who worked on David Janssen's earlier series Richard Diamond, Private Detective, composed the original music for The Fugitive. (Rugolo would later work with creator Roy Huggins on Run for Your Life and other projects.) Tracking music was standard practice at the time, but unlike virtually all primetime scripted series of the 1960s, no episode - not even "The Judgment" - received an original score;[7] all the original music used for the series was composed by Rugolo and recorded in London before the series was filmed. In fact, many episodes had Rugolo as the sole credited composer for the episode's scores. However, only a fraction of all the music heard throughout the series was original Rugolo music. Library music (either from other classic TV shows or from stock music libraries, as was the case with The Adventures of Superman) provided a majority of the episodes' scores. For example, a keen listener could find himself listening to a cue from the Outer Limits series during the climactic final episode of The Fugitive. Numerous cues from The Twilight Zone episode "The Invaders" are used to strong effect throughout the series, notably in the climax of the episode "The Witch". The old pop songs "I'll Never Smile Again" and "I'll Remember April" each appear several times in the series, often associated with Kimble's deceased wife, Helen.
What little original melody was actually written and recorded was built around a fast-paced tempo representing running music. Different variations, from sad to action-oriented, would be used, with many arrangements developed for the music supervisor to select as best suited for particular scenes. There was also an original "Dragnet"-type theme for Lt. Gerard.
A soundtrack issue containing the key music Rugolo wrote and recorded for the series is now available on CD from Silva Screen Records. About 40 minutes in length, this CD contains mono yet hi-fidelity cuts and cues that were recorded in London.
For the release of Season 2, Volume 1, entirely new musical scores (created on synthesizer and composed by Mark Heyes, with additional contributions by Sam Winans and Ron Komie) were done to replace the tracked music that had been used for original and rerun broadcasts, syndication and earlier home video releases. CBS/Paramount has yet to offer any detailed explanation for the music replacement, though a recent article on the Film Music Society's web site suggests that the use of several cues from the Capitol Music Library that may have been difficult or impossible to clear could have been the cause. Many fans of the original score wrote letters of protest and boycotted this release with the hope that CBS/Paramount would fix this debacle by reissuing the collection with all of the original music intact.
On 17 February 2009, CBS/Paramount announced a program to issue replacement discs for Season 2 Volume 1, with much of the original music restored. This was a significant effort by CBS to mollify outraged fans. While this was a step in the right direction, many fans concluded that the replacement discs were too little, too late. Several episodes still had major portions of their original scores replaced by the new compositions, and at least one key scene in the episode "Ballad for a Ghost" was deleted entirely. Inexplicably, many of the missing cues were clearly owned outright by CBS. These cues (correctly) appeared in some scenes, yet were replaced in others, reflecting an overcautious CBS Legal Department and needless music replacement.
The Fugitive premiered in the United States on September 17, 1963. A total of 120 episodes were produced over the course of the show's four seasons, with the last original episode airing in the United States on August 29, 1967.[8]
The series aired Tuesdays at 10:00 on ABC.
As a Top 30, The Fugitive has an average rating of 24.8.
The final episode of the series aired on Tuesday, August 22, and Tuesday, August 29, both in 1967, with a two-part episode entitled "The Judgment".
The one-armed man, Fred Johnson, is arrested after tearing up a Los Angeles strip bar. When Kimble reads about it in a newspaper while working in Arizona, he travels to Los Angeles. He runs into an old friend, a woman named Jean Carlisle (played by Diane Baker), who is working as a typist with the Los Angeles Police Department who has seen Gerard searching for Kimble. After Kimble learns that Johnson has been arrested, he elects to turn himself in. Johnson is bailed out of jail by a corrupt bail bondsman who formulates a plan to blackmail the person who supplied the bail and who is himself killed by Johnson after learning that the money came from someone in Stafford. Kimble decides that he must leave Los Angeles and head back home immediately, but just as he is about to catch a taxi to the airport Gerard finally apprehends him after chasing him for years. "I'm sorry," Gerard tells him, "you just ran out of time."
While taking the train back from Los Angeles to Stafford, Kimble informs Gerard that he found something that might lead him to the truth, and that he believes Johnson is going to Stafford to use the information he killed the bail bondsman for. Gerard gives Kimble twenty-four hours to prove his innocence, and Kimble agrees to turn himself in and begin serving his sentence if he cannot.
