You’ve probably heard of getTV, the newest TV sub-channel from Sony Pictures Television. (It’s one of the digital broadcast channels we get here in Raleigh.) Tomorrow, March 1, they’re offering up the excellent Fred MacMurray Western Face Of A Fugitive (1959) at 7:00 and 10:40 PM. It gave James Coburn a really good early role. A great way to spend a Saturday night.
This is one I highly recommend, both to whoever out there has a chance to watch it — and to Columbia for a nice widescreen DVD release.
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Another winner, Toby! A great favourite of mine among 50s westerns and Fred MacMurray is great in it ( a little old maybe? Doesn’t bother me though). I love every one of the westerns he made in the 50s 1953-59 except for “Oregon Trail” which I saw at the cinema on its release to great disappointment as I had previously seen (also on big screen) “Day Of The Badman”, “Good Day For A Hanging” and the film under review – hard acts to follow, I grant!
If you’re watching this tomorrow night – Have a great time!
Glad you like this one, Jerry. It’s a real sleeper — and a perfect examples of the genre’s hidden gems.
If it’s the movie I think it is, I recall the climactic fight as a dandy.
It takes place in a ghost town saloon. Very dark.
And you’re right, it’s a dandy!
Great movie. I have a pretty ropey copy and I agree a nice shiny new release would be most welcome.
The movie will also be shown on Antenna-TV on March 12 at 9-a.m.
Eastern.
In addition, Antenna-TV will also be showing Gunfight at Dodge City with Joel McRea on March 10 at 9-a.m Eastern.
The good news is that just like the new “MOVIES!” channel, GET-TV also shows widescreen movies in their widescreen format. Let’s hope GET-TV keeps up their widescreen format choice when they show this one. The only bad news is GET-TV does show commercials. They gives with one hand and takes with the other.
A side note, I can’t believe Encore westerns is still showing movies in the old full screen format, esp. today when practically everybody has a widescreen TV. You can’t even buy square type TV today. So why hasn’t Encore westerns entered the 21st century? They do show their movies uncut though, again gives with one then takes with the other. Life gets teedjus.
FACE OF A FUGITIVE – excellent little Movie based on the short story “Long Gone” by Peter Dawson. Fred was always good in these later Westerns bringing some of the fatalistic “seen it all” persona to his character similar to Randolph Scott in the Ranown series
Looks like I have time to add my strong feeling for “Face of a Fugitive” for those who can get it on this showing. It’s a brilliant, beautiful Western–a fitting climax to this cycle of Westerns with a mature Fred MacMurray, and for me the best movie of director Paul Wendkos, who was clearly gifted.
The only 50s MacMurray Western I haven’t seen yet is “The Oregon Trail” and no one seems to like this as well among those later ones. Of those I have seen the earlier “The Moonlighter” was good enough but not that special to me and “The Far Horizons” would probably have gained from being seen in a theatre where the VistaVision photography would have helped it a lot. That leaves a half dozen following and in addition to those Jerry mentioned, I do think that “At Gunpoint” “Gun for a Coward” and “Quantez” are all excellent.
MacMurray is good in all of them but I especially like him as the weary gunman and conflicted outlaw that he plays in variation in “Quantez” and “Face of a Fugitive”–he just has a quality for this kind of role, and the redemptive theme that underlies it, that is very special, at least in the maturity of these years. You’ll see right away how good he is in this one in an early scene with his seriously wounded brother on a train–an inward MacMurray reflects bitterly on the past and does it in such a low-key but deeply felt way that you get very invested in him.
Toby did an excellent write-up of “Quantez” a few years ago when the Universal Vault DVD came out–I’d never seen anyone say anything serious about it before he did and was one of my favorite pieces in this blog, and then there was some good discussion too, and looking back, I see I participated in that, so will leave my further comments if anyone wants to look up that piece. Since then, I also picked up that DVD and have watched the movie again and if anything felt even stronger about it. You can find that piece by clicking on Fred MacMurray or Harry Keller (the movie’s director) in the list to the right.
When Sony started restoring all their Columbia films they did a nice if all too brief Western series at UCLA and I had a chance to see “Face of a Fugitive” on the big screen. It moved me so much at the end I almost cried.
