“The Fugitive” still holds up as a thriller — and is where I first heard anyone use the word “hinky.” It remains the best movie based on a TV show (I’m including “Star Trek,” which took Gene Roddenberry et al two tries to get right).
Here are a few details I learned from Greene’s piece:
When co-screenwriter David Twohy came up with Tommy Lee Jones’ famous speech in the aftermath of the train/bus collision (above), he included the phrase “hard-target search” — not because it was an actual phrase law enforcement uses but because he liked the way it sounded.
Richard Jordan, the actor originally hired to play the villain (Dr. Charles Nichols), was “diagnosed with a fatal brain tumor before they could film the climax at the hotel. They’d need to quickly hire a new actor, reshoot the prior scenes with Nichols, and prep the big fight at the end. (Jordan died weeks after the movie hit theaters.)” Because one of the re-shot scenes was with Harrison Ford, the makeup and hair people had to come up with a fake beard for Ford to wear, because he’d shaved the original one off earlier in the production.
When Joe Pantoliano saw in the script that his character, Cosmo, would be hit in the face by a moving girder in the climactic scene, he complained to director Andrew Davis that it meant he’d die and couldn’t be in a sequel. So, Davis included a shot where Cosmo is being carried to an ambulance on a stretcher and has a couple of lines. Pantoliano did appear in the middling sequel “US Marshals.”
Why did Julianne Moore’s name appear fourth in the credits, despite her being only on screen for a couple of minutes? According to co-screenwriter Jeb Stuart, her role was at one point expanded and shot due to studio pressure, but was cut when the creative team realized it would ruin the Kimble storyline.
Warner Brothers sent a mandate to me that said, “We need a female character in this, and we need a love interest for Harrison.” And I said, “You guys, have you been reading any of the script? The whole thing is about a man trying to convince everybody in the audience that he didn’t kill his wife, that he loved his wife, he adored his wife. He would never kill her. Now, you’re going to make me pop him into bed, when he’s on the run, with an actress, just because you need a love interest?” And they said, “Yeah, something like that.”
Other tidbits included in Greene’s piece: how Pantoliano managed to be in so many shots even when he had no lines; how the chase through the St. Patrick’s Day parade was shot; and how both Ford and Jones thought the movie was going to end their careers. Instead, it added to Ford’s status as a mega-movie-star, and won Jones an Oscar.