This rarely seen Ford film is adapted from a Graham Greene novel, its dark drama heightened by Figueroa’s chiaroscuro cinematography. In an unidentified land, religion has been outlawed and priests are hunted. But one remains (Fonda), his pride and commitment compelling him to tend to the people in the villages he haunts like a ghost. But an obsessed soldier (Armendáriz) is on his trail.
“In my opinion, one of the great masterpieces of black & white cinematography is THE FUGITIVE… It is photographed as dramatically as possible with heroic compositions, high, low and wide angles, magnificent shafts of back-light, symbolic shadows of the cross, etc…If you can see a projected print of THE FUGITIVE, do it.”
Robert Primes on www.theasc.com