Blake —
Thanks for plugging the Quantez post. I still feel it’s one of the better posts I’ve done — especially when taken as a whole with all the comments (yours included).
I like to think of these two films as a matched set, both brilliant variations on the burned-out gunfighter tale. They’re also two of the better redemption tales you’ll find in 50s Westerns.
I tend to exclude “The Far Horizons” from my Fred-list, Blake, but the rest are all great, for me. Watched “Gun For A Coward” only recently and was reminded how good it was and how very good Fred was in it.
For a rather different side to Fred MacMurray (and to demonstrate just how good he could be), I would strongly recommend the opening episode of George Montgomery’s TV series “Cimarron City”. “I, The People” really got the series off to a blazing start, although I found the rest of the series somewhat spotty in comparison.
I noticed just last week that a ton of Columbia titles have suddenly turned up on GETTV — I set a George Brent film I don’t have to record. At least I can edit out the commercials so it will be better than nothing!
A couple days ago I set TORA! TORA! TORA! to record on one of Encore’s “sister” channels, RetroPlex. I was curious to see how bad it looked in pan & scan or if it might be watchable. I was surprised to fast forward through the first part of it and discover that the entire film is apparently shown in widescreen — I’d initially assumed it was just for the opening credits. It gave me a little hope that perhaps at some point Encore Westerns will “get real” and start showing widescreen films in widescreen. It’s my only complaint about that channel — they do a great job showing films with no commercials, with a nice mix of things like Universal Westerns are “B” and “C” rareties with the likes of Eddie Dean and Buster Crabbe. Great ’50s Warner Bros. TV Westerns, too.
Best wishes,
Laura
Yes, there’s nothing to complain about with the programming at the Western channel–they cover it every possible way, and it’s great it’s there. As you say the one cause for complaint is not showing wide screen when it’s called for–at least for anamorphic which is destroyed when scanned. They’ve made a few exceptions–they just need a consistent policy that says “We love Westerns here and we will show each one as it was meant to be seen.”
I can’t say that I have ever seen a widescreen movie shown in it’s proper widescreen format on Encore Westerns, not once. Laura must have gotten lucky with Tora…, but that was one of the Plex channels. I only wish Encore would show widescreen. I too love Encore westerns esp. for their TV westerns shown uncut and without commercials! That’s truly great. But I wish they’d stop showing all these lousy new westerns (those made in the last 35 years). I would like to see them showing nothing but vintage TV westerns and movie westerns of the ’30’s thru the mid ’60’s, concentrating mostly on those made in the ’50’s and late ’40’s. That’s how I’d program it. Those westerns from the ’90’s thru the 2000’s have got to go. They’re trash.
Have to say I agree, Johnny G. 1930-mid 60s for westerns. Nothing very worthwhile came along after that, as far as I am concerned, with some definite exceptions (“Unforgiven”, “The Shootist”, “Open Range” are a few). But generally their time had gone and most of the guys who knew how to make them were hanging up their spurs.
“and to Columbia for a nice widescreen DVD release”
I’m confused. I know this movie was released on DVD in Spain. Are you saying Columbia is planning on releasing it in the U.S.? I don’t find it anywhere as of now.
No, I was recommending that Columbia put it out.
I was very happy to see Get TV did show the widescreen version of Face… I had never seen it shown that way before. Not that it was a real wide screen but it was still official wide format. GOOD JOB GET!
It’s interesting that FACE OF A FUGITIVE has strong supporting
performances by two actors hardly anyone has ever heard of:Alan
Baxter and Lin McCarthy. Despite being little known these guys had
extensive film and TV credits. Baxter in particular is outstanding in FOAF.
I hope my contacts can source me an upgrade of this fine film,my
existing copy is ragged to say the least.
Talking of Columbia, the Sony MOD series has just released THE WHITE
SQUAW and it’s up for order on Amazon. (do they have to charge 20 bucks
for these things?) Luckily they do turn up eventually on Amazon UK at
cheaper rates. Love that poster artwork;it’s far better than anything in the
film. Talk about using sex to sell a film!
