#dr Richard kimble

[thecaptainoutoftime]

"All right, listen up, Ladies and Gentlemen, our fugitive has been on the run for ninety minutes. Average foot speed over uneven ground, barring injuries, is 4 miles per hour. That gives us a radius of six miles. What I want from each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area. Checkpoints go up at fifteen miles. Your fugitive's name is Dr. Richard Kimble. Go get him."

Happy 30th Anniversary to The Fugitive

August 6th 1993-August 6th 2023

[daily-movie-quotes]

Day 246

March 25

I didn’t kill my wife!

-Dr. Richard Kimble

(Played by Harrison Ford)

The Fugitive

[fugitivus-from-gerard]

For Richard Kimble, it must always be this way. Until he finds the man with one arm, the one man in the world who can help him walk in the light again, Richard Kimble must find his way in the dark-a fugitive.

Narrator of The Fugitive, “Taps for a Dead War”

[bitchesgetriches]

Punch Burnout Right in Its Stupid Face With Our New Burnout Workshop

In recent years your humble Bitches have been hired to give a few live, in-person speeches and workshops. We always ask the organizers to set a topic (since as you know, we can talk for hours on everything from our chickens to how everyone in the world can be categorized as either a Deputy Marshal Samuel Gerard or a Dr. Richard Kimble from the 1993 classic The Fugitive). And we give our spin on whatever they suggest.

Then something interesting happened. During our closing Q&A sessions, no matter what the topic of our presentation was, the conversation with our audience would turn towards the same issue.

That issue was burnout.

Our call to action

Now, we already knew that burnout is a widespread issue. After all, we live on this planet. We’ve delved into the topic quite a bit over the years.

But seeing the pain in people’s eyes and hearing the desperation in their voices was a whole new level of fuckery. Awareness dawned on us that burnout is, for many people, a life-swallowing emergency faced without help, support, or even basic human compassion. These poor people are like sailors lost at sea. They use all of their strength to just keep floating for another moment. They’re too exhausted and depleted to swim for land, even if we told them where it was and how to get there. Our voices were reaching them far too late.

We’ve always felt it was our mission to help people. So when we saw for ourselves how many talented, bright, good-hearted people burnout was grinding into a fine powder, our new goal became clear.

Now, at long last, we’re unveiling the fruits of our labor.

The Burnout Workshop, presented by Bitches Get Riches and written by us, is complete. Unlike in the past, you don’t have to attend an in-person event to hear it. It’s available to everyone, everywhere—and you can take it right now.

The Burnout Workshop

Based on exhaustive research and hundreds of conversations with friends and readers suffering from the effects of burnout, our first-ever publicly available online course includes:

A full-ass movie-length video you can watch (and rewatch) at your own pace.

A thick and juicy 75+ page workbook crammed with exercises, personality tests, guided questions, tips, resources, and more.

Empirical research on what burnout is and why it’s so uniquely life-ruining.

Real, actionable ideas to heal yourself with no boot-licking and no bullshit.

By taking the Burnout Workshop, we want everyone to…

Practice identifying the major red flags of burnout, including the three that scare us the most.

Understand the biological processes that make stress both harmful and beneficial.

Know the physiological and psychological effects burnout causes within our bodies

Discover the 5 personality traits that make you easier to manipulate and prone to burning out.

Learn to spot the 5 environmental traits that all toxic, evil, soul-sucking shitholes have in common.

Identify your self-sabotaging behaviors and try exercises to reverse them.

Develop habits, tactics, and scripts to defend yourself from toxic environments.

Laugh politely at our obscure references, cringey gags, and gallows humor.

Learn what powers you already have, and how to wield them to get what you need.

Stop taking personal responsibility for systemic problems.

Internalize the truth that it doesn’t have to be this way.

Walk away with concrete plans for change.

Can I get a lil’ sneak up in this peek?

Hell yes. We’ve posted the introduction to the Burnout Workshop to YouTube to whet your whistle—a phrase whose mysterious and frankly disgusting origins we’ve never considered until just now. Watch it below.

How to access the Burnout Workshop

You can access the video and included workbook together through our Patreon page. You do not need to be a Patron to sign up! Click the link below to get started.

Get The Burnout Workshop Now

If you like it, please share it. We want to reach as many people as we can, and we could really use your help spreading the word!

We made the Burnout Workshop as affordable as possible. The obscene prices random influencers charge for AI-crafted horseshit is both professionally shocking and existentially terrifying to our frugal selves. Not in our workshop, friends. Like Gaston’s bare chest, every last inch of this is covered… with love. It represents hundreds of hours of our labor, including video editing from our amazing producer Ducky, who we take pride in paying a fair living wage for her efforts.

Big major super duper THANK YOU

Over the last few months while we worked on the Burnout Workshop, the blog and podcast took a backseat. (Maybe you noticed we republished a lot of stuff and haven’t even released season 5 of the podcast yet.) This project has been a ton of work for us. We did it in the hopes that this new endeavor could help us reach readers who need help desperately, and aren’t gonna get it elsewhere.

