Īccording to producer Mark Shivas, script editor Richard Broke had the idea of making six TV movie thrillers for the BBC which showed the changing nature of the British hero from 1918 to 1939, with Rogue Male to be the last. The novel had been filmed in 1941 by Fritz Lang, as Man Hunt, with Walter Pidgeon in the lead role. Soon afterwards, Britain declares war against Germany, and Hunter, now with his status restored, agrees to see the Admiralty about a secret mission (heavily implied to be a second attempt on Hitler's life). Over the course of several days, Hunter constructs a rudimentary crossbow, lures Quive-Smith into looking down his breathing hole, and shoots him in the head, killing him. Rather than kill Hunter, Quive-Smith offers to spare his life if he signs a false confession stating that he attempted to assassinate Hitler on behalf of British intelligence. Hunter's lead pursuer, an English Nazi sympathizer named Major Quive-Smith, successfully tracks him to his lair and traps him within it. It is revealed through flashbacks that his girlfriend, who played a role in organizing the German Resistance, was executed by the Nazi government. After killing a pursuer by electrocuting him on the London Underground, Sir Robert, now a fugitive, goes underground in rural England to escape his pursuers. He soon discovers that German agents are after him, and that the Nazi government has requested his extradition. However, Hunter survives the fall, and, with the aid of a German fisherman and a friendly sailor, makes his way back to England. Because of his high status in Britain, his captors intend to shoot him and disguise it as a hunting accident, but, because his body displays clear evidence of torture, they decide instead to throw him off of a cliff to disguise the signs. Captured and tortured by the Gestapo, he claims that his aiming at Hitler was simply an intellectual exercise, to see if it could be done. In early 1939, before the start of the Second World War, Sir Robert Hunter (O'Toole) takes aim at Adolf Hitler with a hunting rifle, but hesitates to shoot and is spotted and tackled by a Schutzstaffel (SS) guard.
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