The Fugitive (1993 film)


The Fugitive is a 1993 American action thriller film, directed by Andrew Davis, with a script co-written by Jeb Stuart and David Twohy, from a previous story draft which Twohy had written. Based on the 1960s TV series, itself loosely inspired by the trial of Sam Sheppard, the film stars Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Sela Ward, Joe Pantoliano, Andreas Katsulas, and Jeroen Krabbé.
After being framed for the murder of his wife and sentenced to death, vascular surgeon Dr. Richard Kimble escapes from custody following a bus crash. Kimble sets out to find the real killer and clear his name, while being hunted by the police and a team of U.S. marshals, led by Deputy Samuel Gerard.
The Fugitive premiered in Westwood, California, on July 29, 1993, and was released in the United States on August 6, 1993. It was a critical and commercial success, spending six weeks as the number-one film in the United States, and grossing nearly $370 million worldwide against a $44 million budget. It was the third-highest-grossing film of 1993 worldwide, with an estimated 44 million tickets sold in the United States. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture; Tommy Lee Jones won for Best Supporting Actor. It was followed by the 1998 film U.S. Marshals, in which Jones reprised his role as Deputy Marshal Sam Gerard, along with some others of his earlier marshals team.

Plot

In Chicago, vascular surgeon Dr. Richard Kimble is arrested for the murder of his wife, Helen. Despite his claims that he caught a man with a prosthetic arm in the act, Helen's misinterpreted 911 call and substantial life insurance policy serve as evidence against Kimble. He is convicted of her murder and sentenced to death.
En route to prison, Kimble's fellow prisoners stage an escape. In the chaos, the driver is shot dead and their bus crashes into the path of an oncoming train. Kimble risks his life to pull a wounded officer to safety before fleeing. In response, relentless and uncompromising Deputy US Marshal Samuel Gerard and his staff launch a manhunt.
Meanwhile, Kimble sneaks into a hospital to treat his injuries and disguises his appearance. The wounded officer is brought to the hospital and recognizes Kimble, who escapes in an ambulance. The marshals block Kimble's path, so he slips into a storm drain, pursued by Gerard. Kimble asserts his innocence, but Gerard responds that he does not care. Cornered at the end of a steep dam spillway, Kimble makes the dangerous jump into the waters below to escape.
Determined to find his wife's killer, Kimble returns to Chicago and seeks help from his friend, Dr. Charles Nichols. Posing as a janitor, Kimble infiltrates Cook County Hospital to identify patients who required recent prosthetic adjustments. Afterwards, Kimble is asked to move a young patient on a gurney. Noticing he has been misdiagnosed, he changes the boy's file, saving his life. A doctor notices his interference and alerts security, forcing him to flee. Gerard investigates the incident and, after deducing Kimble is searching for his "one-armed man", also compiles a list of suspects.
Gerard and Kimble encounter each other at Chicago City Hall while approaching the same suspect. In the ensuing chase, Gerard loses Kimble in the St. Patrick's Day parade crowds. Later, Kimble breaks into the home of another suspect, Fredrick Sykes. Kimble recognizes Sykes as his wife's killer and discovers evidence linking Sykes to his former colleague, Dr. Alec Lentz, and Devlin-MacGregor, a multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical company developing a drug called Provasic. Kimble had reviewed Provasic and discovered it causes liver damage, which should have prevented the drug being approved for sale. He calls Gerard from Sykes's home to lead him there. Suspicious at what he finds, Gerard puts Sykes under surveillance, but he sneaks away. Kimble realizes that the Provasic-afflicted liver samples he sent to Lentz were tampered with, to hide the side effects. They were then approved in Lentz's name, on the same day that he died under suspicious circumstances. Kimble deduces that Nichols was responsible.
Aboard a train to the medical conference in a hotel where Nichols will unveil Provasic, Kimble is attacked by Sykes, who shoots an intervening police officer dead. Kimble subdues Sykes, but the police assume Kimble killed the officer and order him shot on sight. At the conference, Kimble publicly confronts Nichols for killing Lentz and concealing Provasic's side effects for profit and a directorship at Devlin-MacGregor. The pair fight through the hotel, pursued by Gerard. Kimble accuses Nichols of sending Sykes to kill him for opposing Provasic, inadvertently resulting in Helen's murder as Kimble was unexpectedly called to work. Gerard calls out to Kimble, asserting his belief in his innocence after finding evidence of Nichols's guilt. Nichols knocks out Gerard's colleague, takes his gun, and readies to shoot Gerard, but Kimble saves him by knocking Nichols out with a pipe. Kimble surrenders, and Sykes and Nichols are arrested.
While reporters query the police over failings in the case, Kimble is escorted to Gerard's car, where he reminds him of his earlier claim that he did not care. Gerard wryly asks him to keep it a secret that he does.

