This subtly surreal noir thriller from the mystery pen of Cornell Woolrich is so ‘dreamlike,’ it barely makes sense!  Penniless drifter Robert Cummings enters the weird circle of shady operator Steve Cochran, and falls for the serenely seductive Michèle Morgan … with creepy Peter Lorre smirking from the sidelines. Murky doings in Florida and Havana lead to some jarring narrative flip-flops … many feel that this exotic offering is exactly what film noir ought to be. UCLA’s 2012 restoration was a big deal — previous copies had been so poor, one couldn’t see what was going on in the darker scenes. Filmmaker Guy Maddin provides the audio commentary.

The Chase
Blu-ray
KL Studio Classics
1946 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 86 min. / Street Date June 4, 2024 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Robert Cummings, Michèle Morgan, Steve Cochran, Peter Lorre, Lloyd Corrigan, Jack Holt, Don Wilson, Alexis Minotis, Nina Koschetz, Yolanda Lacca, James Westerfield, Shirley O’Hara.
Cinematography: Frank F. Planer
Art Director: Robert Usher
Film Editor: Edward Mann
Original Music: Michel Michelet
Written by Philip Yordan from the book The Black Path of Fear by Cornell Woolrich
Produced by Seymour Nebenzal
Directed by Arthur D. Ripley

A reissue of a Kino Classics disc from eight years ago, this morbidly quirky noir confection takes a sideways move to the KL Studio Classics banner. It’s a standard revamp with a regulation slip case, but it adds one feature that a vocal segment of disc buyers will applaud — the show now has removable English subtitles.

Not to be confused with Arthur Penn’s 1966  The Chase,  this 1946 The Chase is a core film noir with an excellent pedigree, made by some very interesting talent. It has an exotic, almost European style that some think retains a touch of Poetic Realism, the French movement of the late ’30s that focused on obsessive malaise and romantic doom. Cornell Woolrich’s characters come straight from the pulp magazine Black Mask. Complex psychology enters into some really challenging, weird plot twists.

The film has a strange dream sequence, but could the entire framing storyline be some kind of hallucination as well?  Don’t expect narrative logic or even clarity. The temptation to say “Just what the heck is going on?” comes up at least twice. One disorienting plot twist throws the show out of whack, plain and simple. Yet if you like creepy mysteries and doomed amour fou romances, The Chase has all the right ingredients.

Seymour Nebenzal had produced major European films by directors like G.W. Pabst, Anatole Litvak, and Fritz Lang, including Lang’s original world classic  “M”. Like so many others, he fled the Nazis and reestablished himself in Hollywood. He at first had to labor at the Poverty Row studio PRC, alongside Edgar G. Ulmer. The unexpected success of  Hitler’s Madman  improved Nebenzal’s fortunes; he remade some of his earlier productions, like the Joseph Losey  “M” and the Maria Montez  Siren of Atlantis, which recycles footage from his old Pabst film  L’Atlantide with Brigitte Helm.

1946’s The Chase was made under Nebenzal’s own Nero banner, and released by United Artists. His production personnel include names associated with the prestigious independents Samuel Goldwyn and Walter Wanger. Riding the trend in adult crime mysteries, Nebenzal tapped Cornell Woolrich’s story The Black Path of Fear. The screenplay is by Philip Yordan, on a roll after receiving a surprise Oscar nomination for  Dillinger, a sleeper hit from Monogram Pictures. The Chase has a fairly good part for Peter Lorre, and rugged Steve Cochran gets to play his first complex villain, a gangster with a deep sadistic streak. Michèle Morgan, the French star of  Remorques and  Quai des brumes, never found her footing in Hollywood. She is nicely cast as a mysterious leading lady / damsel in distress.

Star Robert Cummings has somehow become unfashionable despite consistently good performances —  The Devil and Miss Jones,  The Lost Moment,  Dial ‘M’ for Murder. When we first meet Chuck Scott (Cummings), he’s in downtown Miami staring through a diner window at a breakfast he can’t afford, like Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy. An ex- sailor on the bum, Chuck becomes a chauffeur for Eddie Roman (Steve Cochran), a wealthy operator with a house full of ostentatious marble statues. Roman’s a narcissist and a sadist, with a streak of petty cruelty that reminds us of Joe Pesci’s murderously insecure gangster in Martin Scorsese’s  Goodfellas. He plays threatening word games with his lady barber, and actually punches out a young manicurist.

Roman’s creepy assistant Gino (Peter Lorre) loiters around the mansion, sulking. He’s Eddie’s main cohort for terrible schemes, like intimidating a business rival that Roman intends to cheat, or maybe murder. Chuck falls in love with Roman’s caged bird of a wife, Lorna (Michèle Morgan). Like one of the statues, she’s property, an acquired work of art. Lorna has a hallucinatory quality — she’s always dressed as if living in a fantasy dream sequence. The romance develops when Chuck observes Lorna standing by the stormy surf, contemplating an escape to freedom in Cuba.

The already-unhealthy situation soon goes completely haywire. Chuck and Lorna make their break for Cuba, despite knowing they can easily be traced. Everyone they meet in Havana seems to be a long-distance operative for Eddie Roman, carrying out his romantic revenge. The narrative then flip-flops in a way that would be criminal to divulge. Let it just be said that we take a deep dive into classic Woolrich themes: dream sequences, mental illness, amnesia.

Even the dream sequence is strange. We have to wonder if Chuck has the ability to see the future, because his subjective dream invents people and places that later turn out to be real. Chuck also dreams scenes in which he’s not present. That’s not a deal killer, as who is to say how explicitly subjective a dream must be?  Even Dorothy Gale ‘dreams’ events she never personally witnesses. But here it feels as if the narrative had been thrown into a blender. It wouldn’t take much effort to re-cut the movie, reversing Act 2 and Act 3, with a visit with a psychiatrist coming first, and then the trip to Cuba. If you see the movie you’ll know what I mean. Hopefully you’ll be less confused than I was the first time through.

