The Fugitive - story lines

in re-reading my last post, i did not make myself clear.

when marie is talking to kimble, and refers to the will o the wisp, the guy who is never there, he wasnt there again today, he was in all the papers, you must have heard about him - she prefaces this with this is the guy who she lost her husband to.  she is rambling about her marriage.

being that he is currently being chased, that would have brought up suspicions with anybody in kimble's position.  this is when kimble should have had high suspicions that this person that was talking was girard's wife.

so he would never have gone on talking about one and a half, and the dispatch.  cuz he would have been prewarned, and would not have wanted marie to know that she was actually with dr kimble, but rather ed carver (the name i think he was using).

this is where i think the first huge story line mistake took place (at least within the context of the two talking to one another).

when kimble mentions one and a half and the dispatch - now, marie basically knows she is actually with kimble.

and since she basically knows that, her only goal is to keep him there - and would not have done anything to risk scaring him off - like mentioning the name of helen.

that was a huge risk, and a mistake that kimble would not likely have made.  look at his history.  the first time anything occurs that could make someone suspicious, he is out the door.  if anyone knows about how hard it is to catch kimble, marie certainly did - it was her nightmare.

remember when he found that his sail-matchbook was missing a match ?  talk about CAREFUL - kimble defined the word careful.  he could not afford to make those kinds of slip-ups - and that had a major role in why he was not caught.  so it isnt likely that kimble would be confused about whether he said "helen" or not.  and even if kimble reasoned that he might have said helen, he would have had to reason that the chances were small.

and with those sorts of odds, kimble would have assumed he was with girard's wife, and acted accordingly.

I look forward to checking out this thread sometime late next years when I make my way through the entire series. I'm sure there will be much discussion by then with many new viewers as well as those going through the series again, that is thanks to the DVD release. Now I'll know where to look.

A good thread idea as there are many Fuge fans here.  The stories, the acting, the direction, all were top notch in THE FUGITIVE and discussion of the interesting plot twists, reactions, etc., should certainly be a welcome breath of fresh air from all of the technical discussions in the Season threads.

Harry

Jimmy:

I'm not being clear enough either. So when Marie mentions the man that's not there; the will o' the wisp, Kimble does not think it's about him yet.  He believes she is Marie Lindsey, after all.  He's just listening to her.  He mentions the one and a half times newspaper.  Now - she startles and thinks this could well be Kimble; likely is Kimble.  She goes for the 100% confirmation by asking about Helen.  This is the first time he is startled and she says, "Oh, isn't that what you said her name is?"  He relaxes and says yes, that is her name.  Now she knows for sure and gets clingy but he doesn't know yet who she is.  Look at his face when he answers the phone and it's Gerard and hangs up on him.  Now he says "I'm Richard Kimble and you would do anything to keep me here."  She cries, "Yes, yes...."

The story really is error free when viewed this way.  If you still think they both knew earlier than this, then we're both entitled to our opinions.  Thanks for starting the thread.

How do you like the other two parters: Angels Travel on Lonely Roads and Never Wave Goodbye?

SteveL

hi steve,

you are quoting what the intention of the show was - i agree.  what i am saying is that the 2 individuals would never have responded this way, in real life - given the situations.

when marie goes on her marriage rant, kimble would have known who she was.  it is not realistic to think that a typical person, in kimble's shoes, would not have known who marie was.

so of course, kimble would never have made that one and a half comment to marie in real life - cuz he got the first shot of knowing who marie is, and then would choose of course not to reciprocate.

and then even if kimble was dumb enough to reciprocate, marie would not have made such a useless confirmation, cuz it would do her no good.  the only thing that was in her control was to keep kimble there.  whether he turned out to be kimble or not was not within her control, so her actions had no effect on that.  since she was already being totally successful at keeping him there already, she risked losing him by saying the helen comment, and not bettering her situation, except to satisfy her curiosity. 