Throughout this process our Patreon supporters stood by us, funding our work and keeping the lights on around here. And they did so without complaint, despite a sharp decline in the frequency of new content. We can’t thank them enough for their trust and patience.

Which is why our Patreon supporters got the workbook for the course FOR FREE a few weeks ago! In addition, Our Moms (the highest tier of Patreon support) are getting the workbook and the course video entirely for free (we love you, Our Moms). So if you’re interested in the course, but you’d rather support our mission with a continuous donation instead of a one-time purchase, you can do all of that through our Patreon.

From the bottom of our bitchy little hearts… thank you. We’ll be back with more of our regular stuff soon enough!

Get The Burnout Workshop Now

[fortunaegloria]

Harrison Ford as Dr. Richard Kimble in The Fugitive (1993) dir. Andrew Davis

[kimberly40]

“The Fugitive”- Abandoned movie set in Sylva, North Carolina.

Lying abandoned in the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina, fans of the 1993 film “The Fugitive” will recognize them as those used by Harrison Ford's character Dr. Richard Kimble when he escaped from a prison transport moments before it collided with the onrushing train.

The scene, which was filmed using a real train hitting a real bus, cost an eye-watering $1.5 million to shoot.

When filming was completed, The Great Smoky Mountains Railroad asked the film crew to leave the remnants behind for tourists and they have since become a popular tourist attraction.

The Great Smoky Mountains Railway is a great way to see a remote and beautiful corner of North Carolina. The journey includes two tunnels and 25 bridges, and The Fugitive Wreck. (Make sure you are booking the Tuckasegee River Excursion)

The Railroad offers a variety of scenic, round-trip excursions departing from Bryson City. Trips range from 3 ½ hours to a full day of fun and adventure.

[antonomasia09]

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.

[scruffyplayssonic]

Are the ArchieSonic comics actually an 80's/90's syndicated cartoon? Episode 64-65: TwoMulti-part finale (part 2: Endgame parts 3 and 4)

Welcome back to my look at the ArchieSonic comic series, and how it shared a lot of the same story tropes as a typical ‘80s or ‘90s syndicated cartoon! 

…One year in and I’ve finally realised that re-stating the episode title when I’ve already used it in the blog post title really isn’t necessary. Well done, Matthew. 😛

If you haven’t checked out part 1 yet you may want to do so, as I talked about the first two chapters of Endgame there. All caught up? Cool, let’s move on to chapter 3 of Endgame in Sonic #49 then.

The issue opens right where #48 left off, with Sonic doing a Peter Pan right here off of this dam waterfall right here.

Rather than just going into the water like Dr. Richard Kimble did though, Sonic came up with a very… unique solution to his problem.

…okay. Sure. I guess that works? So Sonic ran to safety across a landing strip of... shoe grime... and safely faceplanted in the grass.

While that was going on, Robotnik was in full gloat mode with the Freedom Fighters as a captive audience. What evil deeds did he have planned? Well, he was sticking hard to the classic villain schtick of not killing all of them right now because he wanted them all to die when his ultimate weapon was ready. Oh, and the King was a fake.

Surprise! So where was the real king? Well, Snively had him. Why? What was he going to do with him? I ‘unno, Kenny P never bothered to tell us. But we did find out why Dr. Quack had been acting strangely - Snively had taken his family hostage and threatened to kill them if Quack didn’t cooperate.

He’s okay, the Combot was using his non-lethal bullets. 😛

Meanwhile Sonic had been making his way back to Knothole, but realised that even if he did get there in his exhausted state that he would likely just get arrested again. So he called a friend for help.

Well this is new. Dragons can sense the truth now? Okay, sure. Well that should have solved the problem, right? Dulcy could have just told Geoffrey what she knew, and Sonic would have been in the clear. Hook Sonic up to a dragon polygraph test if necessary.

Geoffrey: Did you hold a grudge against Princess Sally Acorn?

Sonic: No!

Dulcy: Bzzzzz!

Sonic: Alright, maybe I did. But I didn’t kill her!

Dulcy: Ding!

Fleming: Story checks out. Okay sir, you are free to go.

Sonic: Good, because I’ve got a hot date tonight.

Dulcy: Bzzzz!

Sonic: A date.

Dulcy: Bzzzz!

Sonic: Dinner with friend.

Dulcy: Bzzzz!

Sonic: Dinner alone.

Dulcy: Bzzzz!

Sonic: Watching TV alone.

Dulcy: Bzzzz!

Sonic: Alright! I’m going to stay at home and ogle the ladies in the Rouge’s Secret catalogue!

Dulcy: Bzzzz!

Sonic: … (sigh) Foofi’s catalogue.

Dulcy: Ding!

Sonic: Now would you unhook this thing already?! I don’t deserve this kind of shabby treatment!

Dulcy: Bzzzz!

