‘Stranger on the Run,’ Henry Fonda’s most obscure western

The face that embodied tortured conscience for nearly 50 years: Henry Fonda, as alcoholic drifter and one-time prisoner Ben Chamberlain, casts a distinctive right side profile in director Don Siegel’s little-seen western “Stranger on the Run,” distributed as part of NBC’s “Tuesday Night at the Movies” on October 31, 1967, and later shown in theaters internationally. Image Credit: Universal Television / Profiles in History [auction house]

It’s curiosity-piquing unraveling why Stranger on the Run, a made-for-TV western starring Henry Fonda, was mired in oblivion for over five decades despite the winning efforts of future Dirty Harry collaborators Don Siegel and Dean Riesner. Corralling a revered pedigree of Tinseltown veterans — Michael Parks, Sal Mineo, Dan Duryea, Anne Baxter, and sole surviving primary cast alum Michael Burns—Stranger on the Run bowed as a “world premiere” offering on NBC’s Tuesday Night at the Movies, won its Halloween 1967 time slot, earned encouraging notices, and was eventually consumed by European moviegoers.

Set in 1885 in a fictional New Mexico railroad outpost, Death Dance at Banner, as it was originally called, finds Fonda as grizzled saddle tramp and one-time prisoner Ben Chamberlain. Caught stowing away in a boxcar as the theme song performed by Country Music Hall of Famer Bill Anderson ambles to a close [you can read his exclusive remembrance here], the laconic Chamberlain takes a job assisting a general store proprietor. He’s really in town because he promised a friend he’d give a message to his saloon-working sister [Madlyn Rhue], whose penchant for harboring secrets has caused anxiety among certain influential townsmen. Facing a wall of silence, through perseverance Chamberlain discovers her rundown residence — and lifeless body. Hotly pursued by…