the characters, in real life, would not have handled the conversation as they did.

i dont recall the episodes by name.  although i like every fugitive episode there is.  i am not sure i even have any favorites.  they all leave me with a "what a great guy he was" feeling.  i think this is the main reason that i like the show so much - the integrity of richard kimble (i am not confusing him with the real person david jannsen, who i know nothing about - LOL).

one of the best individual moments i can recall is with the little kid who hears that fish scream.  basically he has empathy or sympathy to a much greater degree than is typical.  the mom is worried that he is an oddball.  and then kimble makes the remark something like the following - "you know, the thing about your son that worries you the most may be what makes him stand head and shoulders above everyone else when he becomes an adult".  that was a very potent, far-reaching statement - said in a very humble way.

i had made my original comments when someone else said something about one of the episodes not being true to life.

sure, i recall the angels one - i already mentioned it, when i said she was one of the few people to make a re-appearance as the same character.

that show was charming, to say the least.  the interplay between kimble and the nun was great.

never wave - is that when kimble saves girard, after girard pursues him on a raft in a storm ?  that was good.  i think that was the first time that kimble saved girard. 

he saved him from the gangster who was gonna kill girard to repay kimble.  and he saved him when girard and kimble were in that bootleg episode.  possibly a couple more times - that dont come to mind immediately.

You might also be interested in the Fugitive discussions at these 2 Yahoo groups:
tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/THE-FUGITIVE-VIEWS-AND-REVIEWS/
tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/fugitive/

At the first link above, they have completed individual episode reviews for all four seasons and are going through them again, plus they have been discussing various other things, but their main focus is on the episodes and the characters rather than technical issues.

And the second above link is more general in its Fugitive discussions.

And yes, "Never Wave Goodbye" is the first time Kimble saves Gerard's life (after he falls off the raft).

Cheers,
Joyce

Barry's intros to 39 episodes

Thought some of you might be interested in seeing Barry Morse's introductions to 39 Fugitive episodes. Here's a link to all the links I posted on the IMDB message board, and I also posted the links on the 2 Yahoo groups shown in the previous message.

www.imdb.com/title/tt0056757/board/thread/150737363

Sorry for the double post.

Edited by Clugul - 11/3/09 at 2:22pm

As a for the most part casual fan of the series, I have to offer my thoughts on the last episode "The Judgment" which wrapped things up.   It was satisfying on a lot of levels, but I think had some flaws I mentioned in the other thread, the chief one being (I am not doing spoilers this time out) that the resolution hinged on the emergence of a witness who was also a local neighbor.      I think it would have been a lot stronger had the character of Chandler (the witness) been someone established in a previous episode, even if he'd just been a minor figure in an earlier episode set in Stafford.

That said, it was good that they brought back Diane Brewster as Helen Kimble for the flashback to the murder (she had played the part in "The Girl From Little Egypt") though interestingly she was unbilled in the credits.

I have many problems with "The Judgment."  I feel the main idea of the writers was to have Len Taft be the murderer and then they chickened out and had Mr. Chandler be a witness.  Here are the problems with that change:

How does the murderer (one armed man) blackmail the witness to the crime.  "If you don't pay me $50,000.00, I'll tell the cops I killed Helen Kimble and you just sat there and watched it."  It doesn't work.  If Lloyd Chandler or Len Taft did the killing and the OAM witnessed that, the story would make more sense.

Since Lloyd isn't the murderer, he wouldn't bail out the OAM.  Is he afraid the OAM is going to try to use him as a defense if he gets caught?  The OAM, if caught doesn't want any one to know about a witness.

If, despite all the above, he does bail him out hoping he can just disappear, why use Len Taft's name?  Why would he want the Taft's to get any inkling of a OAM being caught anywhere?

None of this makes sense with the OAM as the murderer.  A better story would have invoved Kimble simply tracking down the OAM over two episodes.  The idea of the murderer blackmailing the witness has always bugged me.

