Should he retire tomorrow, 20 years from now movie fans will be as surprised by Harrison Ford's failure to win an Academy Award as we are by Cary Grant's.

All right, perhaps there hasn't been any particular year in which the academy could have rightfully said Ford was America's greatest movie actor. But for the last 15 years, he has been something just as important to audiences, and more important to Hollywood: America's most dependable movie star.

He has starred in the two most popular movie series of all time, the "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" trilogies, and has launched another series with "Patriot Games." Those credits alone would be enough to solidify Ford's position as a major star, without even considering the cult classic "Blade Runner," the comedy hit "Working Girl" and his two big box-office thrillers, "Presumed Innocent" and "Witness" (the latter of which brought him his only Oscar nomination).

Ford's reputation has suffered because the credit for his biggest hits has gone to the producers and directors (and because his first hit, "Star Wars," succeeded despite one of Ford's more callow performances). What's often overlooked is what he brings to these films: solidity, strength, intelligence and a sense of humor that seems based in some secret suffering. If the suffering can sometimes become stiffling (even considering the character's predicament, he was awfully grim in "Presumed Innocent"), it can also add weight to the thinnest of characters. "Working Girl" worked because Ford was convincing both as a female ideal and as a man who feared his business acumen was slipping away.

Solidity, however, is not particualrly spectacular--so it's no great surprise Ford was overlooked again for his performance in "The Fugitive." The film garnered seven Oscar nominations, including Best Pciture and a well-deserved Best Supporting Actor nomination for Tommy Lee Jones. But nothing for Ford, who turned in an old-fashioned, rock-solid star performance in an old-fashioned, rock-solid Hollywood movie. That kind of performance doesn't win awards, just fans.

The move from TV series to big-screen movie strips "The Fugitive" to its essentials: man chasing man chasing man. While we still get the infamous one-armed man, the film's condensed time frame means we're spared the sight of Dr. Richard Kimble moving from town to town helping the poor and oppressed. Instead, we get a tighter focus and a neater mystery.

We also get director Andrew Davis, who provides the kind of visceral thrills you only get when a movie surprises you. There's that much talked about train chase, for example, which is exciting and funny when it could have easily become ridiculous.

And, of course, we get Ford, as a tortured man who takes secret pleasure in his ability to outwit both his prey and his pursuer, and Jones, as an equally bright lawman more interested in the law than justice. Do I need to tell you the TV series never offered anything comparable? For that matter, neither do most movies.

By Robert Bianco
Originally published in the
Daily News
March 1994