If anyone outside of Aleah Baker and Puppy the N’Oni remember what a Foofi’s is, I will be very surprised. xD

But no, Sonic and Dulcy didn’t do that for some reason. Instead Sonic asked Dulcy to take him to the Floating Island. Even if Sonic didn't want to deal with Geoffrey, then why go there? Why not stick with his original plan to go back to Knothole? From a meta-angle I guess this made sense as Knothole was currently occupied by Robotnik’s forces, and hey, any excuse for Kenny P to bring Knuckles into the story, right? But Sonic didn’t know that Robotnik had taken over Knothole. Did Dulcy know? Possibly. It had happened at the same time as Sonic jumping off the waterfall, so would Dulcy have had time to find out about it before Sonic whistled her up? Actually now that I think about it, why hadn’t Dulcy been captured with the other Freedom Fighters?

…well instead of answering any of that, the story went back to Knothole. Here we finally found out Princess Sally’s real murderer was none other than Hershey, the nothingberg character who had been introduced as little more than a cameo in the same issue as Sally’s fatal fall. And if you don’t think that’s weird enough already, wait until you get a load of the explanation.

…wut. 

Are you kidding me?!

Okay, I feel like I have to channel my inner CinemaSins here and go through everything wrong with this. 

Oh come on, it was too good for me to NOT use.

First of all, Hershey is approximately the same height as Drago, who is a good head taller than Sonic. How was she supposed to convincingly fool anyone into believing she was Sonic? If you want to justify that by saying Antoine was the only one who properly saw her, and that was only through binoculars, then you still have to justify why Hershey was in Robotropolis that night anyway. Why was she there? Is she a commando? A spy? Does she have any kind of combat training? I’ll answer that for you now - no, she does not. While later issues would see Geoffrey recruit her to undergo training for his new secret service team, it was clear in that arc that she was a civilian who didn’t really seem to have any prior experience with that kind of thing. So how did Drago convince her that of all people, she had to be on top of that fortress in Robotropolis, wear a Sonic the Hedgehog costume, and send Snively to his death? On top of that, could he have talked her into murdering someone, even a high-ranking officer of the enemy army? None of the Freedom Fighters would have cut that rope, so what indication do we have that Hershey would have that kind of killer instinct?

…okay, fair point. That’s getting ahead of ourselves though. And okay fine, the lenses in the Sonic mask made her see everyone as Snively, sure. But then logically, if she’d been spying on Sonic and Sally, she should have seen two Snivelys grapple up to the top of Robotnik’s fortress, after which one Snively went into an air vent and the other Snively started climbing down the wall. Even if she hadn’t seen any of that, then shouldn’t Hershey have logically wondered what possible reason Snively would have to  be climbing down the outer wall of his own master’s fortress? Did Drago tell Hershey that Snively was doing maintenance on the wall or something? They have robots for that! Even if Snively had been forced to go out there himself for some reason, he’d have never relied on something as flimsy and low-tech as a simple rope. He’d have a jetpack or a hover platform or something like that. 

Even if you can find a bunch of excuses to justify why any of this made sense, the fact still remains that the writers introduced two brand new characters for this arc - Hershey and Drago - and didn’t really take the time to tell us anything about them, just to facilitate a plot twist where it looked like Sonic murdered Sally. You know who could have filled that role instead? Evil Sonic. 

He’d impersonated Sonic and framed him for crimes before, so there’s no reason why Evil Sonic couldn’t have done it again. Instead of this elaborate thing with Drago and Hershey, Robotnik could have gone to Anti-Mobius and recruited Evil Sonic to cut Sally’s rope. Maybe even have him infiltrate Knothole when the real Sonic was out, to spy on the other Freedom Fighters and learn their plans. It would have been a lot easier and made a hell of a lot more sense than this nonsense. I mean really, what do we know about these two characters? We know Drago is a member of the Wolf Pack and that Lupe was suspicious of him because he had a habit of disappearing without checking in. But that’s about it - we don’t know jack about what drove him to work for Robotnik or anything like that. And we know even less about Hershey - just that she’s some person who lives in Knothole and is Drago’s girlfriend somehow, despite the fact that the Wolfpack doesn’t seem to have had much contact with the residents of Knothole prior to issue #46. This is a prime example of Ken Penders introducing completely unnecessary characters when there were others already established that would have worked just as well.

Anyway, let’s get back to the story otherwise I’ll be ranting about this all bloody night. Across the planet, Bunnie and Antoine had arrived at a prison camp in the Downunda crater and were locked up with two of the local freedom fighters introduced in Tails’ mini series, Walt Wallabee and Barby Koala. They clearly weren’t doing very well, as they had been roughed up quite a bit and reacted with complete terror when their jailer, Crocbot showed up to introduce himself to Bunnie and Antoine. Crocbot, you may remember, had been defeated in the Tails mini-series when he had been knocked into the crater in his nuclear tank, which had then exploded. But it turned out that Crocbot hadn’t been entirely destroyed by this and had eventually managed to build himself a new body. He’d also managed to salvage enough materials and robot soldiers from the destroyed supply blimp Robotnik had sent him to be able to amass a force large enough to ambush and capture the Downunda Freedom Fighters. 

Wow. An exposition dump is one thing, but if it’s taking up entire panels then you’ve got a problem there.

Except for when it’s done for comedic purposes, of course.