FACE OF A FUGITIVE is a great movie. Speaking of ENCORE Western, we just cancelled our Comcast Preferred because of all the lousy newer Westerns being shown and all the Full-Screen 1950s westerns that look absolutely awful! About a week ago I watched Ride The High Country for the 10th time on Encore and the full-screen looked horrible! I got up and put my Ride The High Country dvd in, and it’s like watching a completely different movie. Blah!
Those are the negatives about Encore westerns as said above but the good things about Encore Westerns are the occasional (& I do mean occasional) showing of a western that you don’t normally see elsewhere (Eddie Dean/Tex Ritter & others) and the main reason for me to keep paying for the channel is the uncut commercial free showing of classic TV westerns. The bad reasons may even outnumber the good, they do show over & over again the same movies and they never show them letterboxed, but once or twice a year they put on a good movie you’re looking for and the daily TV westerns are what keep me a customer. Could they improve any? Most definitely, stop entirely showing all the crappy new westerns those from the past 40 years and start showing classic westerns in their widescreen format when they were originally filmed that way. As I said, we now live at a time when practically everyone owns a widescreen TV, you can’t buy them any other way now, so it doesn’t make a bit of sense to keep showing them full screen as if it were still 1975. Really stupid decisions on Encore’s part. I’m almost talking myself into cancelling now. (Maverick keeps me hanging in.)
Re the Western Channel, I know they showed “The Wild Bunch” in letterbox (thought I had posted this already). I thought maybe there was another one but I’m not sure what–it wouldn’t have been from the classic years, and if you can’t show “The Man from Laramie” in CinemaScope (and they don’t), why show it at all?
But again, I temper my complaints–maybe because I remember so many late nights staying up to catch up with movies constantly interrupted with car commercials, ‘Scope always scanned, on an old black and white TV. We have good DVDs now and are spoiled.
I’m glad there is a Western Channel and my attitude is simply this–I don’t have to watch everything they show. I can watch the things I want to see and where
I’m comfortable with the format they show it in. And that has been a lot. I was a Maverick fan when it first aired but could never see it all then for so many reasons. Thanks to the Western Channel, I have now seen every single episode of that wonderful show–one of my joys several years ago when they ran several episodes every day.
I don’t watch any of those recent Westerns and share the general feeling here about them but don’t mind that they show them. If people watch the whole spectrum of what they show and gain even the least discernment, they will quickly see how the genre has declined and learn where it will be most satisfying to concentrate. I guess if I have a complaint it’s not what they show, but what they leave out. They ought to show some silent Westerns once in awhile–they were important and deserve to be known better.
Encore today also continues to ignore many many classic ’50’s westerns, a few of which they did at one time show. They also don’t show anywhere near enough Bill Elliott, they only show 2 Elliott movies and the same 2 over and over. They don’t seem to realize Bill made more than 2 movies.
But all complaints aside, I am still a subscriber, for their TV westerns alone, and also for the occasional rare western that they show once in a blue moon. And thanks to Encore I was able to get almost all of the Gene Autry movies. However, I really do wish they’d show in color the holy grail of lost color Roy Rogers films:
Apache Rose
On Old Spanish Trail
Eyes of Texas
Night Time In Nevada
Grand Canyon Trail
Far Frontier
(They’re showing Maverick now by the way, main reason I keep the channel.)
I find the above about aspect ratio on the Encore Westerns channel very interesting. But…….just suppose it wasn’t there at all?! You guys are so lucky to even have it, with its faults. In the UK the nearest thing we have is TCM UK which shows many rarities and shows about 40% westerns in its content. That is something I am VERY grateful for but to have a channel devoted exclusively…….WOW. I wish.
Johnny Guitar, a lot of movie fans are not very interested in TV westerns, etc, I have noticed. Because of when I was growing up those TV series meant a lot to me and still do. In the past couple of years TCM UK has shown “Maverick”, “Bonanza”, “Rawhide” and especially, “Gunsmoke”. They have run Seasons 7, 8, 9, 10 & 11 right through so far.
Glad to note a fellow TV series watcher……
I don’t see this as a released dvd please confirm
It’s only available on DVD in Spain, and I’ve heard it wasn’t up to par.
This post was promoting a TV airing.
In spite of it’s faults, it is still a very valuable western resource. Not only for the uncut commercial free TV westerns, which I love, but for the rare occasional showing of a western movie you may even have already but would like an improved version of. TCM in the US doesn’t show any TV programs, just movies, but Encore westerns does show all the b/w Gunsmoke episodes and several other series.
