Dead Man, Dead Man

Hitchhiking Ben had been viewing wallet photos of a driver's family when the driver runs off the road and crashes down an embankment into a fast-moving river. Ben, thrown free and only slightly injured, uses the wallet to assume the dead man's identity when he hears Fletcher is inquiring about the accident. This poses a problem: the man was a Philadelphia policeman who journeyed to the small California town to take a fugitive back to Pennsylvania. The prisoner has assumed an identity of his own, that of a physician, which is what is he facing charges for. Fletcher is unwilling to accept that Ben perished in the crash. He keeps vigil at the crash site and scours the town with photos of Ben. With the only road in and out of town closed for repairs, Ben has to avoid Fletcher and an angry resident who thinks nothing of resorting to violence to keep the doctor from being arrested. He also must hope that the prisoner will not reveal Ben's true identity and that the real policeman's b