MovieChat Forums > The Fugitive (1963) Discussion > Suspension of disbelief

Suspension of disbelief


Mind you, I think this is one of the greatest shows ever produced. Still, a few things come to mind, some have actually been addressed in episodes.

Richard can get away without producing a driver's license with picture or description of himself in jobs requiring him to drive (a relative once said California used to use only thumbprints no pictures way back when, so perhaps we can excuse a picture), but the physical description should match. Where is he getting them, or how is his getting by without ID?

Is he always paid in cash? How can he cash a check made out to his false name with no ID to back it up?

The subject of a Social Security Number does come up in one ep, but why not more often? Easier to work with HR departments then?

He often has to run with no suitcase, clothes, etc. He probably still has no ID, but is able to eventually land another suitcase (and his clothes are often pretty clean for a man with no change or money to launder them).

Without personal effects, what about the hair dye? It wouldn't take long for gray roots to sprout, and he would be more noticeable.

Without going into detail for anybody that has never seen the finale, would Gerard have acted the way he did in the amusement park?

And would Gerard, a local policeman, have been traveling the country for Kimble? As an interstate fugitive wouldn't that fall to the hands of the FBI or other national law enforcement?

Oh well...just some fun thoughts; I still think this show was unbeatable. Would have been nice to see Janssen be able to do Season Five....

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Hi Liquidgardener. Guess Kimble must have been well-connected with the phoney ID underground. Anyway, in which episode was a SSN discussed?

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Don't recall the title off hand, but it's a first season one with Jack Klugman. Kimble's working the construction site, and Klugman's character says the SSN didn't pass the HR department. Kimble says he must have jumbled the numbers, and would get him the right one (which of course, we never hear about again).

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Thanks. I found the episode: Terror at High Point. Kimble says, "Boy, I never could get those digits straight." At least this shows a somewhat realistic scenario. The episode is a good one. It has sort of a Of Mice and Men flavor to it.

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I think most of the dress and grooming, has to do with the way leading men were portrayed at the time. The character had to be attractive to the viewing audience. Having him with personal hygiene issues and wearing rags for clothes, wouldn't have worked.

The ID and driver's license issue is perplexing. It was easier to forge such documents in the 1960's. No photos, bar codes and such. In any case such endeavors would take up much of Kimble's time, considering he changes his name from town to town. Yet you never see him printing counterfeit documents in any episodes.

Probably the easiest solution would be never to take a job requiring driving. But many of his jobs do.

And if he has the knack of printing good counterfeit driver's licenses, why not go a step further and buy an old used car to get around in. He obviously spends quite a bit on fashionable sport coats, slacks, and dress shoes. Which are either damaged beyond repair, or lost in one of his ditchings of the suitcase to run, every week. A half dozen purchases of fashionable clothing, could be foregone and used to buy a used car.

As for Gerard. I don't think a town as small as Stafford is depicted, would even have a detective force. Even if they did, the budget isn't going to allow Gerard to travel all over the U.S. looking for Kimble. In episodes where Kimble has been captured, I can see Gerard going to the location for extradition, but many times Gerard goes on a journey, just because someone has seen Kimble, and nothing more.

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The 1960's were a paper age... Kimble was often shown to have picked up identities by finding wallets.. If you had paper, you were good... The other thing about this show is unlike modern TV shows, the time is of no matter... it could be months and thousands of miles between episodes.. It was an episodic show with very little continuing between episodes other than the overriding story of him being chased... There were only a handful of episodes other than 2 parter's that connected ( the nun one in season 4 connected to the 2 parter in season 1 with the same nun)...

Watching it weekly these days on METV at midnight on Sundays... All episodes in order..

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I'm watching them on MeTV as well. The show, despite our observances holds up extremely well.

In watching the one with Kimble recognized as the Korean War medic by the injured soldier who had save Kimble during the war, I noticed the cheap hotel having a "Rooms $3.75" on the front. How things have changed. Mind you, ages back I stayed in San Francisco in a hotel along Van Ness (shared bathroom down the hall) for $8 a night. Nowadays that same place would probably be $150 a night!

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Eight dollars then is about $60.00 today, so it's not that different.

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I have only seen Kimble pick up a wallet one time. In which he spends the entire episode trying to give it back to it's owner, risking his true identity in the process. I don't think he routinely picks up loose wallets. It goes against his character and personal ethics.