SteveL

gosh, i guess i dont recall the last episodes all that well.  but i thought the one-armed man was the killer.  if i recall, girard allows kimble to have his gun, and he gets shot off a large tower ?

i do recall my thinking of being disappointed with the episode - it just did not seem to have the same flavor of the fugitive that i had grown used to - although i cant really put that in any concise set of words.

there was a humongous amount of build-up for the finale.  people in the supermarket were talking about it - you couldnt go anywhere and not hear people talking about it.  lots thought that it would end up being someone other than the oam.

i must admit, i was wondering myself if they were gonna pull a fast one.  i was still in grade school.  with all the build-up, i just did not think that the finale lived up to its billing, so to speak.

but i recall it was the highest watched show ever at the time of its viewing, and held that record for quite awhile.

back in the 60s, daytime tv showed a lot of repeats from shows that were currently still running.  the fugitive was on m-f at 1 pm in the afternoon.  we all took a break from baseball during the summer just to watch the show - LOL.

Joyce,

Thank you for linking to those Barry Morse intros. I'd never seen any of them previously. Fun stuff.

Although I must say--I certainly wouldn't advise any first-time viewer to watch the Morse intros before watching each show first, because Barry gives away far too many "spoilers" in the intros.

But Barry is sure fun to watch. And it's remarkable how he was able to totally mask his fairly-thick English accent during his entire 4-year stint as Lt. Gerard in "The Fugitive". You'd never be able to guess that Barry was born in London by listening to him as Gerard. I guess that's part of being a truly great "actor", isn't it?

http://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=EzbF18I6O-Y

Actually, I do get what they were doing.   The key is in Pt. 1 when Johnson tells the bail bondsman he didn't kill Helen Kimble but was there and could say who did.       Johnson was banking on the fact that he could take advantage of Chandler's cowardice by saying, "If I ever get arrested, I'll just tell them YOU killed Mrs. Kimble.    You think anyone's going to believe a war hero like you would have just stood there by yourself and did nothing?     You think anyone would believe a friend of the Kimbles wouldn't have come forward?"    This was what Johnson was banking on, and Chandler knew that by not coming forward in the first place because he wanted to protect his own image, he'd boxed himself in that position.     So yes, it does make sense but you have to think a little more carefully on that score.

But I do think you're right that maybe the initial plan was to have Len Taft be either the real killer or the witness.   The way we're introduced to Len in S1 where he only pops in and out in a few seconds as if he doesn't want to talk long with Kimble would almost further lend credence to that.

I don't think the initial idea from the writers was to have Len Taft or the neighbor actually be the killer.  That would have failed on multiple levels:

1) Fred Johnson admits to the killing on several occasions leading up to the finale.  If he were not the killer what in the world would have been his motivation to run for his life from both the police and Kimble all those years?  It just wouldn't make sense.

2) If Johnson is NOT the killer then it makes Richard Kimble look like an absolute idiot.  He's chased the wrong man for years!  So just on that point alone I don't believe it was ever the intention of the writers to make Taft the killer.  They may have thought about it for a couple of seconds in the writing room, but no way did they plan to do it and just chicken out at the last second.

I thought the first part of "The Judgment" was tremendous.  It did leave one with many questions racing through the brain when Len's name was brought up.  That was a stroke of genius on the part of the writers to keep people in suspense.  But I have to admit that the ending somehow didn't live up to what I thought it would.  Not that it was bad.  No way.  It was very well done and satisfactory.  But for some reason I have to say it didn't quite hit me as strongly as I thought it was going to.  I believe those last couple of minutes could have been a tad more climatic, but I'm not sure how.  But I'm only talking literally that last minute before the epilogue where Johnson meets his fate.  Somehow that just fell short a tad bit for me.  Maybe if we had seen Gerard's face at the moment of the confession it would have been stronger.  That might be something I felt was missing.  I know that by the time they got to the amusement park Gerard had basically come to know Johnson was the guilty party, but I'd have liked to see something more from him at the moment the final "confession" came down.  Some type of look that just really summed it all up.  And I didn't really get that.

