Fear in a Desert City

I was very surprised tonight when I was looking around on YouTube. This is because I found the unaired pilot episode of "The Fugitive" and while the quality of the print sure ain't great, it was well worth seeing.

When the show begins, there is an extended version of the usual opening scene from the series. This time, William Conrad went into more depth about Richard Kimble and his back story. However, you never see anything about the murder, the murderer or the trial. It starts on the train...and soon it derails and Kimble escapes the Death House.

The first plot of the show involves a woman who has a jealous, angry and violent husband. Monica (Vera Miles) plays piano at the bar where 'Jim Lincoln' (Kimble) works. While he's tending bar, a nasty man seems to be trying to provoke him. It turns out it's Edward Welles (Brian Keith)....Monica's husband. Later, when 'Jim' leaves work, he sees Edward in the parking lot beating the snot out of his wife. Naturally he intervenes and Edward speeds off in his car...nearly hitting them both. What's going to become of this poor lady...and how can Kimble help them, as he's ALWAYS out helping others throughout the series? He's sort of a wanted man and social worker all rolled into one. What makes situation tough, however, is that Edward is involved in politics and he's an important man...and he can make it really tough for 'Jim'.

This is a very good installment of the series...too good not be be seen. Perhaps the network chose not to air it because the ending is VERY dark as well as violent. Well written, well acted and a treat for fans of the series.

Watched 'Fear in a Desert City', (1963) an episode of The Fugitive today with David Janssen as Dr. Richard Kimble, on the run, until he can prove his innocence. I recall avidly watching this series & being absolutely in awe, of the acting 'teeth' of Janssen~ Such a fine & respected actor. Poignant exchanges with Vera Miles when he spilled his guts as to his true identity & his soul goal until he could clear his name. The lonely stroll down an anonymous street in an inhospitable city, encountering a kitten, which he picks up & comforts echoed his own plight.... This series, produced in the 60's had everything, great actors, pithy story lines & William Conrad's resonant narration moving the narrative along. Pulsating instrumental music adding depth to the most suspenseful themes, as Kimble followed his quest....to remain anonymous until he hunted down his wife's killer....'Another journey, another place. Walk neither too fast nor too slow. Beware the eyes of strangers. Keep moving'....I absolutely revered him as an actor....

This, the first episode, is a very fitting beginning to the saga of Dr. Richard Kimble, fugitive. Kimble (using the name Jim Lincoln) takes a job at a bar in Tucson, Arizona, and meets the piano player, Monica Welles, played by actress Vera Miles. Monica is bothered by a male patron of the bar. Kimble repeatedly protects her, thereby acquiring an enemy. He later learns the man bothering her is Ed Welles, her husband. Actor Brian Keith does an outstanding job as Ed.

Ed Welles is a major landowner in the state, with enormous influence over the police. He is also paranoid, jealous, controlling and violent where his wife is concerned. She fled Phoenix to Tucson a month earlier to get away from Ed, but he found her and followed her.

Kimble takes the opportunity to explain his story to Monica, thereby informing viewers about why he is on the run. Due to his impeccable, protective behavior, she of course believes in his innocence. Meanwhile, we see Lieutenant Gerard back in Stafford discussing the case with Captain Carpenter. Carpenter suggests that maybe Kimble is innocent, but Gerard declares it does not matter to him whether Kimble is factually innocent or guilty. The law declared him guilty, and it is not up to Gerard to decide on guilt or innocence, but merely to obey the law and bring in the fugitive.

Child actor Donald Losby (who later plays Sean in "Cry Uncle") plays Monica's son, who at first is cold to Kimble, but later comes to like and trust him more than his own dad.

Actors Harry Townes and Dabbs Greer are very credible as the two police officers whom Ed employs to chase Kimble out of town. Kimble faces severe danger from the police, and from the violent behavior and desire for revenge of Ed Welles.

This classic series begins with an extended version of its eventual opening as we see Richard Kimble handcuffed to Lt. Gerard in a train, on his way to the death house, (today he'd be on his way to death row for decade or more). The train derails and we see Kimble escaping with the now broken handcuffs. Then we jump 6 months later and Kimble is in Tucson, Arizona. William Conrad's narrator, (sounding much like Mark Hellinger in the 1948 movie of Naked City), tells us it's 6 months later and describes Kimble's plight , traveling the country looking for the one-armed man he thinks killed his wife while avoiding Gerard, who is obsessed with recapturing him. "Another journey, another place. Walk neither too fast nor too slow. Beware the eyes of strangers. Keep moving."

Kimble finds a job as a bartender where he develops a relationship with a piano player (Vera Miles) and a very unwanted feud with her possessive and abusive husband, (Brian Keith). Keith is rich and influential and totally crazy, the last thing Kimble needs in his life. Miles is pretty and sensitive, which is something he does need, but scared. She also has a son who is scared for his mother. Kimble tries to leave with them but fate, of course, moves its huge hand.

I think Kimble sees in this woman and her son the family he could have had, making it particularly poignant. That's why I would like to have seen them return for the finale four years later. I would also like to have heard more of the narration from Conrad, highlighting the story and giving voice to Kimble's thoughts, instead of just describing the beginning and end of episodes, as does for most of the series.

I grew up watching The Fugitive, but did not see the first episode of this superb series until years later. It's incredibly suspenseful, right from the start...beginning with William Conrad's opening narration which dances perfectly with David Janssen's always subtle body language. The musical score augments the tension in every scene.

In this first episode, which is my personal favorite, Kimble is working as a bartender in a Tucson nightclub under the pseudonym, Jim Lincoln. Vera Miles, who portrays a depressed pianist there, becomes understandably attracted (as do most women in the series) to our shy though always supportive hero. The problem is that she's being stalked by her estranged, though possessive cowboy husband, performed perfectly by Brian Keith...who also owns half the state and apparently has significant influence with the local police.

Being a physician with keen clinical acumen, Kimble is quick to pick up on the husband's dangerous paranoia, but is confronted with an internal moral conflict to flee in the interest of self-preservation versus to stay out of Hippocratic devotion to the desensitized pianist and her son. This turns out to be a recurring theme throughout the series, and exemplifies just how much doctors were deified in those days. Ultimately, there is a climactic and unnerving confrontation between Kimble and the psycho husband. (Janssen actually broke a couple of ribs in this scene, which is a testimony to its realism.)

In the epilogue, Phillip Gerard, "the police lieutenant obsessed with his capture" (as he is described in the opening credits), interrogates Miles' character on the whereabouts of Kimble. Now convinced of his innocence regarding the murder of his wife, she provides no clues to the perennially frustrated Gerard.

At the end of Fear in a Desert City, the viewer is left with mixed feelings of relief and sympathy for the good doctor, as well as a compulsive desire to follow Dr. Richard Kimble's plight to its end...4 years and 120 episodes later.