He pulls fake identities out of thin air, and gets away with it for extended periods of time, if you consider each episode encompasses several weeks. Most episodes begin with Kimble already settled into a job at a specific locale, with the dynamics of each of the characters in that episode established. It's reasonable to believe he has been at that locale and job, since hitting the road at the end of the last episode. The thought that undocumented time elapses between episodes is speculative, and nothing in the series leads the audience to believe that the story line isn't continuous.

If Kimble had restricted his employment to strictly day labor jobs, the ID issue wouldn't be as great. But he's often in jobs higher up on the food chain, where even in the "paper" 1960's, a rudimentary pre-employment screening would reveal him to be a fraud.

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If Kimble had restricted his employment to strictly day labor jobs, the ID issue wouldn't be as great. But he's often in jobs higher up on the food chain, where even in the "paper" 1960's, a rudimentary pre-employment screening would reveal him to be a fraud.


Unless you were working for the government, had a job handling large amounts of cash, needed a commercial driver's license for employment, etc., there wasn't much screening done in the 1960s for individuals claiming nothing but a high school education. All one needs is a Social Security number and as many millions of illegal aliens have proven, it doesn't even need to be a valid one. Also, Kimble is staying at these jobs less than eight weeks in every case I can think of. In at least a third of the shows, he doesn't have a job.

There was pre-employment screening in the 1960s but it focused on people claiming a college degree. Which episodes do you think have Kimble employed in jobs "higher up on the food chain" that would necessitate pre-employment screening? I'm not saying they don't exist, it's just that I can't think of any. You might want to check out the employment of Gary Steven Krist and James Earl Ray after they escaped from state penitentiaries back in the 1960s. Without so much as a driver's license, Krist got a scientist's job at MIT.

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Couldn't agree more. There were a lot of "underground" people back then, from radicals to draft dodgers to illegal aliens who managed to acquire and maintain phony identities. Maybe not as easily as Kimble, but much easier than is possible today with computers, bar codes and photo IDs.

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I don't know any period in latter half 20th century American history, where jobs have been as easy to come by, as you seem to believe. In the same timeframe as The Fugitive, one needed three letters of recommendation to get a job as a teenage bag boy at a grocery store.

Do you think Kimble was the only applicant for all the various jobs he held? I think not. And if there was a pool of applicants, there must be some screening done for the employer to determine what person to hire. Over the course of four years, Kimble's bogus references and documents, would not have held up to continual scrutiny.

Criminal background checks were common place in the 1960's, the information just wasn't readily accessible. Even so, it didn't take weeks, as Kimball's tenure at places of employment often entails. The probability would be that Kimball would be arrested in every episode. Which he does not. Even when he is captured, he always escapes. Another improbability. There's not that many incompetent law enforcement officials spread across the country, to skew the odds in Kimble's favor

The only way Kimble could have eluded capture for four years, would have been to leave the country, or hold up in some isolated retreat, where he lived off the grid with no human interaction. Of course, such a lifestyle would not be conducive to hunting for the one armed man. The storyline would be boring and viewing audience small.

The perception that employers, at any level, regularly hired convicted felons in the 1960's is naive.

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Well I got a job as a teenage bag boy in a major grocery store and didn't need any letter of recommendation. I also was hired at a Red Lobster restaurant as a dishwasher - and you know what got me the job? A recommendation from my grandfather because I had worked for him cutting grass.

It wasn't that hard getting jobs back when I was growing up. Especially the kind of menial jobs that Janssen's character has to take at times in this series. And especially when an employer needed a position filled.

I agree that some of the jobs Dr. Kimble has would have been unlikely, but some of them wouldn't.

Also there have been other fugitives that have avoided capture for alot longer than Dr. Kimble and they didn't leave the country or hold up in a retreat without any human interaction. They kept a low profile and blended in with their surroundings - just as Janssen's character does in this series.

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Red Lobster didn't exist in my era as a teen, or Kimble's time period either. So you just ruined any credibility you might have had.

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And what difference does that make?

We're not talking about what particular restaurants were or weren't in existence during the 60s. We're talking about the kind of jobs Kimble would have held while being on the lam.

And many of those jobs, such as a bagger in a grocerey store or a dishwasher in a restaurant would not have required the kind of scrutiny you seem to imagine it would have.

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Red Lobster didn't exist in my era as a teen, or Kimble's time period either. So you just ruined any credibility you might have had.


