"The Fugitive" (1963): Season 1; Volume 1 Rumored To Be In The Works! - Page 13

Harry-N · 08-11-2007, 06:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff Willis

Harry,

I didn't realize that you were a comedian as well as a classic TV/DVD fan

I toil at many jobs...

Harry
...who now has reports of THE FUGITIVE at his local FedEx facility at this hour, online...

Jeff# · 08-11-2007, 10:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harry-N

I toil at many jobs...

So do I, but not every day. And a lot of them aren't exactly "toiling".

Hey, guys...Since Season 1, Volume 1 is no longer "Rumoured" to being in the works as this topic's title states, should we start a new thread for The Fugitive? This one has been going on too long at 13 pages.

Harry-N · 08-11-2007, 11:38 AM

Well, Richard Kimble has arrived, and taken up residence at my house, employed to entertain me in 50-minute segments. Yes, the DVD set has arrived!

Housed in a transparent keep case, the first and last discs are on the inside "pages" of the case, with the middle two residing on either side of a foldover "page" staggered top-to-bottom so that they don't touch the facing discs. Result is a standard-width case that protects the four discs.

Episode titles and descriptions are found on the inside of the cover sheet through the transparent case. So you have to remove a disc to read them - a minor inconvenience given the smartness of the package design.

Upon sampling some of the discs (I've obviously not had time to watch the whole thing yet), I've come to figure out what the deal is with the shortened length of the first (pilot) episode. Somehow a shortened opening sequence got grafted onto it.

For those new to the series, the Season One opening sequence had two different edits. The first one began with "Name: Richard Kimble. Occupation: Doctor Of Medicine..." It then went on to describe his situation that sets up the series. We see a train derail and the aftermath of the accident. It cuts to a frog croaking, and then we see Kimble running out of the woods, toward the camera, and falling into a creek of water. The screen then explodes with the series title logo and the main theme is heard, as the announcer tells us who the guest stars are and the title of "Tonight's Episode."

Sometime during the first season, the opening was shortened. The narration is different from the very first words, "The name: Dr. Richard Kimble. Destination: Death Row State Prison..." A slightly different close-up of Kimble is inserted as an off-screen hand lights his cigarette. The original version had a two-shot of Gerard doing that. The narrator's description of the set-up of the story is shortened, and we see a shortened version of the aftermath of the derailment. Then, without a frog, we see Kimble running out of the woods, after which the openings are styled pretty much the same.

At what point this officially happened I don't know. I can tell you that the longer openings are there on episodes two through six. The seventh episode has the shorter opening. Skipping ahead, I noticed that the final episode in this set, "Home Is The Hunted" had the longer opening.

(By the way, in the intros that Barry Morse did on the Nu Ventures tapes issued in the '90s, he pointed out that his son had questioned him as to why in the derailment scenes, it can be noted that the passenger cars are from a French train, with the words "Chemin de Fer" visible. I hadn't noticed that until it was pointed out, and it's now even more readable with the clarity of the DVDs.)

Picture quality that I sampled was exemplary for a series of this age. Yeah, there's dirt and scratches in places, but that only adds to the film-noirish quality of the series. In the pilot, as Kimble arrives in his room, his sports-jacket strobes a bit, emphasizing a level of clarity that we've not seen to date with this series.

The sound is fine. I heard a few minor dropouts as I skimmed through a few of the discs, but it all sounds way better than the burbled-sounding time-compressed versions that we've suffered through for years. So yes, there are minor imperfections that I suspect were there from the start. After all, these were made to be seen on network television of the '60s. The fact that today's technology can reveal minor flaws from the times shouldn't be counted against this presentation.

One thing that is newly visible to me is the mechanical nature of the "folding" credits. If you look at the end credits, as each one finishes, it folds top and bottom into a middle line, with the next screen's verbiage folding back up from that line. With the clarity of the DVDs, we can now see a bit of the card on which the credits were placed, and manually turned away from the camera. I've tried to capture an example, with an arrow pointing to the horizontal line that moves up from the bottom. It's one of those things that's probably more obvious on a moving screen.