But then we get to the epilogue, which I thought did end exactly as it should have and was done superbly.  So I can't complain too much about "The Judgment".  Maybe it wasn't everything I had hoped for, but it was at least 90% of what I had hoped for.  And let's face it, this show had raised the bar so high it was going to be nearly impossible to meet every expectation.


Gary "just my two cents" O.

Yesterday I watched Fun and Games and Party Favors, and was surprised at the level of specificity in the scene where the three boys intrude on Joanne. My memory of television from the 60s is that it was more timid by today's standards, but this was just as intense, although not in a graphic sense. It reminded me that The Fugitive is one of the most mature shows in all of TV history.

If you watch the epilog, when Gerard and Kimble face each other for the last time,  Gerard is actually talking to Kimble, but they took out the dialogue.  After looking at it in the editing, they thought it would be much more powerful if they said nothing and just shook hands.  Apparently the dialogue was a bunch of gushy stuff.  I think it is much better this way also.

Jack P.

Nice post.  Perhaps Johnson could count on Chandler's cowardice, but if Chandler did get some guts when being blackmailed at the stable, he would say, "You killed her and you're not getting a cent.  I don't think you're going to the police, a vagrant who Kimble saw that night, and convince them that I, a war hero and fine citizen of this town, killed her or was even there."  Again if he had bailed him out with a truly fictional name, the OAM wouldn't even have been able to trace him.

When I said the writers originally thought about making Len Taft the killer, I'm talking about at the time they were writing this episode; not right at the beginning of season one.  They had no thought of Len being the killer when he quickly popped in to say hello in the first season.

If Chandler had been the real killer, Johnson's motivation for running from Kimble was explained to the bondsman, "I wasn't supposed to be there."  He knew he would be charged and he didn't know who that other guy was.

Part one is indeed excellent and part two a bit of a let down.  After those gruelling four years, would you have shaken hands with Gerard?  I've often thought I would have walked on without acknowledging him.

Wouldn't it have been cool to have a show take place a few months later with all Richard's ex-girlfriends coming to Stafford to renew their relationships with him?

SteveL

Gary:

We don't get Gerard's reaction at the time of the confession, but what about when Gerard's questioning Johnson in Part One, and he comes to realize Johnson could have done it?  That is one of the best scenes in the episode.

SteveL

Gary I don't agree that if Johnson had been only a witness instead of the real killer, that would have made Kimble look like an idiot.    Kimble's reason for going on, to find what he knows is the only tangible link that can clear him, would still be the same but with a new twist added to it. 

Incidentally, I'd add that if we were able to speculate in full on how the hearing went that resulted in Kimble being cleared between Act IV and the Epilogue of "The Judgment" it wouldn't surprise me if Captain Eckhardt from "Trial By Fire" also showed up again to testify since by then with Chandler, his story of seeing the one-armed man running from the scene could now be believed.

Jimmy's last post sure resonated with me as we are likely near the same age and share similar flashbacks to the original network airing of the two part finale.  I too have memories of a vague dissatisfaction with the denouement, both when it was new and in subsequent viewings over the years, similar to Gary's  astute observations and reservations.  It wasn't until I shared the show with a younger girlfriend who had never seen it and had no idea how it was going to end that I finally made peace with the last show and appreciated it.  Seeing it all through her eyes as best I could and indulging her fresh perspective and instant passion for the series, I was finally able to see what made those last two shows so special.  Far and above the dramatic revelations of the climax, there remained the essential core or heart of the entire series, that moment when Gerard trusts Kimble enough to let him go.  That to me was the true ending,  the exciting final chase and confrontation notwithstanding.  One needs to approach the series as it being Gerard's journey toward salvation every bit as much as it's Kimble's. 