This issue ended with Sonic and Dulcy arriving on the Floating Island and, as usual, being attacked by Knuckles without any warning. Never mind that the last time the Freedom Fighters were here they parted on good terms with him - if you come to his island unannounced, Knuckles is going to deck you no matter who you are.

Dulcy was knocked out and Sonic and Knuckles went at it, but were interrupted by an explosive arrow fired by Geoffrey St. John, parachuting in from above and demanding Knuckles let him take down Sonic himself.

I don’t really have a lot of nice things to say about this issue. I’m not a fan of Sam Maxwell’s art in ArchieSonic, and there’s a lot of holes in the plot. Let’s just move on to the final act, Sonic #50.

That is a really cool cover, I’ll give them that. And another cool thing about this issue is that it is a major collaborative effort between the entire ArchieSonic team - I think pretty much everyone who had written or done art for the series up to this point got to contribute to this issue. 

The story opened with Robotnik exploring the depths of his memories while asleep. Many years ago, Julian Kintobor committed an (at the time) undefined crime against his people, and was hunted down by them. He managed to escape and was found by two young hedgehogs - Sonic’s dad and Uncle Chuck.

They took him to King Max, who named him warlord and asked him to lead their army into battle against the Overlanders in the Great War. 

So this is interesting enough, but it kind of comes out of nowhere. What did Robotnik do to become wanted by his own people? And why was Mobotropolis at war with the Overlanders anyway? Why are Bean, Bark and Astal there? Why does Robotnik sleep in that weird stasis tube? Some of these things would be answered in later issues, but for now the story went back to Geoffrey once again trying to capture Sonic.

When Geoffrey told Knuckles that Sonic was wanted for Sally’s murder, Knuckles was absolutely enraged by this and tried to kill Sonic extra hard. Sonic was able to fight Geoffrey and Knuckles off for a little while but quickly got nabbed by an invisible Espio. Fortunately at that point Dulcy regained consciousness and was able to convince everyone that Sonic had been framed.

So now not only can dragons sense the truth, but they are also physically incapable of lying? And this is well known enough that even Knuckles, who lives alone on a giant rock in the sky, knows about this? Once again I have to ask - why didn't Sonic and Dulcy just confront Geoffrey with this in the previous issue and save everyone some time and drama? There was no need to go and involve the world's angriest introvert in any of this!

Dragons cannot tell lies and can sense the truth. Geeze. I kinda feel like the writers were pulling this stuff out of their butts at this point. It’d be like suddenly saying that echidnas are so big-brained that nature has to slap them in the face and put the whammy on them the instant they meet a compatible partner, otherwise they’d spend their entire lives science-ing rather than making babies. Good thing that never happened, right?

>.>

<.<

Anyway! Back in Knothole, Tails and Rotor managed to slip away unnoticed and tried to escape in their water vehicles, only to find that Drago was already waiting for them.

Well shoot, so much for that. But why were the citizens of Knothole being rounded up for roboticisation? In the previous issue Robotnik specifically said that he wanted to wait and wipe them all out with his secret weapon. Speaking of, back in Robotropolis, Robotnik was calling the prison camp in Downunda to get an update on the ore he needed for his Ultimate Annihilator. Crocobot was dealing with an uprising at the time but assured Robotnik that his ore was on its way. An uprising, you say? Sounds like the Downunda Freedom Fighters had been able to escape, but what about Antoine and Bunnie? We’ll get back to that.

Tails and Rotor were facing imminent roboticisation until Sonic, Geoffrey and Knuckles came soaring in from above to save the day. Working together they destroyed the Swatbots and freed the prisoners, and then Sonic announced his desire to take down Drago, who made a break for it.

…how did Sonic know that Drago was a traitor? Geoffrey couldn’t have told him, he didn’t know either. Did Sonic spot Drago working with the Swatbots from above as they were parachuting down? Did Tails or Rotor tell him off page while they were freeing prisoners? Buggered if I know. I guess it doesn’t matter that much though. Drago didn’t make it very far (further than you’d expect with Sonic the Hedgehog chasing him though) before he got beaned in the head by a rock thrown by Hershey and knocked unconscious. 

…yeah, that fake Sonic plan is still ridiculous. But it was nice to see Drago get his comeuppance, and Hershey get to redeem herself and have the satisfaction of bashing his brains in.

Sonic decided he was going to storm Robotropolis alone, but Robotnik was unconcerned, confident that he was ready for him.

Heh okay, that was a pretty good line. xD

So it turned out that Sonic wasn’t the only Freedom Fighter in Robotropolis after all - Bunnie and Antoine had also arrived, hiding in the rafters and planning to sabotage Robotnik's plan. It seems weird to me that they were able to get back so quickly from the other side of the world - seriously, have you ever flown from Australia to North America? I have. A lot. It takes FOREVER. And then you have to allow for layovers and going through Customs and all that stuff and it’s really all such a hassle…

…where was I?

