THE FUGITIVE | johnfordfilmcenter

The Fugitive (1947)

BACKGROUND

The Fugitive was shot on location in Cuernavaca, Mexico and in the Churubusco Studios in Mexico City. With the exception of two assistant directors and an editor, the entire crew was Mexican and Ford reported that the team ran: "neck and neck with the best...in Hollywood.” At the top of the list was cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa who would go on to shoot Luis Buñuel’s Los Olvidados in 1950 along with four more of the surrealist director’s films as well as John Huston’s The Night of the Iguana in 1964.

Ford turned down a lucrative $600,000 a year contract from Zanuck after My Darling Clementine proved to be the final straw in their relationship. Instead he launched Argosy Pictures with his Stagecoach and The Long Voyage Home producer Marian C. Cooper as partner and his wartime superior Bill Donovan as an investor. The company signed a three picture deal with RKO as distributor in which Ford retained complete creative control, something that was unheard of ever with the rare exception of Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane before his dramatic fall from grace in the eyes of the studios. Ford had originally planned to make The Fugitive at Fox with Thomas Mitchel in the role of the priest before the war intervened. The role eventually went to Henry Fonda who ultimately felt uncomfortable with the part and with Ford’s direction.