The key piece of evidence Kimble has is the bail bond slip signed by a man using the name "Leonard Taft", the name of Richard's brother-in-law, married to his sister Donna. The man is the Tafts' neighbor, Stafford city planner Lloyd Chandler (played by J.D. Cannon). When Chandler meets Johnson at an abandoned riding academy, Johnson blackmails him for $50,000.
Chandler tries to get the money while hiding it from his wife Betsy, even resorting to putting his house up for sale. Eventually, he cracks and tells her what he had done and why, revealing that he witnessed the murder of Helen Kimble. Helen had called Chandler over to the house in a frightful panic after her husband had driven off to try to calm her down. While upstairs with Helen both she and Chandler heard Johnson breaking into the house and saw him attempt to rob it. Helen confronted Johnson, who responded by attacking her and beating her to death with a lamp while Chandler sat on the stairs watching through the bars of the railing in horror. Chandler never told anybody about it because he was afraid that his standing in the community would be ruined; he had fought in World War II and earned a Silver Star while in combat, and feared that if anyone found out about his moment of cowardice in the Kimble home he would never live it down.
Kimble is unsuccessful in finding his evidence within the 24 hours he was given, and so is about to leave with Gerard to head to prison. Just before they leave, Donna alerts the two that she has found a bullet in one of her sons' dresser drawers. Gerard identifies the bullet as being identical to the one they found at the riding academy when they went to investigate the day before. Donna tells her brother and the lieutenant that the bullet must have come from Chandler, who took the boys to a shooting range the day before. Kimble and Gerard head over to the Chandler residence to learn that Chandler has headed to an abandoned amusement park and is luring Johnson there so he can make up for his earlier unwillingness to talk by killing Johnson.
By the time Kimble and Gerard arrive at the amusement park Chandler and Johnson have started a firefight with Johnson's pistol squaring off against Chandler's rifle. While trying to stop the shooting Gerard takes a bullet to his thigh from Johnson, temporarily disabling him. The lieutenant tosses Kimble his weapon and he heads off to finally confront his wife's murderer. Chandler is forced to help Gerard walk, and during the whole time Gerard tries to convince him to speak up so Kimble can go free.
The climax takes place on top of a carnival tower as Kimble and Johnson engage in hand to hand fighting while Gerard and Chandler watch from the ground. Kimble is able to extract a confession from Johnson, who is also tired of having Kimble pursuing him and tells the doctor he is going to kill him. Johnson takes Gerard's pistol from Kimble and attempts to fire it, but before he is able, Gerard hits Johnson with a well placed shot from the ground with Chandler's rifle. Johnson falls off the top of the tower to his death. Kimble climbs down and tells Gerard that he was able to get a confession out of Johnson, but since he is now dead and there were no other witnesses but him, he cannot prove his innocence. Chandler, apparently having been convinced by Gerard, decides that he will in fact testify on Kimble's behalf in order to exonerate him.
In the final scene of the episode and the series, an exonerated Kimble leaves the courthouse and, after hesitating, shakes the extended hand of Lt. Gerard. Dr. Kimble walks off toward his new life, accompanied by Jean Carlisle. Narrator William Conrad intones, "Tuesday, August 29th: The day the running stopped."
The final episode on August 29 was interrupted or not shown in some parts of the country due to local baseball telecasts. "The Judgment, Part 2", was shown in those markets the following week. The William Conrad voiceover was changed to, "Tuesday, September 5: The day the running stopped." The September 5 ending was used for the VHS release of the episode, while the August 29 version has proved the more popular with classic television stations that have shown it over the years.
Part two of the finale was the most-watched television series episode at that time. It was viewed by 25.70 million households (45.9 percent of American households with a television set and a 72 percent share), meaning that more than 78 million people tuned in. That record was held until the November 21, 1980 episode of Dallas, ("Who Done It"), viewed by 41.47 million households (53.3 percent of households and a 76 percent share), but was later surpassed by the series finale of M*A*S*H, ("Goodbye, Farewell and Amen"), on February 28, 1983, viewed by 50.15 million households (60.2 percent of households and a 77 percent share). The timing of the broadcast was unusual: rather than ending the regular season, the finale was held back while suspense continued through the summer reruns.
In 1997, "The Judgment, Part 2" was ranked #23 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time.[9]
The theme of one or more people on the run, criss-crossing America and getting involved in the personal lives of the people they meet, has become the basis of many similar TV shows.
These have included:
In addition, British heavy metal band Iron Maiden's 1992 album Fear of the Dark features a song based on the show entitled "The Fugitive".