Oh right, the comic. In fairness, Robotnik was waiting for the ore to be delivered to him from Downunda before he could make his next move, so I guess you could justify this by saying the plot was waiting for Antoine and Bunnie to arrive. 😛

Sonic mostly made it past the outer defences but got… tangled in robot parts? I guess? I never really understood what happened there, and the director's cut doesn’t really make it much clearer either (but more on that later). Snively showed up in a jetpack (See? I told you he’d have a jetpack rather than climb down the side of the building with a rope!) to confront Sonic but was dispatched easily, after which Sonic literally ran into Bunnie and Antoine.

They explained their plan to sabotage the Ultimate Annihilator with a bomb they’d conveniently found, but Sonic still wanted to kick Robotnik's generously proportioned butt himself. Unfortunately Sonic wasn’t fast enough to stop Robotnik activating the Ultimate Annihilator, wiping Knothole off the face of the earth. Planet. Mobius. Whatever.

This was followed by several pages of absolutely amazing art of Sonic and Robotnik in their final duel by the legendary Patrick Spaziante.

But how was Robotnik fast enough to punch Sonic in the face, you ask? Well his explanation was that, “This relatively confined space prevents you from making optimum use of your speed.” A bit of an asspull if you ask me, but I’ll allow it because Spaziante’s art is just that good. 

Sonic and Robotnik were so busy fighting that they barely even noticed the Ultimate Annihilator being destroyed, taking them with it. But Sonic got better. This is another thing that never really got explained, but chances are it was due to the protective aura he got after grabbing his billionth power ring in issue #35. It was a plot point that had come up several times, so perhaps the writers didn’t feel it needed to be explained again. 

Sonic eventually woke up back in Knothole, stunned to find out that instead of being vaporised, the village had been warped into a pocket dimension that existed three hours in the future. …why three hours in the future? Isn’t “pocket dimension” enough by itself? How does that even work? So let’s say it’s 4 pm in Knothole, but as soon as you leave Knothole’s boundaries it’s suddenly 1 pm? Does the sun just shwoop back across the sky three hours when you leave Knothole? Is there any point to this at all? God, it’s almost as confusing as Australia’s policies on Daylight Savings time.

Dr. Quack then filled Sonic in on everything that had happened. One issue I talked about a long time ago was Sonic #43, where Sonic had gone inside King Acorn’s mind and visited his memories in an effort to try and wake him from his coma and stop the crystallisation process. Well it turned out that when that happened, Robotnik had noticed the signal from Dr. Quack’s dream watcher thingy and been able to trace it to finally find Knothole. Dr Quack’s family had been kidnapped and he’d been forced to do Robotnik’s bidding, which included working on his Ultimate Annihilator. 

I have a few things to say about this wacky doomsday weapon, but I’ll save them for my next post. I agree with Sonic - what about Sally? Well it turned out that she actually survived her fall and Dr. Quack was able to fake her death. He’d placed her in a stasis tube that was disguised to look like a memorial, where she had been in a coma ever since.

Sonic revived her with true love’s kiss, and there was a fancy full page epilogue.

#50 was a big event issue, but despite featuring so many contributing artists and writers, victory for the Freedom Fighters, and the death of Dr. Robotnik, I don’t think it’s the strongest issue of the Endgame arc. I personally think that award goes to the first chapter, issue #46, but that’s just me. Don't get me wrong, seeing Sonic be vindicated and the big fight with Robotnik was cool and all, but Snively’s sabotage of the Ultimate Annihilator made Sonic’s role in this story largely redundant. Think about it -  aside from liberating Knothole and waking up Sally, did Sonic actually accomplish anything in this issue? He didn’t save Knothole from being wiped out via space laser or actually defeat Robotnik himself - those were both done by Snively. 

The end of issue #50 did introduce us to an interesting question though - what does a world without Robotnik look like for Sonic the Hedgehog? Over the next two years, Snively, Mammoth Mogul and the newly introduced Ixis Naugus (repurposed from SatAM) all attempted to fill in the role of primary villain. There was also a mysterious figure in the shadows who was slowly building up his resources and causing distractions until he was ready to make his move (spoiler alert - it was another Robotnik). Knuckles also got off the ground with his own ongoing monthly comic around this time, and that resulted in the introduction of his own rogues’ gallery. It was an interesting time despite there not being any Robotnik around, even having occasional crossover events that allowed more interactions between Sonic and Knuckles’ casts.

Normally I would end my review here, but the Endgame story doesn’t end with just issue #50. The following year after issue #50’s publication, a “director’s cut” edition of Sonic #50 was released in Sonic Super Special #6. I’ll be covering that one in my next post, so stay tuned!

[kwebtv]

Character Actress

Jacqueline Sue Scott (June 25, 1931 – July 23, 2020)  Actress who appeared on Broadway and in several films, but mostly guest starred in more than 100 television programs.

