“I never asked anything from anybody… I never gave anything to anybody either”
This is yet another variation on the ‘good badman’ archetype, similar to the actor’s part as a grizzled outlaw in 1957’s Quantez. Dorothy Green is quietly engaging in what could have been a thankless role, that of the woman who knows the hero better than he knows himself. She intuits that Jim/Ray, for all his evasiveness, is essentially decent at heart: “I don’t know why you try to hide it.” Aside from the leads there is a standout performance by James Coburn, brimming with brash, toothy malice as Williams’ henchman-in-chief – the kind of supporting role he would not be restricted to for much longer.
The plot is somewhat contrived – the sheriff happens to be Ellen’s brother; the body of Jim’s own sibling turns up unexpectedly, a development that leads nowhere – but Wendkos lays enough false trails to prolong the suspense. The debt owed to the likes of High Noon and 3.10 to Yuma becomes most apparent on the morning of the train’s imminent arrival, which coincides with Jim’s showdown with the Williams outfit. This is staged with considerable verve by Wendkos in a ghost town located at Corriganville – the ranch/film set maintained in California’s Simi Valley by cowboy star Ray ‘Crash’ Corrigan. Action is at a premium, but this dynamic sequence, weaving in and out of alleyways and shadowy interiors, is worth waiting for. The drift of events is predictable, but the ending remains open; much like its protagonist, the film declines to take the easy way out.
Made at a time when mid-budget westerns were haemorrhaging audiences to major studio productions at one extreme and TV series at the other, Face of a Fugitive has fallen through the cracks. Yet it is a well-wrought example of the self-reflexive ‘B+’ westerns of the era. Had it starred Randolph Scott, for example – and the lead would have fitted Scott quite snugly – it would no doubt be better known. Perhaps a future Fred MacMurray revival will see its stock rise. Kevin Grant
Like many westerns of the Fifties, Wendkos’s film puts its hero in a moral bind that tightens to a Gordian knot. There are shades of noir among its more obvious influences (High Noon, Shane), in the sense that its protagonist is psychologically conflicted, harried by fate and hounded by guilt. (One can’t help but think of MacMurray’s lust-struck insurance man in Double Indemnity, or his compromised cop in Pushover.) In essence, however, the main theme is elemental to the western: can a man reconcile self-preservation with concern for the common good – individualism with altruism?
The central role is a relatively demanding one, and MacMurray responds well to the scrutiny. As he acknowledged, he was strongest when cast against type. The affability he typically projected often came across as shallow; here that is quite deliberate, his character employing it as a disguise throughout. Jim Larson seems genial enough in the opening scenes – a roguish safecracker, he joshes with the deputy escorting him to jail that it won’t be long before he escapes. Soon he does make a break for it, but in the melée the lawman is shot dead by Jim’s coltish younger brother, who is himself mortally wounded. Jim, as a known felon, now has a murder charge hanging over his head.
Fleeing to the town of Tangle Blue, gateway out of the territory, he adopts the name Ray Kincaid and poses as a mining inspector. At first he is good-natured to a fault, winning the admiration of store owner Ellen and her precocious six-year-old daughter, but he shows a hint of steel when he backs up the wet-nosed sheriff against bullying rancher Williams. He becomes increasingly edgy, cagey, and with good reason – a train is due the next day, carrying wanted posters etched with his face. With the passes manned by deputies, Jim convinces the sheriff to hire him, planning to bolt at the first opportunity. But there are his feelings for Ellen to contend with, not to mention the Williams bunch…
These are familiar characters in stock situations, which is not to say they merely go through the motions. In his strongest western role – he made a cluster of them in the mid to late-Fifties – MacMurray plays Larson as a caged animal, shackled by a combination of conscience and circumstance. (The sense of entrapment, the very real threat of incarceration, is visualised along standard noir lines right from the opening credits, with bars superimposed over a poster image of MacMurray’s face.)
The central role is a relatively demanding one, and MacMurray responds well to the scrutiny. As he acknowledged, he was strongest when cast against type. The affability he typically projected often came across as shallow; here that is quite deliberate, his character employing it as a disguise throughout. Jim Larson seems genial enough in the opening scenes – a roguish safecracker, he joshes with the deputy escorting him to jail that it won’t be long before he escapes. Soon he does make a break for it, but in the melée the lawman is shot dead by Jim’s coltish younger brother, who is himself mortally wounded. Jim, as a known felon, now has a murder charge hanging over his head.
These are familiar characters in stock situations, which is not to say they merely go through the motions. In his strongest western role – he made a cluster of them in the mid to late-Fifties – MacMurray plays Larson as a caged animal, shackled by a combination of conscience and circumstance. (The sense of entrapment, the very real threat of incarceration, is visualised along standard noir lines right from the opening credits, with bars superimposed over a poster image of MacMurray’s face.)
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