Cast

Casting

Harrison Ford was not originally cast for the role of Dr. Richard Kimble. Instead, a number of actors were auditioned for the part, including Alec Baldwin, Nick Nolte, Kevin Costner, and Michael Douglas. Nick Nolte in particular felt he was too old for the role. According to Ford in a 2023 interview with James Hibberd of The Hollywood Reporter, he pursued the role of Richard Kimble in part due to his preference for playing characters dissimilar to him, as well as a desire to grow a beard or moustache for a role, something then Warner Bros. chairman Robert A. Daly had repeatedly prevented on the grounds that he was "paying for Harrison Ford's face" and wished to see it unobstructed by facial hair. Although the role of Sam Gerard went to Tommy Lee Jones, Andrew Davis considered both Gene Hackman and Jon Voight for the role. The character of Dr. Charles Nichols was recast for Jeroen Krabbé after the original actor who landed the role, Richard Jordan, fell ill with a brain tumor. Jordan died three weeks after the film's release.

Filming

Filming began in February 1993 and wrapped in mid-May. Filming locations included Bryson City and Dillsboro, North Carolina; Blount County, Tennessee; and Chicago. Although almost a third of the film is set in rural Illinois, a large portion of the principal filming was actually shot in Jackson County, North Carolina, in the Great Smoky Mountains.
The prison transport bus and freight train wreck scenes were filmed along the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad just outside their depot in Dillsboro; the wreckage can still be seen from the railroad's excursion trains. The train crash, which cost $1 million to film, was shot in a single take using a real train with a locomotive whose engine had been removed. The wreck took several weeks to plan, and was preceded by several test runs with a boxcar and a log car.
Scenes in the hospital after Richard Kimble initially escapes were filmed at Harris Regional Hospital in Sylva, North Carolina. Cheoah Dam in Deals Gap was the location of the scene in which Kimble jumps from the dam.
The rest of the film was shot in Chicago, including some of the dam scenes, which were filmed in the remains of the Chicago freight tunnels. The city hall stair chase was filmed in the corridors and lobby of Chicago City Hall. The character Sykes lives in the historic Pullman neighborhood of Chicago. Harrison Ford uses the pay phone in the Pullman Pub, and then climbs a ladder and runs down the roofline of the historic rowhouses. According to Andrew Davis, filming in Chicago was Ford's idea. "Originally, I wasn't even going to try to come to Chicago. I thought that the weather would be too cold and difficult for shooting. But Harrison, having seen several of my prior films shot in Chicago, suggested doing it here." Ford would later explain, "I grew up in Chicago, went to college in Wisconsin, and came back to take summer jobs for three years. I felt this was the best possible option as a location...We could get the grittiness, we could get the flash of architecture, the charm of the lake. It has it all."
The chase scene during the St. Patrick's Day Parade was filmed during the actual parade held that year on Wednesday, March 17, 1993, with Mayor Richard M. Daley and Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris briefly seen as actual participants. Besides The Fugitive, another feature film, Michael Apted's Blink, was filmed during that year’s parade. According to Charles Geocaris, then head of the Chicago Film Office, both productions approached the film office in February about filming during the parade. Location managers and production managers for both films worked out the logistics with parade organizers, but according to Geocaris, the two camera crews still occasionally ran into each other during their shoots. Complicating matters was the cold weather, with a windchill factor of. Nevertheless, disruption was at a minimum, with Geocaris recalling, "people on the parade route were laughing as Tommy Lee Jones chased Harrison Ford...It was a fun thing for them."
Cinematographer Michael Chapman credits Andrew Davis for the film's distinctive use of Chicago, which drew much praise upon its release. "A lot of it really feels like Chicago, because it just has a native's eye to it. That's Andy's, not mine. He knew where to look." Chapman was hired a week into production after his predecessor was fired, and he claims he only took the job because the money was too good. Throughout the production, Chapman went back and forth between documentary and theatrical methods, using handheld cameras and natural light for scenes including the first house raid and then adding unexpected light sources throughout the tunnel chase, as the realistic absence of light was deemed unfeasible. Though his work was later recognized with an Academy Award nomination, Chapman said it was an unhappy experience, as he never got along with Davis. "I said, 'I hated being there' and 'I was the wrong guy' and cursed...but it all worked out, so you never know."
Much of the film was rewritten throughout production, and typically on the day each scene was supposed to shoot. According to Davis, he never met with credited screenwriter David Twohy, whose main contribution was writing the train crash. Beyond that, Davis said, "he wasn't involved in anything we did. Jeb Stuart was there with us...basically responding to things we were coming up with all the time... can't talk about this because of the Writers Guild, but Tommy Lee Jones, myself, Harrison , and other people who were close with us, especially coming up with the whole plot about the pharmaceuticals, they were uncredited writers." Jane Lynch, who was cast as Dr. Kathy Wahlund in one of her first film roles, recalled having that experience, with both Harrison Ford and herself working out new dialogue for their scene right before they filmed it, as Harrison Ford "didn't like the scene as it was written."
Given Harrison Ford's limited window of availability, Andrew Davis had only 10 weeks to edit, mix, and finish the film between the last day of shooting and the day it opened in theaters. To meet their schedule, producer Peter MacGregor-Scott set up seven editing suites at Warner Hollywood Studios, and had a team of editors cutting around the clock, as they each worked on different scenes. Each editor would be recognized for their work on the film with an Academy Award nomination.