You can barely notice that the portion of the image below where the arrow points is darker.

I've not yet figured out what music replacement there might be. If it's minor, I might not notice it. I can tell that the piano piece that Vera Miles is playing sounds the same to me as the one that ran on network TV and exists on the issued tapes.

Harry
...excited to finally have THE FUGITIVE in his DVD collection, online...

David Von Pein · 08-11-2007, 11:59 AM

Thanks, Harry, for the initial Kimble analysis/"diagnosis".

And, man, you must have a great eye for detail...because I can't see a darn thing next to that arrow.

"TONIGHT'S EPISODE -- A FOLDING TITLE-CARD MYSTERY!"

I'm already looking forward to the cool little intro pieces on Season 4 --- "NEXT! THE FUGITIVE! IN COLOR!" -- which have a neat little running man dashing across the screen in "living color".

(I'm getting ahead of myself, yes. But that thought hit me all of a sudden.)

BTW, "I'm an instrument of the law" and I MUST re-capture a doctor from the Hoosier state! I must!!

Harry-N · 08-11-2007, 12:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David VP

Thanks, Harry, for the initial Kimble analysis/"diagnosis".

And, man, you must have a great eye for detail...because I can't see a darn thing next to that arrow.

"TONIGHT'S EPISODE -- A FOLDING TITLE-CARD MYSTERY!"

I'm already looking forward to the cool little intro pieces on Season 4 --- "NEXT! THE FUGITIVE! IN COLOR!" -- which have a neat little running man dashing across the screen in "living color".

(I'm getting ahead of myself, yes. But that thought hit me all of a sudden.)

BTW, "I'm an instrument of the law" and I MUST re-capture a doctor from the Hoosier state! I must!!

Like I said, it's not really that noticeable on a static screen-shot like that, but you'll probably be able to spot it as the DVD's play.

I'm not so sure about the "In color" bumpers being included. They were eliminated from the TIME TUNNEL and VOYAGE sets that have been released, as they really were a replacement for the network color presentation logos.

Harry

Jeff# · 08-11-2007, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harry-N

Well, Richard Kimble has arrived, and taken up residence at my house, employed to entertain me in 50-minute segments. Yes, the DVD set has arrived!

OK...the separate new Fugitive topic nobody seems to want, and so Page 13 continues....

Quote:

Housed in a transparent keep case, the first and last discs are on the inside "pages" of the case, Episode titles and descriptions are found on the inside of the cover sheet through the transparent case. So you have to remove a disc to read them - a minor inconvenience given the smartness of the package design.

You could always take the flyer out to read the descriptions more easily, and then put it back into the plastic case.

Quote:

Upon sampling some of the discs (I've obviously not had time to watch the whole thing yet), I've come to figure out what the deal is with the shortened length of the first (pilot) episode. Somehow a shortened opening sequence got grafted onto it.

Sometime during the first season, the opening was shortened. The narration is different from the very first words, "The name: Dr. Richard Kimble. Destination: Death Row State Prison..." A slightly different close-up of Kimble is inserted as an off-screen hand lights his cigarette. The original version had a two-shot of Gerard doing that. The narrator's description of the set-up of the story is shortened, and we see a shortened version of the aftermath of the derailment. Then, without a frog, we see Kimble running out of the woods, after which the openings are styled pretty much the same.

Quote:

At what point this officially happened I don't know. I can tell you that the longer openings are there on episodes two through six. The seventh episode has the shorter opening. Skipping ahead, I noticed that the final episode in this set, "Home Is The Hunted" had the longer opening.

I remember they shortened that opening to begin with the frog croaking in the pond and Kimble running away from the derailed train. It was actually in the second half of the first season (on or around "Come Watch Me Die"), so I can't understand why they would re-edit some of the first half of the same season for these DVDs to include both....unless a difference of about half a minute would give them more room on each disc (which I doubt). Of course it really doesn't make much difference, since the longer version of Conrad's opening is repetitive after the viewer has heard it the first time. I prefer his narration from the 2nd season on.

