The Fugitive (TV Series) Man in a Chariot (1964) User Reviews

Begley's Showcase

[AudioFileZ · 8/10 · 24 September 2014]

Man in a Chariot breaks out a new intro for a new season, and possibly another dimension in placing Jansenn's role in a supporting mode for a "special" guest star. With a compelling performance by Begley it, mostly, works.

Begley, as G. Stanley Lazer is an angry attorney put to pasture due to a debilitating and questionable accident. He misses the courtroom reduced to a non-practicing law professor teaching kids he has respect as well as contempt for. These kids have the chance he no longer has, or so he thinks. By riding them hard he struggles to gain some much needed relevance hoping to recreate someone in his image. Lazer chooses to claim in a TV interview that if he was still practicing law he could reverse the decisions of several high-profile cases. Kimball's case is the only one in which the convicted felon remains alive. Kimball, seeing the TV interview, seeks out Lazer with hopes he might be able to get a new trial, without a one-armed man assailant, whereby he can be exonerated. In other words an appeal in which the circumstantial evidence produces "reasonable doubt" and an acquittal.

Lazer's meeting with Kimball sets things in motion for a classroom "mock" trial. The ensuing trial is a bit "helter skelter" in that, it would seem, for every step Lazer gains in Kimball's defense, he suffers two steps back. The trial forces Lazer to adopt a new tact of no bluster opting for an examination of the certain kind of humanity Richard Kimball possesses. In the process Lazer is transformed realizing he may not actually be able to free Kimball even as he wins a mock "not guilty" verdict. This by no small means resulting from a scathing conversation presided over by Kimball. It is implied that Lazer embraces his role as teacher thus finding his own personal relevance and peace. In an out of character last meeting with Kimball, Lazer advises Kimball in spite of everything that Kimball's only "out" is not in an appeal, but in finding the one-armed murderer. This only reinforces Richard Kimball's running and searching assuring us of many more interesting episodes. Begley's melodramatic performance is the real jewel here as his own personal education of redemption thus renewed purpose, one with inner peace to embrace his role of teacher.

So here we have it, a revamped The Fugitive. One which in the end is different from any of those before yet equally good.

A cranky old Law professor tackles the Kimble trial....

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 18 March 2017]

The great character actor, Ed Begley, guest stars in this episode of "The Fugitive". He plays Professor Lazer, a cranky law professor that has long proclaimed Richard Kimble's innocence. So, Kimble (David Janssen) approaches him and asks if there's anything he can do to help. Lazer plans on having his students do a mock trial and re-try the Kimble murder case...and perhaps an innocent verdict might convince folks that there's a reasonable doubt and re-open the old case. But the legal authorities get wind of the trial and when they sat in they noticed one BIG problem...some of the evidence being submitted by the Defense Attorney (Lazer himself) is NOT from the old transcripts and there's no way he should have known these details! Obviously there's some collusion going on here...and Kimble may just be walking into a trap.

Overall, this is a decent but not especially distinguished episode of the series. Mind you, decent for this show STILL is awfully good and deserves to be seen.

Plot summary

[ynot-16 · 7/10 · 3 November 2006]

Kimble sees law professor G. Stanley Lazer (played by actor Ed Begley) on television declaring that he could have gotten various people off, including Richard Kimble. Kimble travels to the university to see if Prof. Lazer can help him. Lazer agrees and reads transcripts, then decides to do a mock trial in his class as a dry run, to prove that he can win acquittal from a jury of his students.

Lazer is a crippled old man, bitter about losing his wife, his career as an attorney, and his ability to walk in an automobile accident 10 years earlier, which forced him against his will into the teaching profession. Although devoted to Kimble's cause, he unfairly browbeats his students.

Newsmen, getting wind of the story, suspect Kimble is nearby, and contact Stafford police. For reasons unexplained, Lieutenant Gerard is not involved, and instead Sgt. Pulaski comes. Kimble faces severe danger as Pulaski and local police search the law school. Lazer, the students, and Kimble all learn important lessons as Kimble has a narrow escape.

awesome episode

[mastro726-1 · 10/10 · 4 May 2017]

Without doubt my favorite episode of the series. The second season got off beautifully with this deeply poetic plot of a very bitter ex lawyer now university professor who tries to make himself believe that he is still relevant by defending Kimble before a mock trial of students who detest him. Ed Beagley gives the best guest turn of any actor or actress in the entire series. Kimble's speech to him in the final act is the best David Janseen had done in my opinion.

Top quality

[smuddifr · 10/10 · 31 August 2020]

This was IMO an absolutely brilliant episode. The writing and acting were top notch. Nothing today's writers come up with can equal it. Everything is in the dialogue, no gimmicky action scenes. Perfect.

9/15/64: "Man in a Chariot"

[schappe1 · 26 April 2015]

This episode, the premiere of the second season, brings in the new opening that simply consists of stills from first season episodes and William Conrad explaining Kimble's situation. The shots of Gerard are from a dream sequence in "Nightmare at Northoak". There's also a "teaser" sequence from later in the episode to intrigue you with Kimble's latest predicament. I also note some new, more exciting musical cues are used in the tense sequences when the police are closing in. Those old Twlight Zone cues, (and some from Gunsmoke), are not much in evidence. I kind of miss them because the new music is a bit loud and over-the-top at times.