The Fugitive, a feature film based on the series, was released in 1993, starring Harrison Ford as Kimble, Tommy Lee Jones as Gerard (now named 'Samuel' instead of 'Philip', and a U.S. Marshal rather than a police lieutenant) and Andreas Katsulas as the one-armed man (now called Fred Sykes instead of Fred Johnson). The movie's success came as Hollywood was embarking on a trend of remaking old television series into features. The film remained true to its source material, in particular, the notion that Kimble's kindness led him to help others even when it posed a danger to his liberty or to his physical safety. The film also showed Gerard pursuing his own investigation into the murder as part of his pursuit of Kimble and coming up with his own doubts as to the case.
Gerard and his team of Marshals returned in the film U.S. Marshals, played by the same actors. Even though it was not a sequel, it had a similar plotline of an innocent man (Wesley Snipes) evading police to prove his innocence.
To coincide with the theatrical release, NBC aired the show's first and last episodes in the summer of 1993, and later hosted the film's broadcast premiere in 1996. Tommy Lee Jones received the 1993 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The film was also nominated for Best Picture.
A short-lived TV series remake (CBS, 2000–2001) of the same name also aired, filmed in Everett, Washington starring Tim Daly as Kimble, Mykelti Williamson as Gerard, and Stephen Lang as the one-armed man. CBS canceled the series after one season with a total of 22 episodes. The show was the first lead in to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation on Friday nights, which became a hit when it debuted the same year. This incarnation was produced by Warner Bros. Television, the TV division of Warner Bros. Entertainment which produced the 1993 film.
Prior to home video, The Fugitive was part of the original lineup on the "Arts & Entertainment Network", commonly known as A&E, beginning in February 1984. It ran until the summer of 1994. The show also appeared on the nationwide WWOR EMI Service, on the former KTZZ-TV (now KZJO) in the Seattle area and briefly on the TV Land network in 2000 before disappearing from television altogether.
A total of 42 episodes have been released on VHS by NuVentures Video, with selected shows from the 42 later issued by Republic Pictures. 12 episodes were also released on laserdisc.
Currently, Republic Pictures and CBS Television Studios own the copyrights to the series (while CBS itself now owns distribution rights); CBS DVD (with distribution by Paramount) released Season 1, Volume 1 on DVD in Region 1 in late 2007. Reviews of the first DVD set have been very positive as the show appears uncut and uncompressed, re-mastered from the original negatives and magnetic soundtrack, although a disclaimer by CBS mentions some episodes are "edited from their original broadcast versions" and some music changed for home video. (Incidental music was altered in at least two episodes, "Where the Action Is" and "The Garden House".) There are no subtitles or alternate languages, and the "liner notes" consist merely of TV-Guide-style episode synopses inside the four-disc holder. Season 1, Volume 2 was released on February 26, 2008. [1] Season 2, Volume 1 was released on June 10, 2008. [2] Many reviews of this third DVD set were highly negative due to the replacement of the original used music tracks with the aforementioned synthesizer music (see Musical Score above for details.) Season 3, volume 1 was released on October 27, 2009, [3] and Season 3, volume 2 was released on December 8, 2009, [4], with most, but not all, of the original music intact. Season 4, volume 1 was released on November 2, 2010. It appears that this volume will be the first to include any extras, including a Featurette titled "Season of Change: Composer Dominic Frontiere".[10] Season 4, volume 2 was released on February 15, 2011.[11]
On November 1, 2011, CBS was to release The Fugitive- The Complete series: The Most Wanted Edition on DVD in Region 1. This 33-disc set would have featured all 120 episodes of the series as well as bonus features. However, the set was recalled before it was released. [12]
CBS's rights only cover the original series; the later productions were handled by Warner Bros. Entertainment.
| DVD Name | Ep # | Release Date |
|---|---|---|
| Season 1, Volume 1 | 15 | August 14, 2007[13] |
| Season 1, Volume 2 | 15 | February 26, 2008[14] |
| Season 2, Volume 1 | 15 | June 10, 2008[15] |
| Season 2, Volume 2 | 15 | March 31, 2009[16] |
| Season 3, Volume 1 | 15 | October 27, 2009[17] |
| Season 3, Volume 2 | 15 | December 8, 2009[18] |
| Season 4, Volume 1 | 15 | November 2, 2010[19] |
| Season 4, Volume 2 | 15 | February 15, 2011[20] |
| The Complete Series | 120 | TBA |
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