The dreamlike feeling begins even before author Woolrich’s official dizzying dislocations kick in. All the characters are given standard introductions, save for Lorna. When Chuck meets Eddie and Gino, no mention is even made of her — a little later on, she is simply ‘discovered’ sitting on a sofa. There’s no scene where Chuck first sizes her up, or her eyes stray in his direction. Just a couple of minutes later, they’re madly in love and contemplating a mad dash for freedom. Some events and even relationships in The Chase seem to lack cause-and-effect logic, and the dislocation feels very much intentional.

The Chase was independently produced, so no studio head was around to insist that it be hammered into a conventional shape ‘read-able’ by a 12-year-old. Guy Maddin’s commentary notes many differences from the original Woolrich story, which, for instance, begins in Havana. The film’s most absurd plot contrivance is an invention of screenwriter Philip Yordan. In the back seat of Eddie Roman’s car is a second set of foot pedals, and a second speedometer. Whenever he wants to, Eddie can override control of both braking and acceleration. Poor chauffeur Chuck must handle the steering as the madman in the back seat takes the car up to 100 mph.

Even Peter Lorre’s Gino turns pale when Eddie decides to play suicidal speed demon. Chuck earns Roman’s approval by taking the crazy behavior in stride, which adds a psychological wrinkle to the mix. The backseat driver gag plays as ‘unreal,’ but not strictly dreamlike. It functions as if conceived to substitute for even more outrageous activity. As Steve Cochran always looks like a raving sex maniac, we can only wonder what the hell is really going on.

Ms. Morgan’s Lorna maintains a dreamlike poise through all of this, like one of her husband’s statues. One scene aboard a boat is partially framed through a porthole, creating an erotic vision that aligns with Robin Wood’s critical interpretation of Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie. Cummings plays the luckless noir loser-pawn, who looks like a goner for sure. Peter Lorre is balefully effective. Without doing much, he convinces us that Gino’s offscreen life is 24/7 skullduggery for Eddie Roman.

Steve Cochran runs away with his Eddie Roman role, earning a position as a (minor) star.  Eddie seems profoundly hurt when he discovers Lorna’s infidelity. Is it just more role-playing, a private misunderstanding between a sensitive sadist and his sex prisoner?  When the psychiatrist shows up a little later on, we’re convinced that most everyone in the cast could use his services.

Alexis Minotis (of  The Land of the Pharaohs), Nina Koshetz and Yolanda Lacca have intriguing roles to play in the confused Havana sequence. According to Guy Maddin, in the original Cornell Woolrich original story Ms. Koshetz’s character was a male opium dealer; Ms. Lacca’s character became a romantic partner with our confused hero.

The Chase is directed for maximum visual appeal. Franz Planer’s rich images enhance the slick work of director Arthur Ripley, who had been writing films since 1916 and directing them since 1926. His last feature work was a collaboration with Robert Mitchum, on the very successful backwoods moonshine epic  Thunder Road.

Producer Nebenzal employed several Europeans that had fled Nazi Europe. Composer Michel Michelet provided music scores for numerous Hollywood pictures, Nebenzal’s included; he’d stay in town for a number of years. He reportedly composed a score for the independently produced  The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, before Warners bought the project and replaced him with David Buttolph. Back in Germany, Michelet composed the music for one of Fritz Lang’s last film epics,   Der Tiger von Eschnapur / Das Indische Grabmal.

Commentator Maddin wrongly calls the movie cheap, more than once. Not so. A real Hollywood cheapie of this time would be something like  Decoy, with its thrown-together sets and flat lighting. The Chase is a fairly impressive mid-sized production. I think its stellar cast would have impressed industry pros as well.

 
The KL Studio Classics Blu-ray of The Chase is a very good restoration, or more accurately, a film rescued from the brink of doom. As Guy Maddin says on his (recommended) commentary, the public domain copies of this show were so bad that in some scenes one couldn’t see what was happening. That’s quite true — I’ve even read synopses that misread major events.

Some mottling occurs here and there and we saw one or two slightly soft shots, but overall the picture is excellent, with solid audio. The image hasn’t been over-scrubbed and retains a filmic surface. Kino reports that it’s the work of the UCLA Film & Television Archive, as was the restoration of Andre De Toth’s  Pitfall. The Film Foundation was involved as well.

Repeated from the earlier disc are two different radio performances of the Woolrich story, enabling listeners to compare versions. Filmmaker Guy Maddin’s feature commentary overflows with informed opinions. Maddin is really taken with the picture. Most of his observations are comparisons with the short story source, although his thoughts about the characters and performers are interesting as well. Madden is fascinated by the bizarre fate of actor Steve Cochran, who perished trying to make a macho daydream into reality, specifically the ‘I Sailed to Paradise with an All-Girl Crew’ fantasy. We’re not perturbed that Maddin seemingly can’t distinguish between real shots of a speeding train and obvious miniatures, as his contribution goes beyond technical accuracy. It’s an eight-year-old track: Guy complains about favorite movies that are unavailable, and the Peter Lorre thriller The Face Behind the Mask has since been released in  an excellent Blu-ray.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The Chase
Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Very Good ++ … but somebody explain it to me…
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
Audio commentary by Filmmaker Guy Maddin
Two Radio Adaptations of Cornell Woolrich’s Source Novel The Black Path of Fear starring Cary Grant and Brian Donlevy.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed: July 21, 2024
(7167chas)

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