Quote:

By the way, in the intros that Barry Morse did on the Nu Ventures tapes issued in the '90s, he pointed out that his son had questioned him as to why in the derailment scenes, it can be noted that the passenger cars are from a French train, with the words "Chemin de Fer" visible.

That's not unusual, given that foreign equipment frequently is imported into the United States...particularly automobiles from Europe.
Years ago I worked in a plastics manufacturing plant in New Jersey that had all German mold-injection machines.

Quote:

In the pilot, as Kimble arrives in his room, his sports-jacket strobes a bit, emphasizing a level of clarity that we've not seen to date with this series.

If it's the kind of jacket I think it is, that strobing effect is annoying -- particularly on a standard definition
19 inch TV. Thank goodness in the final season, that could never happen again.

Of course by then Kimble tended to wear brown sport jackets and blue winbreakers more anyway. One of these days I'll get around to buy a 50 inch LCD or plasma flatscreen.

Quote:

One thing that is newly visible to me is the mechanical nature of the "folding" credits. If you look at the end credits, as each one finishes, it folds top and bottom into a middle line, with the next screen's verbiage folding back up from that line. With the clarity of the DVDs, we can now see a bit of the card on which the credits were placed, and manually turned away from the camera. I've tried to capture an example, with an arrow pointing to the horizontal line that moves up from the bottom. It's one of those things that's probably more obvious on a moving screen.

You must have a keen eye, Harry, but that still picture you captured doesn't show part of the card. I guess we would have to see it moving in slo-mo on the disc.

Again, a minor point.

I did like those collapsing credits used during the first 3 seasons though. I don't know why they couldn't continue that in the 4th season, which has the much less effective dissolving yellow credits.

Quote:

I've not yet figured out what music replacement there might be. If it's minor, I might not notice it. I can tell that the piano piece that Vera Miles is playing sounds the same to me as the one that ran on network TV

Of course it's the same. There would be no reason for that to be removed. Besides....Vera (who was in the pilot episodes of many TV series) was young and attractive at the time, and nobody would want to edit any of her out of playing the piano.

phil* · 08-11-2007, 02:03 PM

"on the Nu Ventures tapes issued in the '90s, he pointed out that his son had questioned him as to why in the derailment scenes, it can be noted that the passenger cars are from a French train, with the words "Chemin de Fer" visible. I hadn't noticed that until it was pointed out, and it's now even more readable with the clarity of the DVDs.)"

Living in Montreal,Quebec at the time the series originally aired, I noticed that error right away..it brought a smile to my face

phil* · 08-11-2007, 02:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff#

So do I, but not every day. And a lot of them aren't exactly "toiling".

Hey, guys...Since Season 1, Volume 1 is no longer "Rumoured" to being in the works as this topic's title states, should we start a new thread for The Fugitive? This one has been going on too long at 13 pages.

There already is another thread: "The Fugitive-A QM Production"

Harry-N · 08-11-2007, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff#

I remember they shortened that opening to begin with the frog croaking in the pond and Kimble running away from the derailed train. It was actually in the second half of the first season (on or around "Come Watch Me Die"), so I can't understand why they would re-edit some of the first half of the same season for these DVDs to include both....unless a difference of about half a minute would give them more room on each disc (which I doubt). Of course it really doesn't make much difference, since the longer version of Conrad's opening is repetitive after the viewer has heard it the first time. I prefer his narration from the 2nd season on.

That's right. I'd forgotten about the really shortened ones that started with just the frog! Looking through THE FUGITIVE RECAPTURED, author Ed Robertson states that two episodes toward the end of the first season began with the frog. I don't know if it was more than that, but he mentions just two: "Never Stop Running" and "Storm Center".

As for the change from the "folding" credits to the "blocky-pixel-dissolve" style credits, didn't that actually take place in two different times? Starting with the second season, I believe the opening credits used the new "blocky-pixel-dissolve style" for the FUGITIVE logo, while the end credits and the Act I,II,III,IV,and Prologue titles continued with the "folding" style. Then with the start of the fourth (color) season, all of the shows titles used the "blocky-pixel-dissolve" style.

Harry