She started her career in television by playing opposite such stars as Helen Hayes on live television. Between 1958 and 1960, Scott made three guest appearances on Perry Mason: Amelia Armitage in "The Case of the Daring Decoy" (1958), Sally Wilson in "The Case of the Glittering Goldfish" (1959), and Kathi Beecher in "The Case of the Violent Village" (1960). In the television series The Fugitive, Scott played the sister of Dr. Richard Kimble (David Janssen) in five episodes telecast between 1964 and 1967, including the two-part finale that at the time became the highest-rated program in television history. Among other roles, in Have Gun - Will Travel, she played Stacy Neal (Season 2, Episode 16,The Wager).  (Wikipedia)

Filmography  (Wikipedia)

[ljones41]

"THE FUGITIVE" (1993) Review

"THE FUGITIVE" (1993) Review

During a period between the late 1980s and the 2000s, Hollywood released a good number of film adaptations of successful or not-so-successful television shows. This is ironic, considering the television industry tend to do the opposite. One of those film adaptations of TV shows happened to be the 1993 action thriller, "THE FUGITIVE".

Based on the ABC 1963-1967 television series that starred David Janssen, "THE FUGITIVE" told the story of prominent Chicago vascular surgeon Dr. Richard Kimble, who is accused and convicted of murdering his wealthy wife. The movie began with Kimble arriving home from a fund-raising event and later, a surgery, to find his wife murdered. He then struggled with her killer, a one-arm man who yet to make his escape. Despite his efforts to inform the Chicago Police about the one-arm man, the latter charged Kimble with his wife's murder. Following his conviction and death sentence, Kimble found himself being transported to prison on a bus. A few of Kimble's fellow prisoners attempted an escape. In the pandemonium, two prisoners and the driver were killed; and the bus rolled down a ravine and into the path of an oncoming train. Kimble saved a guard, escaped the on-coming collision, and fled as the train derailed. Hours later, U.S. Deputy Marshal Samuel Gerard and his colleagues arrived at the crash site and launched a massive manhunt that started in the Illinois countryside ended up back in Chicago. Upon his arrival in the city, Kimble started his own manhunt for his wife's one-arm killer.

I have never seen the 1963-1967 series that starred David Janssen. But I have heard and read so much about it over the years. I am aware of a few differences between the series and the movie. Whereas the latter began with Helen Kimble's death, the television series began with Kimble already on the run for six months. Sam Gerard was a U.S. Marshal in the film. Philip Gerard was a local police detective, obsessed with finding Kimble. Which made me wonder how he was able to track Kimble all over the country for four years without losing his job. The television series featured members of both Kimble and Gerard's families, whereas the movie only featured the pair's colleagues - past and present. And so on.

After years of watching movies, I came to the realization that I have never seen a perfect movie. "THE FUGITIVE" was certainly not one. As much as I like the Richard Kimble character, there were times when he came off as a little too ideal for my taste. He came dangerously close to being a Gary Stu - especially in those scenes featuring Gerard and his team's interrogations of Kimble's old medical colleagues. How can I put this? The Richard Kimble character struck me as so ideal that in the end, he did not really develop as a character. How could he? He seemed so perfect from beginning to the end. Unlike his television counterpart, the cinematic Kimble was also blessed with a happy marriage before her death. Kimble's counterpart was the U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard. Unlike Kimble, Gerard proved to be a more complex character who possessed a ruthless streak that bordered on brutality sometimes. Especially when it came to the welfare of the deputy marshals assigned to his team. He also possessed a sharp wit that blended with sarcasm. But like Kimble, Gerard also possessed an unrelenting steak that leads him to maintain focused on his goal. And like Kimble, Gerard never really developed as a character. Now many might find my last observation hard to swallow, considering that Gerard realized that Kimble was an innocent man. So what if Gerard had finally realized that Kimble was innocent? He was never the investigator for the Kimble case in the first place. Gerard's task was to simply hunt down Kimble, who was a fugitive of the law, and return him to jail. Which he did in the end. Only he learned that Kimble was an innocent man along the way. But this discovery did not change or develop his character. After all, it was up to the Chicago Police to realize Kimble was innocent. Yet, the two original police investigators had refused to acknowledge Kimble's innocence and their mistake right up to the bitter end.

Also, a part of me wondered whether Richard Kimble or his wife Helen had relatives in Chicago. My one last complaint about "THE FUGITIVE" centered around at least two action sequences. One involved the collision between the prison bus conveying Kimble and a freight train. I was amazed that so many of the occupants inside that bus managed to survive, especially Kimble who had lingered inside longer to care for a wounded prison guard. The other action sequence that left me scratching my head was Kimble's swan dive from a dam spillover. Perhaps it was plausible for him to survive such a dive. Unfortunately, I cannot see that happening . . . even to this day. I wish that screenwriters Jeb Stuart and David Twohy, along with Andrew Davies, had used another way for Kimble to evade Gerard. Something a bit more plausible.

For a movie based on an old television series from the 1960s, "THE FUGITIVE" proved to be first-rate. That is correct. I enjoyed this film very much. In fact, I more than enjoyed it. I thought Stuart, Twohy and Davies had created a very satisfying movie filled with top-notch action, a solid mystery involving the killer's identity, intelligence and deep emotion.

Although I believed the sequences featuring the prison bus/train collision and Kimble's leap from a dam spillover bordered on the implausibility, I certainly had no problems with the film's other action sequences. In fact, I especially enjoyed three in particular - the chase sequence through downtown Chicago on St. Patrick's Day, Kimble's encounter with the one-arm man aboard a Chicago El-train and especially the final sequence that featured both Kimble and Gerard's confrontation with the real culprit behind Helen Kimble's murder. Andrew Davis did a great job in directing these sequences, filling them with breathless tension.