Red Lobster has been around since 1968! However, that's beside the point, because if he'd done it later than the Kimble era, it would support his point, not yours.

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@ DisasterWaitingToHappen - Thank You.

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Yes, there was one German escaped POW, Georg Gaertner, he was on many FBI wanted lists in post offices (just like Dr. Kimble).
The FBI didn't find him for 40+ years when he finally gave up himself, because his wife tried to apply for both of their pensions, but couldn't find any old records of her husband of 20+ years.
Gaertner wrote a fascinating autobiography about his life on the run, the title is "Hitler's last soldier in America". I read it multiple times and can highly recommend it.

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In the same timeframe as The Fugitive, one needed three letters of recommendation to get a job as a teenage bag boy at a grocery store.


Are you serious? That's laughingly ridiculous.

Here's one example: In 1967, James Earl Ray -- Martin Luther King's assassin -- escaped from maximum security at the Missouri state penitentiary. Within a few weeks, he saw an ad in the Chicago Tribune for dishwasher. He applied for the job and was hired on the spot. He had no identification whatsoever. People hiring large numbers of minimum wage workers at menial jobs rarely have the time or the motivation to indulge in any background checks, let alone a lengthy one involving letters of recommendation. The exception would be banks, armored cars, and security guards although those jobs pay better than minimum wage.

I never supplied any "letter of recommendation" to get multiple jobs in Texas, Arizona and California from 1973-1976 where I had varied employment as a ditch digger, dishwasher, sanitation worker for a city's parks and roustabout on oil wells. They never asked for prior places of employment -- nothing but a Social Security number. Also, the 1973-1975 recession was a particularly harsh one.

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What's "laughingly ridiculous" is you don't have the critical thinking skills to understand that someone could slip through the cracks once, twice, or even a dozen times, but Kimble does it repeatedly for 4 years. He's not taking jobs as a ditch digger or other remedial jobs that seem to occupy your employment history. Kimble's jobs often entail being employed in high visibility positions with powerful businessmen, being a "cut man" for a name boxer, a bartender in an upscale restaurant, etc. These type of jobs attract multiple applicants, and some screening that goes beyond a fake resume. Could Kimble do it a few times? Sure, but not for 4 years.

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The employers simply checked his Facebook page and figured he was ok..... Seriously though. A certain suspension of disbelief is always required in these man-on-the-run shows/movies. Anyway, I can imagine Kimble becoming expert at falsifying I.D., especially in the 60s.

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There are certain reasons these "things" you point out -- some of which, as you say, have been addressed -- are not repeated. It's 1) dramatic structure and 2) warding off boredom in viewers.

If even half the things you mention had been addressed, or if the ones that were briefly addressed just once had been mentioned again the series wouldn't have been "one of the greatest shows ever produced" for very long. To give a couple of examples: One, in terms of dramatic pacing, you'll notice that several days in Kimble's life never takes more than an hour (or two) on screen. And two, I question the entertainment value of showing Kimble being asked for his social security number over and over. This shtick would get very, very tired very quickly.

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In "Somebody to Remember", didn't Gilbert Roland give Kimble his passport and they switched photos? I'm not sure, it's been a while since I saw it. I wonder if Kimble may have acquired the skill of producing some moderately convincing false papers on which he may occasionally attach a photo when it's up to simply cross a border or something like that.

He probably always keeps a bit of money in his pockets, so that he's always able to buy some new personal effects when he has to escape without carrying anything. I don't think black paint was that expensive in the day (especially if he wasn't using a high quality product).

Gerard had developed an unhealthy obsession with Kimble, that's why he chased him everywhere even if he didn't have to. Some of his colleagues told him on several occasions.

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One can really bog a show down if EVERY single one of these items is taken care of. I prefer the slight "hole" in the story to the extreme boredom of covering every "how did this happen" item.

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He often has to run with no suitcase, clothes, etc. He probably still has no ID, but is able to eventually land another suitcase (and his clothes are often pretty clean for a man with no change or money to launder them).


There was an impersonator back then, forget his name, who did a Kimble routine. Part of it was a hilarious "dirty laundry" bit.

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There was an impersonator back then, forget his name, who did a Kimble routine.


You might be thinking of Chris Elliot in The Fugitive Guy skits that were on David Letterman's show when he was still on NBC.

