Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Stephanie There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

blanche-2 Directed by John Ford, "The Fugitive" from 1947 is based on the Graham Greene novel and concerns a priest (Henry Fonda) in Central America trying to escape the authorities. Christianity has been denounced, and all the priests have been shot.The priest meets an Indian woman (Delores del Rio) who has an illegitimate baby, and she explains that none of the babies in the town have been baptized. He baptizes them, but the next day, the authorities see the water in the font and that the candles have been burned and heighten their search. The priest has now disguised himself and goes to Puerto Grande, where he can board a ship for America. However, he winds up on the run again.Not one of Ford's top films, but highly recommended because it is Ford and his amazing artist's eye for framing a shot. The photography is breathtaking; of course, it's hard to go wrong with the gorgeous Delores del Rio. She gives a wonderful performance, as does Fonda as a haunted, hunted man.There are a lot of chases, some singing, not a lot of dialogue, and it's a somber film. There are other Ford films I like better, but all of his work is worth seeing.

Spikeopath The Fugitive is directed by John Ford and adapted to screenplay by Dudley Nichols from the Graham Greene novel The Labyrinthine Ways. It stars Henry Fonda, Dolores del Rio, Pedro Armendáriz, J. Carrol Naish, Leo Carrillo and Ward Bond. Music is by Richard Hageman and cinematography by Gabriel Figueropa.Latin America and anti-cleric policies render the last remaining priest in this particular state a fugitive...Depending on which side of the fence you sit, this is either a turgid bore or one of John Ford's masterpieces. Ford himself claimed it to be one of his favourites of his own movies, but that may well just have been him standing tall in the face of criticism. Undeniably it's a visual treat as the great director blends his landscape skills with expressionistic stylings, but the religio allegory of the narrative is quite frankly dull and often too oblique for its own good. It doesn't help that Fonda is miscast either, the great director unable to steer Fonda to a performance to off set the staid screenplay he's forced to work with. While the other characters just come off as artificial.Interesting to look at and with some commentary (biblical/repression) in the mix, but it's an experiment from one of America's greatest directors that doesn't work. It's not hard to see why it was a box office stiff. 5/10

Tom Erik Høiås Henry Fonda plays a priest on the run from the government after brainwashing people into believing god exists, in fact he actually believe he is right. this has to be the worst John Ford movie ever. it had absolutely nothing going for it. boring crap all the way. the religious glorification made me sick to my stomach. i usually don't react that way too those kinds of movies. but this one was just barfing out loads of holiness and made the priest look like the messiah or some crap. avoid at all costs! especially if you like john Ford's movies, because this film was so beneath him that i suspect he was brain damaged by alcohol during the shoot. ignore the ghastly reviews that says this is a so called masterpiece. IT'S NOT!!!

JoeytheBrit This is a strange one: a John Ford film that looks more like some failed experiment by Orson Welles (something he toyed with before growing bored) with a turgid, meandering plot that, for the most part, stubbornly refuses to engage, and a leading man who looks as uncomfortable as he does ridiculous.Henry Fonda plays the fugitive of the title – a catholic priest in a Latin American police state determined to eliminate all traces of religion – with all the enthusiasm of a seven-year-old forced to attend Sunday school. Perhaps it's the fact that all the characteristics that drove the priest in Grahame Greene's source novel (i.e. drinking, womanising, doubting of God's love) have been ruthlessly whitewashed from the screen version leaving us with a blank canvas that still somehow contrives to be pious in the extreme. Fonda doesn't know what to do with the part, and Ford's heavy-handed, over-sentimentalised treatment doesn't help him one bit. Ford ladles it on – especially early on when we get a crippled child hobbling into church on his crutches, and subjects us to a number of intimate lingering shots of Dolores Del Rio's Mary Magdalene figure who blinks so rarely that I at first thought she was supposed to be blind. She really becomes quite frightening after a while, and I found my attention to what plot there is evaporating as I entered into some perverse kind of staring competition with her each time she appeared on screen.The film looks great, thanks to Gabriel Figueroa's cinematography and the location shooting, but the film goes nowhere as it hammers home its message: a soul lacking religion will quickly become corrupt and debauched, and trying to deny your faith to yourself will lead only to frustration and self-loathing. Pedro Armendariz as the tortured police captain and Ward Bond as a criminal fugitive bag the best roles, although Bond's is somewhat underdeveloped, meaning his protection of the fugitive priest in the corn field appears a little puzzling. Presumably he identifies with the priest's plight, but we are told too little about him to understand why.Bottom line: this is one of Ford's misfires, and not very interesting at that.