The 1960s television series had mainly focused on Kimble evading the police and finding the one-arm man's whereabouts. I had no problems with this. Once the cinematic Kimble had made his way back to Chicago, he started off doing the same. But thanks to screenwriters Jeb Stuart and David Twohy, the film featured an additional twist that allowed the one-armed killer to be a part of a bigger conspiracy involving a pharmaceutical company and new drug called Provasic that Kimble had failed to approve, because it caused liver damage. During Kimble's search for the one-armed man and his investigation of the mystery behind his false conviction, I felt pleased that the movie also delved into his continuing grief over his wife's death via flashbacks. These brief moments reminded audiences that Kimble was more than an action man trying to prove his innocence. He was a man still grieving over the death of his wife. Another aspect of "THE FUGITIVE" was its portrayal of Tommy Lee Jones and his team of U.S. Marshals. Unlike the ABC series, which almost portrayed the Philip Gerard character as a modern version of Inspector Javert of "LES MISERABLES" in Les Misérables - relentless and obsessive in pursuit of his prey; U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard seemed to lack the obsession of his television and literary counterparts. Which I personally found refreshing. Well, Gerard is relentless in this film, but only in a cool and professional manner. And thanks to Stuart and Twohy's screenplay, along with Tommy Lee Jones' performance, Gerard conducted his assignment with a dry and sarcastic wit.

I might as well discuss the cast's performances. What can I say? There did not seemed to be a false step among any of them. The movie boasted some first-rate supporting performances from the likes of Ron Dean, Joseph Kosala, Nick Searcy, Eddie Bo Smith, Dick Cusack, David Darlow, Kirsten Nelson, Neil Flynn, Andy Romano and Richard Riehle. This movie marked the first time I saw Julianne Moore in any motion picture, and I thought she gave a sharp performance as a hospital physician nearly overwhelmed by a crisis. Both Jane Lynch and John M. Watson Sr. seemed equally sharp as two of Kimble's colleagues and closest friends. In her few scenes, Sela Ward radiated warmth and wit as Kimble's loving wife and murder victim, Helen Kimble. It seemed a pity that she was not featured in more scenes. Andreas Katsulas gave an intelligent, yet sinister performance as Fredrick Sykes aka the One-Arm Man and Helen Kimble's killer. Jeroen Krabbé portrayed another one of Kimble's friends and colleagues, Dr. Charles Nichols, who also believed in the former's innocence. Krabbé injected a "proud father" aura in his performance, as he needled the U.S. Marshals for their failure to capture Kimble and come to the realization of the latter's innocence. I found this aspect of Krabbé's performance very subtle and very entertaining. For me, one of the most entertaining aspects of "THE FUGITIVE" proved to be those who portrayed the deputy marshals who formed Gerard's team. I am referring to L. Scott Caldwell, Daniel Roebuck, Tom Wood, Johnny Lee Davenport and especially Joe Pantoliano. Not only did I enjoy the wit and humor that permeated their interactions with each other, but I also enjoyed their interactions with Tommy Lee Jones' Gerard. In fact, Jones and Pantoliano's scenes proved to be so funny that it seemed as if they had created some kind of comedy team.

I realized I had been a little critical of the Dr. Richard Kimble and U.S. Deputy Marshal Sam Gerard characters. And I stand by my criticism. But I cannot do the same about the two actors that portrayed them. I believe Harrison Ford gave one of his career best performances as the beleaguered surgeon who found himself convicted of murdering his wife. Ford did an excellent job of conveying not only Kimble's grief over his wife's death, but also his desperation to evade the police and U.S. marshals searching for him, and the character's intelligence, while he investigates the one-arm man and the latter's motive behind Helen's death. Sam Gerard seemed like a different kettle of fish in compared to Richard Kimble and Tommy Lee Jones' portrayal of the colorful lawman proved to be one of the film's highlights. Jones managed to infuse a great deal of energy into Gerard's determined search for Kimble, without transforming the character into a copycat of the Javert character from "Les Misérables". Jones' Gerard is a tough and no-nonsense man who would ruthlessly defend members of his team and his slightly extreme form of law enforcement. I am not surprised that Jones managed to snag both acting nominations and awards for his portrayal of Gerard. However, I am astounded that Ford was never nominated.

One can tell how good a movie after so many years had passed. Twenty-nine years have passed since the release of "THE FUGITIVE". It might have a few flaws, but I believe it still holds up after so long. I also believe the movie proved to be just as superb as the 1960s television series it was based on. One can thank Andrew Davis for his energetic and intelligent direction, Jeb Stuart and David Twohy's excellent screenplay; and the superb cast led by Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones.

