One of Henry Fonda's best films from the Sixties is this made for TV film Stranger On The Run. In fact it's better than some of the films that did get a theatrical release. It's a western directed by Don Siegel who among other of his films directed John Wayne in his swan song The Shootist.
This one is more like The Most Dangerous Game out west. Henry Fonda is hardly the big game hunter type. A whole lot of luck and the kindness of some strangers is what makes him survive.
As Henry Fonda remarks when he gets kicked off a freight train where he hitched a ride, there's a whole lot of law for a town that's hardly a whistle stop. That's because this is a railroad town and railroad cop Michael Parks and a flock of deputies have made it their headquarters.
Fonda gets noticed by Parks and his deputies when he asks about a woman played by Madelyn Rhue. When Rhue turns up dead later, Fonda is the one immediately suspected and he runs.
But there are other issues here. The men are bored and Parks for his own amusement gives Fonda a horse and a head start and then sends a posse after him. But Fonda finds help from a few people and it gets a whole lot more difficult than he thought.
Some other good performances that Siegel got from his cast were from Anne Baxter as the farm widow who has a son Michael Burns with the posse, but Fonda helps her and she helps Fonda. There's also Dan Duryea as an old marshal who realizes Parks is developing a real taste for the sanguinary aspects of his job.
Fonda is no wild west hero, he's at his best playing a Mr. Every Man as he does here. Somebody up there likes him however, you can't explain his survival any other way.
