The Fugitive: Season One, Volume One (2007)

People who know The Fugitive only from the 1993 Harrison Ford film can relish the DVD debut of the '60s TV series upon which it was based. Created by Roy Huggins, the television genius who gave us, among othershows, The Rockford Files, The Fugitive stars David Janssen as Dr. Richard Kimble. Convicted of murdering his wife, he escapes from death row to search for the real killer — Bill Raisch's ''one-armed man'' — and is pursued by Gerard (Barry Morse), an obsessed police lieutenant. The Fugitive: Season One, Volume One provides just 15 of the debut season's 30 episodes; still, they're terrific black-and-white fare. Janssen, with his hooded eyes and jug ears, makes a pretty noticeable fugitive, but this was a canny anthology series: Most weeks, Kimble took a different job (bartender, construction worker) in a different town, aided dames in distress, and dealt with colorful characters (you'll glimpse young versions of actors like Robert Duvall, Leslie Nielsen, and Jack Klugman). The Fugitive told lean, mean crime stories in the manner of then-best-selling pulp novelist John D. MacDonald, its victim-hero a hunted, haunted man. A-