JohnHowardReid Although she had a long association with the genre, Michele Morgan is not a star one usually associates with film noir, so it comes as something of a surprise to find her playing the tragic heroine in Arthur Ripley's extremely weird, "The Chase" (1946). Adapted from a Cornell Woolrich novel and stylishly photographed by Franz Planer, the movie grips the attention almost right up to its bizarre conclusion. It's at the point Jack Holt (giving a remarkably listless performance) enters, that tension starts to unwind. Nonetheless, the opening scenes (especially that with Lloyd Corrigan trapped in a cellar) and the noirish interlude in Havana are so powerful that they carry the viewer right through to the end. Aside from Holt, all the players are most impressive, particularly Steve Cochran, Peter Lorre and all the really memorable players (including even the extras) who appear in the Spanish sequences. Robert Cummings, as the luckless lead, delivers his best performance ever! (9/10 DVD available from VCI).

oldblackandwhite The Chase (l946) is one of several movies with this title, and if I believed in such things, I would speculate that the title is a curse. I didn't think it could possibly be worse than the turgid 1966 Marlin Brando movie ("I gotta go find Bubber...") of the same title, but it comes close.Have you ever had the following type of experience? You have just met someone who at first seems bright, interesting, and appealing -- let's say it is a member of the opposite sex you're hoping to put the charm on. Everything goes swimmingly at first, but the more you listen to this person, the more you realize that he or she is utterly mad, and now you are just looking for a way to extricate yourself from the conversation and run for cover. That's exactly what watching this movie is like.The requisite spoiler warning at the top, seems almost redundant, since this movie spoils itself with an unconvincing and confused plot hopelessly marred by the most dramatic, involved, and exciting sequence of the movie turning out to be a "dream" or a delusion of the major character. During this schizoid episode,the hero, played by Robert Cummings, imagines he has run away to Cuba with the gorgeous wife (Michele Morgan) of his gangster employer (Steve Chochran). Not long after they arrive in Havana the dame is stabbed to death in a bar, he is accused of the murder, runs from the police, and witnesses another brutal murder in a pawn shop. At this point he suddenly wakes up in his room back in the States, swallows a handful of pills and beats it over to the nearest military hospital to have a chat with his psychiatrist (Jack Holt). Turns out, the hero, a WWII veteran, is suffering from either a head injury or what is now called post-traumatic stress syndrome. Which it is, like much else in this movie, is not clear. There was never any warning this lengthy sequence, in which a major character was killed, was a dream. Nor was there any warning Cummings' character was prone to psychotic episodes, unless you count an early scene in which he is seen to be undramatically popping a couple of pills. Now the movie takes up where it left off before the "dream sequence" with the beautiful moll still alive and waiting to be swept away to Havana. This is cheating by the movie makers. Another reviewer stated that he thought at first a reel had been left out, and such an impression is perfectly understandable.The Chase is ultimately an unsatisfying, slow-moving (except for the irrelevant dream sequence), and uninspired. It was a waste of a talented cast, a lot of noir atmosphere, and what would probably been good cinematography if one had a well-restored DVD copy. Recommend only to the following types: 1) Hard drug trippers and down and dirty alcoholics. The confused, disconnected, unreal atmosphere may seem normal to you. 2) Peter Lorre cultists. As gangster Cochran's sinister, chain-smoking henchman, he gives one of his best and least hammy performances. 3) Wide-eyed, doctrinaire film class graduates who can be convinced any unconventional movie, no matter how silly and pointless, is "arty". 4) Die-hard fans of old black and whites, such as yours truly, who will watch almost anything from that golden era.