Jimmy might remember that midway through the original broadcast of the series, a rumor about an alleged final episode circulated, making all the newspapers at the time.  Supposedly a final show was shot and stored in a vault until the day the series was to end and in this show the true killer of Helen Kimble was revealed to be none other than Lt. Phillip Gerard.  !!!  It further went on to say that in the story it is disclosed that Gerard was having an affair with Helen Kimble and when she threatened to break it off, he killed her in a fit of rage.  Thus his pursuit of Richard Kimble is twofold: He is not only trying to implicate the husband of his mistress, but also desperately trying to save himself from being brought to justice.  It was an interesting rumor, but nothing more.

i havent see the finale since it ran.  i mistakenly bought a bootleg copy, so have been watching the ones that play - LOL.  i am almost up to the end, so i will have some comments after i see it again, some 40 years later.

i do recall girard being thought by some to be the killer.  being that i was a kid, and it was 40 some years ago, i just have vague memories of it all - other than i had never seen that much excitement about a tv show.  there was talk everywhere you went about who actually did it.

it was not clear cut at all right before the finale that it was gonna be the one-arm-man.

no doubt, they did an excellent job of advertising - LOL.

back then as a kid, i think i would like to have seen a warmer ending, with girard apologizing and saying he had to do his job, kimble then accepting said apology, understanding girard's point of view, etc.  this would have been true to form for kimble, as he was displayed throughout.  perhaps  it was this that left me a bit disappointed - i just dont recall.

and like another poster said, there was so dang much buildup, that it was gonna be next to impossible to live up to it.

pretty good line on street savage - kimble rescues boy getting beaten up by 3 other boys.  one of the 3 boys asks kimble why he was butting in, or something to that degree.  kimble says something like "there were only 3 of you.  i thought you might need some help."

i am now up to the last 2 shows - i am excited all over again - LOL.

i just watched part 1 - quite good.  i suspect that all the hoopla about who killed mrs. kimble came after the watching of this show.  as i said before, i heard adults talking about it, wherever i went.  for me as a kid, it seemed a bit eerie.  but the producers did a heckuva job.  the statement from johnson saying that he saw the murder is what helped to trigger all this "who done it" talk.

lot of people thought that girard had done it.  this show did not depict girard as willing to help kimble, just do his job as quickly as possible.  when all along, it was supposed to have been johnson, i think this thru people for a loop, in that for the first time they were not so sure just who did it.

i watched part 2 - really enjoyed it.  girard believed him, gave him his gun, saved his life, made the comment that "we kept an innocent man in hell for 4 years", and helped with the court appearance.

i think, as a kid, i did expect to see elephants fly, with all the talk that was going on.  so that was part of my initial letdown. 

but even to this day, i am not crazy about the epilog.  it just did not capture the show, for me.  there was a warmth between the two.  if girard spoke, it was not until after he turned his back.  kimble and he did keep the handshake for a very short while afterwards.  it still just leaves me "hanging" to some degree.  the desire for some sort of heart felt emotion from girard to kimble.

i believe the 2 actually liked one another, and respected one another throughout the show.  i believe that deep down, girard had doubts about kimble's guilt a long time before the ending.  the ending was just too business like, after having such depth on the characters of the two for four years.

There originally was dialogue between the two as scripted for that scene but both Janssen and Morse felt it was ridiculous to do the "No hard feelings, just doing my job" bit that after they finished their lines, they proceeded to kiss each other on both cheeks to underscore how silly they felt the dialogue was, and that silence would be better for the scene.

well, as i think about it - i think i would like to have actually seen some "acts" regarding the last trial - perhaps even a whole show about it.  when there was just an epilog, and no words between the 2 - for me, a huge piece of a jigsaw puzzle still seemed out of place.

i would like to have seen them actually capture johnson, with him as part of the trial.