Sun 14 Dec 2025
A TV Episode Review: THE FUGITIVE “Tiger Left, Tiger Right” (1964).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[4] Comments
THE FUGITIVE. “Tiger Left, Tiger Right.” 1964 October 20 (Season 2, episode 6). David Janssen (Dr. Richard Kimble), Leslie Nielsen, Carol Rossen. Created by Roy Huggins. Screenplay: William Link & Richard Levinson. Director: James Goldstone. (The entire series is available for viewing on the Internet Archive.)
By the time of this, the sixth episode of the second season, the story lines were well established. Dr. Kimball was on the run, having been convicted of a murder he did not commit, used a fake identity somewhere else every week, interacting with a new family or anyone giving him shelter for a time. (If he ever stayed in one place for more than week, I don’t know about it.)
He’s staying with the Cheyney family this week: mother, father, young boy, working as a gardener, when he is kidnapped and a ransom is asked. He has been mistaken for the father by another couple, desperate for both money and revenge. The man is disabled, and he blames the father of the family Kimball is working for.
This is quite a situation for the latter, as man on the tun. He is in the hands of a couple who will kill him as likely as not, once they realize their mistake, but if by happy chance he is rescued, the police will recognize him as a fugitive, and back to prison he will go.
It’s a good story with lots of drama and suspense, and it’s greatly enhanced by excellent acting by all of the players involved, especially David Janssen, young and handsome at the time, and as the doctor on the run, as cool as anyone could be in such a situation, as always.
And as I mentioned up above, with Dr. Kimball interacting with his two captors with coolly nervous aplomb until the end, upon which time he makes his escape in all the chaos of a most satisfying conclusion.
December 15th, 2025 at 8:44 am
How many of these white-collar, paternal, sometime wealthy, sometimes crooked characters did Leslie Nielsen play on a hundred TV series back in the day, from DR. KILDARE to GUNSMOKE? I think I’d have a hard time re-watching those old shows now, expecting him to lapse into a post-AIRPLANE, silly non sequitur or befuddled expression any minute!
December 15th, 2025 at 1:51 pm
The “hard time” problem you’re talking about doesn’t apply to me, Fred. I understand what you’re saying, but I’ve never watched Leslie Nielsen in the silly phase of his career. The roles he played in those films — and he was very good in them — never appealed to me. On the other hand, which there always is, he’d never be remembered today for what he was doing in the early part of his career, as good as he was.
December 15th, 2025 at 7:13 pm
I always liked Janssen as an actor.
For years I was told that the Fugitive’s name, Richard Kimball, was in honor of Janssen’s hometown of Kimball, Nebraska. I just looked it up and found that I have been living a lie. Kimball was born in Naponee, Nebraska, which is located half a state away from Kimball. Janssen and his mother moved to Los Angeles when he was four, and I doubt they ever lived in Kimball. The other cool thing about Kimball in my memory was the towering display Titan I nuclear missile at the town’s Gotte Park; it startled me to see it rising proudly as I approached the town from Interstate 80 more than fifty years ago. It’s no longer there — a windstorm sheered off the top third of it in 2009; it was restored in 2016; then finally removed two years ago when the town decided it was a pubic safety hazard. (How could a nuclear missile be considered a safety hazard?) Even the memory of that Titan missile was based on a falsehood — the ICBM site around the town of Kimball housed only Atlas missiles, not Titans. Sadly, it turns out that so many of my long-held beliefs were based on falsehoods. I’m glad we are now living in a time where falsehoods are not condoned and where we get nothing but the very true, very real facts from our leaders and not fake news..
December 15th, 2025 at 7:45 pm
More stuff I didn’t know, lots of it, and some fake stuff, too. Thanks for helping to sort some of it out!
PS. David Janssen was a wonderful actor, much better on TV than in the movies, but no slouch there, either. As far as I’m concerned, he was one of the best.