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Much earlier than that. This goes back to the Ed Sullivan era, when The Fugitive was a hit show. Impersonators were a hot commodity among stand-up comedians at the time. Most faded away into obscurity, and by now have likely passed on. Rich Little and Frank Gorshin come to mind. But there were at least a dozen of them making the TV variety show circuit at the time, so any of them may have done the Kimble routine.

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There also was a TV series in the late 1960's called "Run, Buddy, Run" with Jack Sheldon. It was a persiflage on "The Fugitive" and extremely funny, unfortunately never released in English on DVD, only available with German dubbing:

https://www.amazon.de/Renn-Buddy-Alle-Episoden-DVDs/dp/B002DKTHFE/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1486743126&sr=1-1&keywords=renn+buddy+renn+dvd

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Obviously written by someone who grew up in the internet age.

Once upon a time (such as fifty years ago, when The Fugitive was filmed), Americans didn't have to "produce their papers" for every facet of their lives. Most things you paid for in cash - even checks were reserved for very large amounts or paying by mail, and credit cards were for traveling business men.

Jobs that required a college degree were the exception, and for a whole lot of jobs, you just showed up, started working, and got paid in cash at the end of the week. No driver's license or social security number or background check - just cash for labor.

It was a different world.

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He got many of his jobs because he was needed, seemed trustworthy, and because he was in his 30's, had been around. His trustworthiness went along way, with people continuing to call him Pete, Joe, Bill, etc, even after they learned his true identity.

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That's right. Also, Kimble was young, good looking, presentable, as they used to say. Most jobs of the sort Kimble applied for and got didn't require extensive background checks. Also, his not being a real criminal had a way of shining through, IMHO, that is, which is part of why the show was so popular and why Kimble got hired fairly easily. The one sort of complemented the other. In this, the show sort of "justifies itself" in the mind of the viewer. Or the viewer of fifty years ago. This required some disbelief suspension but not nearly so much as today.

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And would Gerard, a local policeman, have been traveling the country for Kimble? As an interstate fugitive wouldn't that fall to the hands of the FBI or other national law enforcement?


It is primarily the duty of the U.S. Marshals to hunt down escaped fugitives although the FBI can certainly get into the act. Kimble would almost certainly have made the Marshals' 15 most wanted list and he might make the FBI's top 10 list but I doubt it.

Among local law enforcement, the response varies tremendously but even though they have no authority whatsoever, it's not that unusual for local police to show up in another state if the trail was "hot" enough. They sometimes do not inform that city's police unless they are close to making an arrest and need them for that (needless to say this is a great way to enrage the locals and get zero cooperation from them). However, after a period of just months, local law enforcement would normally give the case to a detective who would mostly be doing desk job type work. If the fugitive has relatives or other contacts in the area, he'd maintain some type of presence with them no matter how hostile they were. He'd make sure their mail was monitored and tapping their phones isn't out of the question if they can find a judge to sign on to it. He should be giving a "heads up" to other law enforcement agencies but as I wrote above, that type of response varies greatly.

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One has to question the way IMDb's boards arrange the postings. I hit reply to the first post in the thread and it places my post dead last and on page 3.

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Not only would Girard not have jurisdiction, he would have to be pursuing Kimble on his own dime. Some small town Indiana police department surely isn't going to fund Girard's travel expenses. Girard's superiors wouldn't tolerate his "relentless pursuit", and he'd likely been dismissed and referred to psychological counseling.

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I think the state of Indiana would be footing the bill. Kimble's a convicted murderer facing capital punishment under state law. The Attorney General isn't gonna shrug and say "Oh, well, he got away."

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I think the state of Indiana would be footing the bill. Kimble's a convicted murderer facing capital punishment under state law. The Attorney General isn't gonna shrug and say "Oh, well, he got away."


Why would the state of Indiana be funding a small town detective to travel the country looking for a fugitive? Would the FBI say; "Well Indiana, your guy let the "murderer" get away, so you have to cough up the money to pay him to find Kimble.

That's simply not how things work. And in the real world, Gerard wouldn't have the skillset to even attempt to find an at-large fugitive. Gerard is a detective in a small town for a reason. No way could he bully big city police forces the way he often does. Shutting down streets and highways, and city police chiefs bowing down to his orders.

In the film version, Gerard is more suitably cast as a U.S. Marshall. The Gerard in the TV series is far too sharp, to be wasting his career in Stafford IN.

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