Wordiezett
So much average
FeistyUpper
If you don't like this, we can't be friends.
Stevecorp
Don't listen to the negative reviews
bkoganbing
Although Fred MacMurray said he never was comfortable in westerns he gives a pretty good account of himself in the title role in Face Of A Fugitive.As this opens MacMurray is being transported to jail, but his brother Ron Hayes busts him out and in the process the Marshal doing the escorting and Hayes both wind up dead. MacMurray manages to hop a freight train that takes him miles from the escape and a chance to create a new identity.Probably it would have been better to just keep going, but MacMurray intervenes in a dispute with the local Ponderosa owner Alan Baxter and inexperienced sheriff Lin McCarthy. Part of it is McCarthy's pretty sister Dorothy Green.Part of it is Baxter is a really vicious bully who has fenced off a large piece of government land for his own use. McCarthy keeps cutting the wire and Baxter retaliates.Baxter's foreman is played by James Coburn in one of his earliest roles. In those days I recall seeing Coburn on a whole slew of TV westerns playing all kinds of villains. His role is very typical of what I would see on television.MacMurray does well by the part as a troubled man who looks back on his life with many regrets. The climax is a High Noon type shootout with Baxter, Coburn, and a few others. But in this case it's rather obvious that this was an afterthought ending and the original had MacMurray dying. It would have made for a better film.Still Face Of A Fugitive is pretty good as is.
edwagreen
Just when I thought that my tastes had changed with age regarding westerns, I caught this one and was I ever surprised.It's just not the shoot them up type of western; there is a good story here with sentimental value. A younger brother catches a fatal bullet while trying to get his brother to escape from the law which is trying to get him to jail. The older brother, played wisely by Fred MacMurray, describes to his dying brother what led him down the wrong path.Upon coming to town MacMurray gets involved with a lawman who is trying to prevent a guy and his gang from erecting a fence up that will keep the people out. The guy has a widowed sister with a young child so you know that romance will bloom.The story takes place basically in one day as the town waits for the picture of MacMurray to be sent to them. The lawman-brother, goes strictly by the book as he reads his law books in preparation to become an attorney.This is a story of redemption and human kindness. The true hallmark of the film is that it ends too soon. You always want good pictures to continue, but the film ended at an appropriate point.
Spikeopath
Jim Larson (soon to be Ray Kincaid) is a thief, during his train transfer to prison his younger brother enacts an escape plan. The US Marshall who was holding him is killed in the commotion, while Jim's brother is fatally wounded. Making his way into a nearby town, Larson acquires a gun and a horse but is unable to leave the town as the sheriff has quarantined it till a delivery of wanted posters arrive, these of course will show the face of the wanted man, that man is of course Jim Larson. Whilst marking his time, Larson gets embroiled in a war between the sheriff and a tough rancher, Reed Williams, finding himself strangely on the good side of the law.Fred MacMurray is not a name that instantly springs to mind when the talk turns to the Western genre, which is surprising, because although he hardly dominates in the genre pieces he did, he was more than capable of carrying a role in a few of the Westerns he starred in. Such is the case here as Jim Larson, thankfully putting a bit of gritty honesty into the picture and steering it safely to its intriguing conclusion. Face of a Fugitive is a very accomplished piece, not a film to linger long in the memory, but it's thematic redemptive heart is most assuredly of major interest, with the finale excellently fulfilling the shoot out fan's needs. James Coburn turns up in one of his first major roles and hints at what was to come later in his career, and a thumbs up for Alan Baxter who revels in bad guy duties as Reed Williams.Tight and hugely enjoyable, Face of a Fugitive is one to catch if you are a Western genre fan. 6.5/10
hoodcsa
Fred MacMurray really stands out in this largely unknown western. MacMurray's character is on the run, but gets tangled up in the deadly affairs of a small town. The love story, which could have been nothing more than a routine plot device, actually works on a very fundamental level. MacMurray is top notch as the film's anti-hero. The rest of the cast is not as good, particularly a wooden Lin McCarthy as the embattled sheriff. Director Paul Wendkos delivers a crisply directed film. A lot of little things which could have been done routinely or sloppily are filmed with gusto and precision. The end-of-the-movie shootout is particularly energetic. Face of a Fugitive is not a great western, but it's very entertaining and should be seen by genre fans.