Alex da Silva A hungry Chuck Scott (Robert Cummings) returns a wallet to gangster Eddie Roman (Steve Cochran) and is rewarded with a job as Eddie's chauffeur. He takes Eddie's wife Lorna (Michele Morgan) for drives along the beach in the evenings and they fall in love. They arrange to escape to Cuba.....I knew to expect a twist in this film and so the plot made sense to me. It's not difficult to follow the story and there is an obvious beginning to the dream sequence when the picture becomes transparent and dreamlike for a couple of minutes and Michele Morgan's dress colour changes from white to black. This provides the beginning to a large section of the film and we return to Chuck asleep on his bed for the final denouement. I was reminded of "Pulp Fiction" where sections of the film are jumbled up, but this film is not as confusing to put back together.The cast are all good. Robert Cummings is likable as the hero and the film starts off with some humour as he tucks into a meal. The best performances come from Steve Cochran as the psycho and Alexis Minotis as Lt. Acosta in the dream sequence. However, a major problem with the film is it's condition. There are sections where it is impossible to make out the dialogue and the film is too dark so that you don't know what you're watching for long stretches. It's a shame as it almost completely ruins the experience of watching the film. If you can stick through these passages, it's a good film.

Terrell-4 In Hollywood, directors get the credit. With The Chase, a strange, fascinating, neurotic noir, the credit should go to one of the masters of noir pulp fiction, the writer Cornell Woolrich. Like Phantom Lady, another Woolrich creation, the story centers around what might be struggling to get out of a person's head. Woolrich wrote masterful pulp using his own name or the pseudonyms William Irish or George Hopley. He was a homosexual who loathed himself. He married a girl he idolized and saw the marriage annulled. Despite the money he made, he lived most of his life with his mother in decaying New York apartment buildings where his neighbors were lushes, prostitutes and drug addicts. At night, he'd troll the waterfront for anonymous sex partners. He became a deep alcoholic. And he turned out a stream of mystery novels and short stories that still are worth reading nearly 40 years after his death. Much of his material has been made into movies. If you like Hitchcock's Rear Window, you're watching a Cornell Woolrich short story. More often than not, the stories revolve around the black struggles that can happen inside a person's head. The Chase, based on Woolrich's The Black Path of Fear, is a noir worth watching. One morning a down-and-out young man, Chuck Scott (Robert Cummings), finds a wallet on a Miami sidewalk. He finds the owner's name and address and delivers it to him. The owner, Eddie Roman (Steve Cochran), is a soft-spoken gangster with a penchant for hitting women, eliminating business competitors and for always being the man in control. His partner, Gino (Peter Lorre), who grew up with him, is just as ruthless and amoral, but not as psychopathic. Roman has been married three years to Lorna (Michelle Morgan), a beautiful, frightened woman who wants only to escape from him. Eddie Roman is amused by Chuck Scott's honesty and hires him as a chauffeur. Scott quickly learns two things. First, Roman has a car that is built so that from the back seat Roman can take over the accelerator. When he flips a switch he can move the car up to over 100 miles an hour. The driver can only steer and pray. The second thing Scott learns is that he is drawn to Lorna Roman. It all comes together when Scott agrees to flee with Lorna to Havana. And then we descend into a dark swirl of murder, pay back, amnesia and fear. Half way through the movie we find ourselves in a paranoid dream of night-time Havana, of a horse-drawn carriage that rides off into a busy street, of a man glimpsed throwing a knife in a crowded bar, of a Cuban detective who casually uses a murder knife to spear a piece of melon from the table of a sobbing prostitute. Only later do we learn what is dream and what is real. If what was dream is frightening, what is real may turn out to be worse. This really is an excellently developed story, and photographed with all the poorly lit streets and shadowy rooms a good noir needs. Cummings does a credible job as the uncertain but determined hero. Steve Cochran is first-rate as the menace. He's quiet, even thoughtful, but ready to do violent and unpredictable things in an instant. He has no intention of letting Lorna go. Lloyd Corrigan, a long time character actor, makes a memorable appearance as a businessman who won't sell his ships to Roman. He spends the rest of his life, which is brief, in Roman's wine cellar with a large dog. The music score is a strange dreamy underlay that suits the movie just fine.