Micitype Pretty Good

Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

ewleeds This film "The Chase" showed on UK night time TV. The casting looked good which suggested a good film ahead. I instantly fell in love with the French female star Michelle Morgan age 26, tall, blonde, good- looking, a sort of poor man's Ingrid 'Casablanca' Bergman, then I lost the plot. So did the Director, it had at least ten story lines which we learned later was a Walter Mitty type dream sequence involving a nightclub stabbing, two murders one using a savage dog, the Police and a back street chase through Havana which the audience thought was real. After one hour had passed the dream sequence then stopped and the true film commenced which was a nasty psycho-trick on the viewing audience. Others have called this long dream sequence the 'Film-Noir'part of the film. I hope this film experiment is never again repeated. All the actors tried there very best with a crazy script. Peter Lorre had a bit part well beneath his great talents and well deserved fame, Robert Cummings throughout the film looked as if he had a train to catch, I wish he had, and the great actress star was the elderly faded Russian gypsy type woman who owned the alleged antique shop in Havana (actually a Hollywood film shed) her small cameo role rescued an awful film.

jake_fantom Let's not forget, folks, these noir pictures were churned out by the dozens by fast- buck studios eager to cash in on the latest trend with bargain basement actors and hackneyed scripts. In the case of The Chase, that adds up to an hour and a half of incomprehensible twaddle and ridiculous plot twists, all served up in an atmospheric stew of dark shadows and preposterous sets. If you can make it through the first ninety or so minutes, you'll be rewarded with some of the goofiest faces ever made by an actor, courtesy of Peter Lorre in his pre-Roger Corman days. But that's not all folks. You also get a veritable monument to coarse acting by Bob Cummings and Steve Cochran. Anyone who claims to be able to follow the plot is lying, because there isn't one. Three stars only because the over-the-top sets add a few minutes of sporadic interest. If you watch through to the end in hopes of figuring out what actually happened, trust me, you'll be as baffled at the end as you were at the start.

zardoz-13 Robert Cummings finds himself up to his neck in trouble with a murderous Miami gangster in "Thunder Road" director Arthur Ripley's example of film noir "The Chase," co-starring Peter Lorre, Steve Cochran, Michèle Morgan, and Jack Holt. "The Chase" reminded me of an earlier Cummings' outing "The Saboteur" that the great Alfred Hitchcock directed for Universal during the early years of World War II. Meantime, "The Chase" qualifies as atmospheric opus that puts our hero in jeopardy early after he is hired to serve as a chauffeur for a well-dressed gangster who has few compunctions about liquidating anybody who interferes with his schemes. Philip Yordan penned his screenplay from Cornell Woolrich's novel "The Black Path of Fear" Altogether, "The Chase" is unlike anything that you've ever seen.Our woebegone hero, Chuck Scott (Robert Cummings of "Kings Row"), is standing in front of a short-order restaurant staring ravenously at an African-American cooking pancakes and sausage. Chuck is a former World War II sailor who received a medal. Nevertheless, when we lay eyes on him, he appears to be starved and in bad shape until he spots a wallet on the sidewalk that he has been standing on. This is the only flaw in the entire movie because neither Ripley nor Yordan explain how the wallet wound up where it does. Chuck picks the wallet, peers at the wad of cash sticking out of it, and without hesitation enters the diner and feasts on breakfast topped off with a cigar. He finds a name on the wallet and goes out to the address listed to return it to the owner. Eddie Roman (Steve Cochran of "White Heat") is a well-off gangster who can afford to have a barber and a nail technician come out to his residence and spruce him up. The manicurist accidentally hurts Roman, and he knocks her out of her chair, leaving a blood trail down her chin. Chuck shows up, and Roman's sleazy bodyguard, Gino (Peter Lorre of "The Maltese Falcon"), reluctantly ushers our protagonist into see Roman. Chuck's honesty in returning his wallet impresses Roman so much that the gangster fires his current chauffeur and replaces him with Chuck.Eddie Roman is as cold-blooded a gangster as you can imagine. He owns a mastiff, and he uses the colossal dog to kill a Havana-based shipping magnate, Emmerrich Johnson (Lloyd Corrigan of "Hitler's Children"), after the fellow refuses to sell him some of his ships. Roman and Gino lure Johnson into the wine cellar, lock him up, and let the dog tear him to pieces. While the dog is ripping the poor guy apart, director Arthur Ripley pans his camera away from the chaos and focuses on a smashed bottle that gurgles wine out onto the floor metaphorically like the guy's blood. Later, Johnson's death makes front page news. The newspapers report Johnson committed suicide by jumping into the ocean where he was gnawed to bits by barracuda. Roman's wife Lorna Roman (Michèle Morgan of "Passage to Marseille") convinces Scott to take her to Havana. No sooner have they arrived in Cuba than Lorna is stabbed in the back while dancing with our hero in a night club. Scott pulls the knife out and incriminates himself by extracting it. Miraculously, he manages to narrowly escape from the police. At this point, when everything that Chuck does seems to backfire on him, the unexpected happens. Depending on your perspective, you will either love or abhor this surprise twist of twists.Yordan and Ripley have done a masterful job with the Cornel Woolrich novel. They also done a great job of foreshadowing the demise of one of the chief characters. You'll definitely have to watch this one more than once to savor its wine.

jussssst In some copies (now in the public domain), the name of one of the major stars of that movie is deleted ! It should start with «Robert Cummings, Michèle Morgan» in The Chase. Co-starring Steve Cochran. With... etc.» In fact, Miss Morgan IS the leading lady : her part is almost as pivotal as Mr. Cummings'. Why is her name thus «cut out» ??? If you look at some of the posters, she does indeed have second star billing, right opposite Robert Cummings, in that «strange» (and somewhat «post-modern»!) film noir. Has anybody else noticed that «tampering» with the original credits ? Can anybody guess why that is so ? Remember : in the forties, lovely Miss Morgan was one of the most famous and beloved stars in France. And she has appeared since, and after, in some British movies such as The Fallen Idol, and in other American films (The Vintage, The Lost Command) and in some international productions.