the system is capricious, unreliable, andrnoften wrong, and that any of us mightrndrop through the cracks, lose his credentials,rnhis identity, his ‘erv right to exist.rnIn each episode. Dr. Kimble is teasedrnout of his anonymous work as a carnivalrnroustabout or a bartender when he encountersrnsome other poor slob who wasrnalso the victim of an injustice. Kimblernfinds himself getting involved in thisrnother person’s troubles, and then, becausernof the decency and goodness of hisrnactions, he discovers that he is suddenlyrnat risk himself. The best parts of thernshow arc the cuts at the end of each 12-rnminute-long segment—Quinn Martinrnprograms like this and Hawaii Five-0rngrandiosely labeled the stuff betweenrncommercials as “Acts,” and the graphicrnthat marks each curtain is a five-secondrncut of Kimble running, down an alley orrnacross a gully. That is the locus of ourrnhorror, the quick glimpse of a world externalrnto the puerile contrivances of therntelevision script, in which a man is running,rnor walking slowly and deliberatelyrnnot running. Such a flash is all that remainsrnafter some nightmares and whatrnstayed in our minds after the programrnhad ended, like that dot that used to remainrnon the screen after you turned offrnthe set.rnThe dot is back as a megabucksrnmovie, with Harrison Ford as Kimblernand Tommy Lee Jones as the relentlessrnmarshal, Sam Gerard. Ford brings tornthe picture more or less what Janssenrnbrought to the television series—an attractive,rnrather boyish face (he’s a ictim,rnyou see) with a deep baritone oice (he isrnnot without such masculine resources asrncunning, strength, and perseverance).rnTommy Lee Jones’s work is interesting,rnbecause his character is ambiguous. He’srnon the wrong side, after all, being the system’srnenforcer. The plot requires that hernbe outwitted, outmaneuvered, and outrunrnat each confrontation (otherwise thernfilm is over) but it can’t ever have himrnhur Imttb-dtiflv &» lift.’rnCIIROMCI.KSrn i ‘ .Ni HS(.RIBF-:RSrnIdl I FKM J’1BF.Krnl-S00-877-‘5459rnlooking like an utter boob.rnThe Fugitive is a nice little picture, butrnits best parts are its nostalgic looks backrnat the series. The television show managedrnto exploit locations, and the suggestionrnit made of the underbelly of thernworld was quite convincing as they gavernus Janssen darting through automobilerngraveyards, railroad yards, and otherrnAntonioni-esque industrial wastelands.rnThis was always television’s natural forte,rn1 think. In Hawaii Five-O or The Streetsrnof San Francisco, there was a certain energyrnthe producers managed to wringrnfrom the dissonance between the attractivernsurroundings and the sordid goingsonrnthat the cops were investigating. InrnThe Fugitive, we had an even more interestingrnscries of possibilities in that thernhero had been broken in rank fromrnhigh status doe to lumpenprole. It wasrnbargain-basement Camus, and thatrnmade up for a lot of the dopey artificialityrnof the scripts.rnIn the film, we get one chase sequencernin the pipes and conduits of arndam where there is a clexer kind of wavernback to the series and then be’ond to itsrnancestor Javcrt in Les Miserables. Therernis also a nice moment when Kimble is inspectingrna cheapK’ furnished room herndeclares to be “perfect,” but there isn’t asrnmuch exploitation of the declasse pathosrnas there ought to have been. We do getrnsome spectacular and expensive moviernstuff the television producers would havernloved to use—a splendid crash of a trainrnand a bus, for instance—but their financialrnconstraints worked, I think, to theirrnadvantage, as constraints often do in art.rnNot having the big budget for spectacle,rnthey had to fall back on the emotionalrntruth of Kimble’s situation, which wasrnwhat the audiences wanted anyway.rnBy sheer coincidence (not!), A&Ernhappened to run the two-hour concludingrnepisode of The Fugitive the eveningrnafter the film opened, and one couldrncompare the conclusion of the series, inrnwhich Kimble finds the one-armed man,rnwith the movie version. The final TVrnepisode was utterly dopey, and, worse, irrelevantrnto the important energy of allrnthe earlier episodes. It’s an altogetherrnpointless story of a friend’s cowardicernand betrayal: the friend was there in thernhouse, saw the murder, could haverncleared Dr. Kimble, but was embarrassedrnabout having to admit that he froze inrnterror and did nothing to protect Mrs.rnKimble from the attack of the onearmedrnburglar. What’s wrong here isrnthat, all during the series, there arc smallrnacts of kindness in which people acknowledgerntheir debt to Kimble, or theirrnliking for him, and shield him from thernauthorities. Strong and shrewd as hernmay be, Kimble’s luck sometimes runsrnout and he must depend on the kindnessrnof strangers—who do in fact help him.rnWhat the series was offering was its assertionrnof these personal decencies overrnand against the unthinking and relentlessrnbureaucratic persecution. This was consistentrnwith and supportive of the show’srnundedying paranoid fantasy. The onlvrngood part of the concluding episode isrnthe locale of the final shoot-out, anrnabandoned amusement park—there arcrngarish structures to run around, climbrnon, and fall from, a benign milieu thatrnhas turned suddenly sinister and dangerous,rnas it did for Joseph Gotten andrnOrson Welles in The Third Man.rnIn the film, we get a banal notion ofrnconspiracy in which big business is evil,rnand the bigger the business and thernmore grandiose its claims, the worse itrnmust be. Therefore, a drug companyrnwith sales in the billions is, for all practicalrnpurposes, the equivalent of the archfiend.rn(This is periiaps a paradoxical positionrnfor companies like Time Warner,rnSony, and Transamerica to espouse, butrnnever mind.) Tommy Lee Jones andrnHarrison Ford wind up playing hide-andseekrnin a hotel. The director, AndrewrnDavis, manages this sequence with briskrnefficiency (his previous credits includernsome Ghuck Norris and Steven Seagalrnaction romps), and he wrings some psychicrnenergy out of the abrupt contrastrnbetween the luxurious public rooms andrnguest areas and the service sectors likernthe laundr’. As in the television series,rnGerard comes inevitably to realize thatrnKimble is almost certainly innocent, andrnhe becomes the intermediary betweerirnthe fugitive and the Ghicago police, whornwant to shoot Kimble on sight.rnThis is interesting, but it takes the focusrnaway from Kimble. Jones’s Gerardrnsteals the movie. Or the one on thernscreen. Kimble is still the star in thernads—I larrison Ford is running just as inrnthose powerful five-second signaturerncuts of David Janssen running. That wasrnwhat we came to see on a big screen.rnAnd two days after we’ve left the theater,rnif anything has remained, that’s whatrnstays in our minds like the white dot.rnDavid R. Slavitt is a poet and novehstrnliving in Philadelphia.rn50/CHRONICLESrnrnrn