One of the best episodes of the series, well -acted and brilliantly directed by Walter Grauman. It starts out in a heavy rain. A weary, water-logged Kimble shows up for work only to find that when he signed in, he wrote his name as "Richard Kimble", instead of "Steve Carver", the alias he is using at the moment. It's a product of his fatigue. The long search/chase is really starting to get to him. It's also starting to get to Lt. Gerard, who interrupts a vacation with his wife to check out the lead- and makes the mistake of bringing his wife, (played by Barbara Rush) along. She's even more weary of the chase than even Kimble or Gerard. It's like she's in a love triangle and on the losing side.
Grauman has a lot of good touches, including a scene where Kimble hides from a police car next to a building that, per the sign behind him, has been "condemned". He manages to escape by hitch-hiking on a truck with an unsympathetic driver who eventually boots him out at the site of a bus crash- a bus that has Mrs. Gerard, who has left her husband in it. She has a concussion and is temporarily blind. Kindly Mr. Carver helps her and get into a pick-up truck, (it's a construction site and they drive off to the nearest town for medical help. The town proves deserted because of a flood warning. They have to deal with some ner-do-wells who harass them in the town but are then left alone again.
Kimble doesn't know that this is Mrs. Gerard, (she's using her maiden name), and she doesn't know that he is Richard Kimble. They begin to relax and talk to each other and develop a relationship. Meanwhile, Gerard has figured out she was on the bus and is on the way to rescue and re-unite with her. Slowly, she realizes who her new friend is and becomes determined to get him to stay so that her husband can capture him and end his obsession. It's still another episode where someone initially friendly to Kimble turns out to be an antagonist.
In Mel Proctor's book on the show, Producer Alan Armer complains that Barbara Rush "cried all the way the way through the thing. It just ruined the character. This was not a cry-baby, wimpy woman." Again, I couldn't agree less. She's playing a woman who has just lost her sight, gets harassed by some thugs and then finds out she's with Richard Kimble, the murderer her husband is after. I think she's great. And so is Barry Morse, confronting the cost of his quest and David Janssen who plays a played-out Kimble who gets to relax and profits from his conversations with the lady- until they realize who they are.
Armer tells a story that David Janssen "was always good-naturedly grousing to us that we never put beautiful women in his shows, that we always gave him actresses with coke-bottle glasses." So Quinn Martin let him pick the actress to play Mrs. Gerard and he picked his old friend Barbara Rush, Rush, of course, was superb." I wonder how Vera Miles, Patricia Crowley, Susan Oliver, Ruby Dee, Brenda Vaccaro, Geraldine Brooks, Gail Kobe, Sue Randall, Elizabeth Allen, Pamela Tiffin, Ruta Lee, Lee Grant, Madlyn Rhue, Joanna Moore, Gloria Grahame, Shirley Knight, Bethel Leslie, Suzanne Pleshette, Lois Nettleton, Diana Hyland, Carol Rossen, Tuesday Weld, Elizabeth MacRae, Brenda Scott, Angie Dickinson, Katherine Crawford, Sharon Farrell, Norma Crane, Celeste Holm, Jacqueline Scott, Marion Ross, Fay Spain and Sheree North, (all of whom had guested on the show by this point), felt about being described as wearing "Coke bottle glasses"?
A can't miss episode for "Fuge fans". Ed Robertson declared it the best episode of the entire run of the show.
Grauman has a lot of good touches, including a scene where Kimble hides from a police car next to a building that, per the sign behind him, has been "condemned". He manages to escape by hitch-hiking on a truck with an unsympathetic driver who eventually boots him out at the site of a bus crash- a bus that has Mrs. Gerard, who has left her husband in it. She has a concussion and is temporarily blind. Kindly Mr. Carver helps her and get into a pick-up truck, (it's a construction site and they drive off to the nearest town for medical help. The town proves deserted because of a flood warning. They have to deal with some ner-do-wells who harass them in the town but are then left alone again.
Kimble doesn't know that this is Mrs. Gerard, (she's using her maiden name), and she doesn't know that he is Richard Kimble. They begin to relax and talk to each other and develop a relationship. Meanwhile, Gerard has figured out she was on the bus and is on the way to rescue and re-unite with her. Slowly, she realizes who her new friend is and becomes determined to get him to stay so that her husband can capture him and end his obsession. It's still another episode where someone initially friendly to Kimble turns out to be an antagonist.
In Mel Proctor's book on the show, Producer Alan Armer complains that Barbara Rush "cried all the way the way through the thing. It just ruined the character. This was not a cry-baby, wimpy woman." Again, I couldn't agree less. She's playing a woman who has just lost her sight, gets harassed by some thugs and then finds out she's with Richard Kimble, the murderer her husband is after. I think she's great. And so is Barry Morse, confronting the cost of his quest and David Janssen who plays a played-out Kimble who gets to relax and profits from his conversations with the lady- until they realize who they are.
Armer tells a story that David Janssen "was always good-naturedly grousing to us that we never put beautiful women in his shows, that we always gave him actresses with coke-bottle glasses." So Quinn Martin let him pick the actress to play Mrs. Gerard and he picked his old friend Barbara Rush, Rush, of course, was superb." I wonder how Vera Miles, Patricia Crowley, Susan Oliver, Ruby Dee, Brenda Vaccaro, Geraldine Brooks, Gail Kobe, Sue Randall, Elizabeth Allen, Pamela Tiffin, Ruta Lee, Lee Grant, Madlyn Rhue, Joanna Moore, Gloria Grahame, Shirley Knight, Bethel Leslie, Suzanne Pleshette, Lois Nettleton, Diana Hyland, Carol Rossen, Tuesday Weld, Elizabeth MacRae, Brenda Scott, Angie Dickinson, Katherine Crawford, Sharon Farrell, Norma Crane, Celeste Holm, Jacqueline Scott, Marion Ross, Fay Spain and Sheree North, (all of whom had guested on the show by this point), felt about being described as wearing "Coke bottle glasses"?
A can't miss episode for "Fuge fans". Ed Robertson declared it the best episode of the entire run of the show.