Ever wonder what would happen if Richard Kimble was defended by Clarence Darrow? Ed Begley plays a "Lion in Winter" type of old fashioned lawyer whose career as a defender of the innocent and oppressed came to an end with a traffic accident that killed his wife and put him in a wheelchair. When he claims on TV that he could win Richard Kimble's case, Kimble contacts him to see if that's possible. Begley is teaching a law course at a small college and arranges for a "moot court" session based on Kimble's case in which his students will be the judge, prosecutor and witnesses but Begley will be the defense attorney. But things go wrong in part because of the brilliance of the student playing the prosecutor, (who is played by Robert Drivas who would later play David Janssen's son in the theatrical movie "Where it's At", in 1969).

The story in this one seems a bit more contrived than usual, even for this series, with Begley making an emotional plea for Kimble that is really a plea for himself to be forgiven for the death of his own wife. Kimble becomes (seemingly) more concerned with Begley's relationship with his prized student than he is with his own situation.

One of the plot devises the writers used in this series was the apparent ally with possible ulterior, (or at least different), motives and a possible conflict of interest who may not turn out to be a reliable ally in the end. Ray Kimble in "Home is the Hunted", Mike Decker in "Search in a Windy City" and Begley's character in this (G. Stanley Lazer, who is said to have once worked for Darrow) is another. So is Ellie Burnett in the next one.

Thrilling opener.

[kennyp-44177 · 8/10 · 27 July 2021]

I agree with other comments. This is the perfect start for second season, David Jannsen giving his reliable hundred percent performance, Ed Begley outstanding as the embittered defence lawyer whose career was cut short because of an automobile crash, good supporting cast and a lot of tension! Especially in the mock court room scenes. A gem, enjoy.

The doc gets a new trial.....sort of.

[jsinger-58969 · 9/10 · 22 November 2022]

The iconic train wreck is replaced on the open of S2. In its place is a dramatic moment from the episode, followed by stills displaying our hero's plight. This one borrows from Dossier on a Diplomat, or maybe it's the other way around. In one, Kimble hears that a writer believes he can get him a new trial, and in the other, this one, it's a law professor who says the same thing. The prof is a bitter, cranky old coot, played by Ed Begley. He's bitter because an accident has confined him to a wheelchair and prevented him from continuing to be a brilliant defense attorney. He's not happy teaching law and takes it out on his students. He recreates the Kimble trial to see if he can win the case in spite of the mutual hatred between he and his students. The Indiana cops get wind of the fact that the prof has requested the transcript of the Kimble trial, but curiously Gerard is not sent to the scene. Perhaps Carpenter has gotten tired of Gerard's repeated failures to bring Kimble in. Anyways, Kimble lays the law down to the prof about how his students are not the cause of his problems and how he should lighten up on them. The prof is moved, as he has become the latest member of the Richard Kimble changed my life club. He gives his closing arguments in the case, and instead of throwing Kimble on the mercy of the court, he throws himself. The jury finds Kimble not guilty, but they really acquitted the prof, who tells Dick the only way out for him is to find the one armed man. So Dick continues his search as he remains.....a fugitive.

Kimble Gets A Mock Retrial By An Embittered Law Professor

[stp43 · 7/10 · 27 October 2018]

Man In A Chariot is the first episode in which Kimble is able to get something resembling a retrial. While working at a bar Kimble sees a television debate involving law professor G. Stanley Lazer, a former lawyer paralyzed in a car accident, who claims he can win acquittal for Richard Kimble is given the opportunity. Kimble tracks down the professor and takes him up on the offer, and a mock retrial, televised for the university at which Lazer is employed, is set up.

Lazer's star pupil is Lee Gould, and he proves more than formidable to Lazer, but the strain of the mock trial tells for both. Kimble has a talk with Gould and learns how much he respects Lazer. Kimble then confronts Lazer and realizes Lazer is driven by wounded vanity, blaming the students for his bitterness and also revealing his accident was the result of drunk driving by his wife, who was killed in that same crash. Lazer's jab at Kimble about a woman's capacity to get drunk is surprising and strikingly effective.

But Kimble counters in one of the finest moments of the series and of Janssen's career; he reminds Lazer that his students didn't make him paralyzed or are responsible for his advanced age, but Lazer insists they're guilty - and Kimhle cuts to the core of wounded vanity by asking if what they're actually guilty of is striving to be what he was and "trampling on some private little kingdom of yours?"

Lazer concedes Kimble's point, and responds in his final argument of the trial. The scene is powerfully portrayed but Lazer's speech is pathetically flawed - a maudlin epistle asking to acquit Kimble because he's a doctor who loves his job and loves people - nowhere does any fact of the murder indictment get mentioned, nowhere does Lazer offer any proof Kimble didn't commit the murder. What Lazer asks is for feelings to take precedence over facts - the absolute worst philosophy to live by.

This stunning logical gaffe damages an otherwise superior episode.