DIRECTED BY: Arthur Ripley
FEATURING: Robert Cummings, Michèle Morgan, Steve Cochran, Peter Lorre
PLOT: A mentally fragile veteran of the U.S. Navy stumbles into the employ of an eccentric gangster and inadvertently seduces the hoodlum’s wife; his dodgy escape gets dodgier when his mind snaps and he awakens in an unfamiliar apartment.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: While it is rare to find an example of film noir that isn’t worth seeing, it is also rare to find one that fits the description of “weird.” The Chase dabbles with some strange encounters and has a plot explosion that very nearly carries it into 366’s warm embrace, but it comes up short enough to make one wish the film-makers had gone the distance.
COMMENTS: With a scramble of memory loss, noir grit and brevity, oddball bad guys, and a side of Peter Lorre, The Chase cruises down its narrative path with an unlikely mix of the conventional and the abnormal. We dive right into the story of Chuck Scott (Robert Cummings), a down-at-the-heels navy veteran in Florida who finds and returns the cash-filled wallet of one Eddie Roman (Steve Cochran). Both impressed and amused by the man’s honesty, Roman hires Scott as his chauffeur, firing the man’s predecessor on the spot. Scott quickly gains the trust of Roman’s captive wife, Loran (Michèle Morgan), and after a number of trips to a nearby beach, they plot an escape. An hour in, we are deep indeed in standard noir territory—and then something odd happens.
But please allow me to back-track for a moment. As characteristic as it was to start with, The Chase already seemed to have a weird undercurrent attempting to break free. The scene where Scott tracks down Roman and tries to get a meeting with him to return the wallet is a bizarre set-piece that I can only describe as repetition at the corner of creepy and amusing. Through the door’s peep-hole, Scott first explains himself to a butler (named “Job,” of all things), then holds the exact same conversation with a henchman, one “Mr Geno” (Peter Lorre). Gaining entrance, Scott explains himself a third time before Mr Geno reluctantly directs him to Eddie Roman, who is being groomed by two female attendants. Roman asks one, “How do you feel being a barber … cutting a man’s hair. Feels good, doesn’t it?”
Between this scene and the twist we see a souped-up luxury car with rear-seat gas and brake, Peter Lorre laconically quipping, a knife-throwing Cuban waiter, and a biddable Asian imports/exports shop-keeper. Or do we? There is a dimly lit transition shot of a telephone ringing and all of a sudden the movie jumps from bad things happening in Cuba to unclear things happening back in Florida.
Scott, waking up in a room we know he lives in, has no idea what’s going on. He stumbles around a little, he takes the medication he left on the desk, and makes a phone call, explaining, “…it’s happened again.” At that point, The Chase seems to shift into high-weird gear, and we start trundling down an understated but “off” string of events. Build, build, build—and oh so sweetly—only, alas, to have the weird rug pulled away to make room for an altogether too prosaic ending. I generally don’t say this, but this film seems ripe for a re-make by a director who’d be willing to go as far as coherently ((Or, for those who’d prefer, as incoherently as possible.)) possible; that said, I recommend you check this one out.
Kino Lorber’s 2016 DVD/Blu-ray release of The Chase includes commentary by none other than Guy Maddin.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
The Seventh Victim was the first and best of the Robson/Lewton films. Drenched in a noir sheen, it is also the bleakest movie in Lewton’s RKO cannon.The film has an exceptional cast: Kim Hunter as Mary, Tom Conway as Dr. Judd, and Jean Brooks as Jacqueline. As excellent as Hunter and Conway are here, it is Brooks’ raven-like, hypnotic, fiercely haunting performance, exuding a Montgomery Clift-like fragility, which vividly lingers. RKO had no appreciation for such an individualistic, interiorized actor, and unceremoniously released her. She died of extreme malnutrition and alcoholism at the age of 47.
Strange Woman (1946) was a rarity in Ulmer’s oeuvre: he had a worthwhile budget, a script based off a best-selling novel. an accomplished cinematographer (Lucien Andriot), and a topnotch cast, headed by a star actor (Hedy Lamarr, who also produced). The result was a hit upon its release, yet it has become one of the more obscure Ulmer films; perhaps, because it is typical of the 1940s femme fatale melodramas and cannot compare to the likes of the better known Gilda, which was released the same year.