After his first movie, 1966's Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round, Harrison Ford was called in by a Columbia executive. "Sit down, kid, I want to tell you a story," the executive said to Ford, who had played a bit part as a bellboy. "The first time Tony Curtis was in a movie he delivered a bag of groceries. We took one look at him and knew he was a movie star. But you ain't got it, kid, you ain't got it. I want you to go back to class and study." At which point Ford leaned across the desk and replied, "I thought you were supposed to look at him and say, 'There is the grocery boy.' "
That was the beginning of the end of Ford's career at Columbia, but the beginning of the beginning of his life as an actor. Though the Columbia executive did not recognize it, Ford was demonstrating a talent that was later to become his trademark: the ability to deliver a fast, funny and sometimes devastating comeback. It took eleven years more--and Star Wars--before movie audiences were allowed to hear and see what Ford could do, but since then, he has shown over and over again that he has not only got it, but got it big enough to draw lines that stretch around the block and into the next galaxy.
In box-office bucks, there are no real competitors; Ford has starred in five of the ten highest grossers of all time: Star Wars, Return of the Jedi, The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Now, returning from the outer space of the Star Wars sagas and the exotic locales frequented by that adventurous archaeologist, Indiana Jones, he is starring in Peter Weir's Witness, a contemporary thriller that promises to be the first hit of 1985. Put into wide release on Feb. 8, the film made $4,540,000 in its first weekend, an exceptional figure for a picture that boasts neither gimmicks nor special effects.
Shortly after the picture begins, it depicts a brutal murder in the Philadelphia train station. The crime is witnessed by an Amish boy (Lukas Haas) who is traveling with his newly widowed mother (Kelly McGillis). Ford plays John Book, the Philadelphia detective who investigates, only to discover, with the boy's help, that the murder was committed by high members of his own department who have become involved in the drug trade. The hunter becomes the hunted, and Book, wounded, is forced to seek refuge with the boy and his mother among the Amish, the Pennsylvania Dutch folk who live and dress in the manner of the 18th century and believe in nonviolence as a religious principle. Amused and baffled by them at first, Book gradually begins to appreciate the values of these simple people and falls in love, of course, with the boy's lovely mother.