[gregarnott]

Dr. Richard Kimble

[mikijamcf]

Not going to even front. I loved this show as a kid and watched every episode.  It was called "the most repulsive concept ever for television" when Roy Huggins pitched it to ABC in 1960, until Leonard Goldenson of ABC called it the best idea he'd ever heard.  Such summarizes the huge effort Roy Huggins invested to get The Fugitive to television. Teaming with producer Quinn Martin, Huggins' concept was made flesh with the casting of David Janssen as Dr. Richard Kimble and British-born Canadian Barry Morse as his nemesis, Lt. Philip Gerard. Huggins and Martin worked to make a compelling weekly drama via superb scripts, top-notch guest casts, narrator William Conrad, and enticing music by Peter Rugolo, and succeeded perhaps more than they ever dared to hope.  The Fugitive remains compelling television years later. Janssen and Morse imbue tremendous sympathy into their roles and make their characters so compelling that audiences even went too far, assailing Morse by saying, "You dumb cop, don't you realize he's innocent?" It even extended to the one-armed vagrant who was key to the drama, played by stuntman Bill Raisch, who in one incident was even picked up by the real LAPD because they thought he was "wanted for something," before they realized he was just an actor.  If The Fugitive had a drawback, it was because it worked too well - it is emotionally draining watching the show because the sympathy enticed for the characters is so great that seeing them suffer is painful, such as in the two-part episode "Never Wave Goodbye" - the audience is put through the emotional wringer every bit as much as Kimble, Gerard, and the story's supporting players (in this case played by Susan Oliver, Will Kuliva, Robert Duvall, and Lee Phillips).

The series was shot in black and white in its first three seasons, but for the fourth season came the replacement of producer Alan Armer with Wilton Schiller and the switch to color. The quality of the series remained high, but it is a measure of the show's quality that early fourth-season episodes are considered disappointing, and yet are still excellent stories with genuine emotional pull. The fourth-season settled down when writer-producer George Eckstein was brought in early on to help out Schiller, and it helped bring about some of the series' best moments, notably in the episode "The Ivy Maze," where for the first time in the series, all three protagonists (Kimble, Gerard, and Fred Johnson, the one-armed man) confront each other.  The performances and all else within made The Fugitive TV's most compelling drama, then and forever.  The 120 episodes (90 in B&W, 30 in Color) of the television drama "The Fugitive" originally ran from 1963-1967 on ABC. The broadcast of the final episodes in August 1967 was a national event.

[rinumia-blog]

Movie Fun Facts #2

U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard

In the 1993 movie The Fugitive, Sam Gerard (played by Tommy Lee Jones) is a champion of justice.

As a U.S. Marshal, however, he gets too keen in pursuing an innocent man (Dr Richard Kimble , played by Tom Hanks) who was framed for a murder.

The Fugitive received 7 Academy Award nominations, and Tommy Lee Jones received an award for Best Supporting Actor.

[bitchesgetriches]

Punch Burnout Right in Its Stupid Face With Our New Burnout Workshop

In recent years your humble Bitches have been hired to give a few live, in-person speeches and workshops. We always ask the organizers to set a topic (since as you know, we can talk for hours on everything from our chickens to how everyone in the world can be categorized as either a Deputy Marshal Samuel Gerard or a Dr. Richard Kimble from the 1993 classic The Fugitive). And we give our spin on…

[greensparty]

Blu-Ray Review: Witness

To this day, the only Academy Award nomination Harrison Ford has received was for the 1985 film Witness. Doesn't that astound you that he was never nominated for Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Rick Deckard, Dr. Richard Kimble, or President James Marshall? Or even for smaller films like The Mosquito Coast or Regarding Henry? The film was directed by Peter Weir, who is one of those underrated directors who a lot of cinephiles never talk about but he's made some phenomenal movies like Dead Poets Society, Fearless and The Truman Show. This was just as he was starting to make Hollywood movies in the U.S. beyond his native Australia. When it was released in February 1985, it became a sleeper hit and in additional to multiple Oscar nominations it actually won for Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing. I, myself, didn't actually see it until video years later. It is now available on blu-ray in a special edition recently released from Arrow Films.

original movie poster

In mid-80s Philadelphia, an Amish widow Rachel (Kelly McGillis, later famous for Top Gun) and her 8-year-old son Samuel (a young Lukas Haas) make a rare trip out of their community in Lancaster, PA. While at a train station, Samuel is the only witness to a murder. Detective John Book (Ford) is assigned to protect them. As he is healing from wounds, he recovers in their community. He is exposed to a completely different world than the one he knows in another part of PA. He slowly becomes a part of the village and takes part in the barnraising. Oh and a young Viggo Mortensen makes his acting debut as one of the young Amish villagers.

Arrow Video's 2024 blu-ray

Watching this again, I was reminded how air-tight the screenplay is for this is. There is a reason you see this listed on the greatest screenplays of all time lists quite often. There is a serious contrast between the Amish and non-Amish and the audience is going through the eye-opening experience that Det. Book goes through, or should I say witnesses!?! The cast is top notch and Weir was at the top of his game. In terms of this blu-ray, there's some excellent features on this as well as some deleted scenes and trailers as well as commentaries. This is worth adding to your collection!

For info on Arrow Video's Witness

4.5 out of 5 stars