Mon 4 Feb 2019
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: FACE OF A FUGITIVE (1959).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[11] Comments
FACE OF A FUGITIVE. Columbia, 1959. Fred MacMurray, Lin McCarthy, Dorothy Green, Alan Baxter and James Coburn. Screenplay by David T Chantler and Daniel B Ullman, based on the short story “Long Gone” by Peter Dawson (Zane Grey’s Western Magazine, March 1950). Directed by Paul Wendkos.
In a decade supposedly marked by conformity, and in a genre supposedly bound up in cliché, I’m surprised sometimes by how many off-beat, idiosyncratic and just plain weird westerns came out of the 1950s: Terror in a Small Town, 40 Guns, A Day of Fury, Ride Lonesome…. I could go on and on, but then I’d be going on and on.
Face of a Fugitive may not as bizarre as some of the others, but it’s sufficiently off-beat and well-made to stay in the memory. Or this memory, anyway.
Face opens with Fred MacMurray as an affable outlaw being escorted to jail by a Deputy unequal to the task. In the first few minutes Fred overpowers him and is making his escape when his younger brother (Ron Hayes) shows up, kills the deputy, and is himself mortally wounded in the shoot-out.
Now wanted for murder, Fred buries his brother by sewing him in a mail sack and dumping the body in a river. Then he insinuates himself into the closest town, passing as a traveling businessman, feigning acquaintance with the locals, and looking for some way to split the scene before Wanted Posters show up with his picture on them — in 24 hours.
MacMurray is in fine form here. In the years before Disney and “My Three Sons†his persona was bluff and likeable bit not always trustworthy. Check him out in The Texas Rangers, Double Indemnity, The Apartment and others to see what I mean. Here he uses both sides of his acting face as the outlaw on the run masquerading as a respectable citizen, and he does it quite well, befriending the local barber, horse trader, store clerk, and sheriff, but always with an eye out for the main chance.
Of course it’s not that simple. Nor is the Sheriff, whose deputies have the town bottled up pending the arrival of the posters. Always the smoothie, Fred wangles himself a job as a Deputy — only to find himself embroiled with the Sheriff in a range was against local cattle baron Alan Baxter, and his henchman James Coburn.
The writers handle all this quite capably, setting up the situation, ratcheting up the tension, and pausing for some truly affecting moments when Fred sees them fish his brother’s body from the river and later watches him lowered into an unmarked grave. They also flesh out the minor characters, particularly Coburn: lithe and lethal, but essentially a cowboy, not a killer.
Back in the day, director Paul Wendkos made a splashy debut with The Burglar (1957) then retreated into television and the Gidget movies, until finally overtaken by obscurity. Still early in his career here, he imparts a sense of pace and humanity to the proceedings, particularly in a slam-bang run-and-jump shoot-out in a ghost town, making the most of the settings and Coburn’s athleticism vs. Fred’s stoic efficiency. And he caps it all with a line (which should have been the final line) I will remember for some time.
This is a film to enjoy—and come back to.
February 4th, 2019 at 10:50 pm
MacMurray’s ability to show us the dark side behind the affable good looking All American guy was a key both to his strength in roles that depended on his likability (THE ABSENT MINDED PROFESSOR) and the darker side of the mask (THE PUSHOVER to name something besides the usual suspects). You could take him literally at face value, but you always knew there was more to it than that.
This is one of his best Western outings ratcheting up some tension as the walls close in and the odds get worse. Best of all, right up to the end there is no guarantee Fred is going to turn good guy, even reluctantly.
Chandler was so impressed by him in DOUBLE INDEMNITY he seems to have thought him the physical embodiment of Philip Marlowe.
February 4th, 2019 at 11:23 pm
I saw this film a few years ago and thought it was outstanding. Brian Garfield in his excellent book, WESTERN FILMS, thought it was “…distinctly above average.” Since Garfield disliked so many of the westerns that he reviewed in the book, this amounts to a rave comment.
What makes his book so valuable and interesting is this ability to be very critical. Most western film books are of limited use because they seem to like just about every movie.
February 5th, 2019 at 11:05 am
FACE OF A FUGITIVE has one of the best second-tier actors of the period, Lin McCarthy. Although in his early days he was handsome enough to play the lead, McCarthy was usually relegated to supporting roles. He showed up on LARAMIE a couple of times doing conflicted characters like MacMurray in this film. The IMDb has more here:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0565229/?ref_=nv_sr_1
February 5th, 2019 at 7:00 pm
Lin McCarthy doesn’t have either a name or a face that I remember seeing before. But from his list of IMDb credits, I’m sure I must have seen his face without ever putting a name to it, many times over!
February 5th, 2019 at 7:15 pm
I’ve seen almost none of Lin McCarthy’s work.
But he was in one of the best episodes of “The Rifleman”.
This is “Surveyors”, directed by Joseph H. Lewis.
February 5th, 2019 at 10:39 pm
McCarthy’s most successful period was as a very young man in Post War Hollywood where he tended to play idealistic All American types. His early leading roles like that never developed into a more mature leading man career and he ended up more a character actor.
February 5th, 2019 at 11:52 pm
I’ll have to start looking for him in any film I’m watching that he’s in, starting maybe with this one.
February 5th, 2019 at 11:53 pm
Also, I’ve done some investigating, and I’ve discovered that the story this movie was based upon was the short story “Long Gone” by Peter Dawson (Zane Grey’s Western Magazine, March 1950).
February 6th, 2019 at 8:47 am
Thanks Steve, I was wondering about that.
February 6th, 2019 at 4:15 pm
Dawson, of course, was the brother of Frank Glidden, Luke Short, and many of his books and stories shared a fairly hard-boiled voice and more complex plots.
December 6th, 2019 at 10:02 pm
Good B western…. early score by legend Jerry Goldsmith really makes this western stand out.