Encore westerns is still one of my favorite channels, in fact it’s the only reason I’m paying more for cable than I have to. I just would like to see them make improvements, less repeats of the same movies, cut out the new movies, show more different rarely seen westerns of the ’40’s and ’50’s esp. more than 2 Bill Elliotts.
I used to get the Encore Western channel when I was still a cable subscriber about 4 years ago. But Comcast rearranged their pricing tiers and the cost rose too much for me. So I put up an outdoor antenna and haven’t looked back. One of the best decisions I’ve made. But, luckily, by then I had recorded and watched every episode of Maverick, Cheyenne, The Big Valley, as well as Combat on another Encore channel.
I thought it funny that Warner Bros. would take a Cheyenne episode and then a couple of years later film it again almost scene for scene with the Maverick cast, probably guessing that no viewer would notice. I thought the steam went out of the series when Garner left, and Jack Kelly just struck me as a one note actor. Toward the end, I just lost interest.
Warner Bros. seems to have had the magic touch on the ABC network in the late ’50’s and early ’60’s with William Orr at the helm. Surfside Six, Bourbon Street Beat, 77 Sunset Strip, Sugarfoot, Bronco Lane …some were successful, some weren’t. But they kept churning them out like pancakes and the public ate it up.
Your story is similar to mine, I was a cable subscriber for more than 20 years, then around 2007 I quit all cable and put up an antenna. (This was before digital signals, just the old ghost and snowy type signal.) I could only get a few channels for a while but I didn’t care I had my DVDs to watch instead. But when digital over the air signals were started I had nothing but beautiful sharp pictures everywhere. It was great, plus extra vintage TV channels were invented for digital TV like Antenna/RTV/Me TV. So I was very happy with free TV then. But the lure of Encore Westerns in 2012 was what brought me back to the cable world. I then went with a different cable company and started up with cable again. I never had Encore Westerns before 2012 so maybe in the old days they showed more variety of ’50’s movies then they do now. I know I have some DVDs from collector trades that were originally recorded on Encore. So they must have shown some movies back then that they don’t anymore. At any rate, I’ll stick with cable for a little while longer, till I get sick of it again.
I remember back in the early ’90’s, AMC used to show all the Tim Holt westerns with Richard Martin. I had a grand time recording and watching them on my VCR.
I like Fred in Quantez and this. Best rgds.
Thanks for the tip on getTV. I’d love to know where these channels are coming from (now I see another one, Movies!, which looks to be Fox, that I have to start monitoring). Anyway, I just recorded the getTV Fred Sears mini-marathon tonight of THE OUTLAW STALLION, THE NEBRASKAN and MASSACRE CANYON. 50s Westerns all.
AMC was a good channel before they went commercial, I even got some Roy ROgers films uncut. Also they used to show lot of rarely seen Paramount films. Alas and alak no more. Even TCM doesn’t show the Paramount films AMC used to. The MOVIES! channel shows a lot of Columbia movies (the way Antenna TV used to) Get TV seems to show a bit of everything. They also had a mini Buck Jones marathon after the several Phil Carey westerns they showed in a row. I was surprised though that they didn’t show “Massacre Canyon” in widescreen format, since GET usually does show them widescreen when they that way. Example “Face Of A Fugitive” which for the first time was shown widescreen there. Even TCM didn’t show “Face of Fugitive” widescreen when they showed it about a year ago.
As for Fred MacMurray movies, I’d like to get a 3D version of “Moonlighter”!
GetTV cut Face Of A Fugitive in the scene where James Coburn gets wrapped up in the barbed wire. It looked good, however.
The MacMurray I want is At Gunpoint widescreen.
Toby,
Sadly AT GUNPOINT is one of the Allied Artists films not now owned by
Warner Bros. A whole heap of the Allied Artists library was sold off to
Republic decades ago.
I have already requested this film on the Warner Archive Facebook
page and they broke the bad news that this is one they do not own.
AT GUNPOINT I presume is now controlled by Paramount and possibly
Olive Films may consider it for a future release. Whatever the outcome
this film NEEDS to be seen in Widescreen